The Vegan Autumn 1976

Page 9

THE NATURE CURE CLINIC The Clinic is grateful to the Vegan Society for inviting this short account of Itself. Shortly before 1928 some humanitarians urged Miss Nina Ho sail to shoulder the burden of starting a clinic for people who could not afford the normal high fees of private practitioners. It was to be based on the triple foundation of anti-vivisection and natural healing and vegetarianism. The outcome was the opening of a clinic for out-patients In October 1928 and of a hospital for inpatients at Putney in March 1938. When the war began the Government took possession of the hospital buildings and never since they were returned to it has the Clinic had enough money to re-establish such a hospital. The out-patients premises were bombed in 1940. (Despite this and other upheavals the Clinic has lost only about thirty working days in its whole life.) Dr.Bertrand Allinson then accommodated the Clinic in his house in Dorset Square, and eventually it purchased 13 Oldbury Place and moved there in 1945. Although conditions there were very cramped, in the twenty-nine years that the Clinic was there patients with many different complaints were successfully treated. Therapies include dieting, homoeopathy, osteopathy, chiropractic, physiotherapy, eye treatment, chiropody, massage, reflexology, acupuncture, gynaecological and obstetric advice, herbal treatment, relaxation, dancing and exercise. The most important feature of the treatment is the teaching of both the need to encourage the self-healing powers of the body and also the interdependence of mental and physical health. Every patient, whatever treatment is being given by osteopaths and other practitioners, has always been under the care of a registered medical practitioner. As far as is known, there is no other establishment in Britain where this is so. A restaurant for patients and public was maintained there as part of the educational work, and public meetings were held in various London halls. Until 21st March 1958 the Clinic was an unincorporated body of individuals, its properly being vested in individual trustees. B then became a corporation, so that trustees and members of the Executive Committee should not personally bear too great a burden of financial responsibility and so that a wider range of investments should be available. To maintain the standards and the principles of the Clinic the Management Committee requires each Committee member, staff member and practitioner

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