My Mother was Euskaldunak, my Father Ukrainian Ashkenazi with a broad streak of the Mongolian Golden Horde. It happens that each family historically had been responsible for the health and well-being of their respective communities. So I was raised with strong traditions of self-reliant healthcare on both sides.

Nutrition and exercise to maintain the body's own optimal functions were understood to be essential. Massage, visceral manipulation, hydro- and thermal therapy; herbalism, inhalation and aromatics, hypnotism, and even the beneficial use of certain minerals and insects were common to me as a child. Mumps, measles, scarlet fever and a host of other diseases were considered inevitable in childhood and were routinely treated at home.

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