The first NZ Holistic Health GP

My first job coming out of university in 1998 was a physiotherapist position at Good Health Whanganui hospital. I spent two years moving around the different specialties; respiratory, orthopaedic, surgical, ATR (assess, treat, rehab) elderly, and physio outpatients. I learnt quickly the hospital was a very siloed, reductionist place of illness. It was a rushed, ticking off boxes, very pharmaceutical reliant system that had no time for promoting preventative health practicing. 

Dr. Ulric Williams was a surgeon and GP who practiced in Whanganui from the 1920's to 1960's. He was trained at the prestigious Edinburgh medical school. I only just discovered Dr. Williams work after someone on social media reached out to me and told me I must look him up as he taught the exact holistic health message I was promoting. One of the good doctors quotes was "Hospitals are disease factories. I never became a real doctor until I unlearned 95% of what i was taught in medical school. Doctor means teacher, and our chief duty is to teach people to be well." After going through is rapid change in health beliefs he opened a health house that helped hundreds of New Zealanders with every thing from low back pain, arthritis, heat disease, and cancer. He wrote books, and articles, and gave packed public lectures. These lectures were boycotted by the press as the medical fraternity wrote him off as a quack, a doctor that was a danger to his patients. 

Dr. Williams promoted 'crazy' ideas like

• Not eating when you were not hungry. He taught that food should be fresh, natural, whole and simple. More vegetables, fruit, and whole grains. Less food that has been 'mucked' around with by man.
• He felt poor food choices contributed to poor health.
• He felt it was very important to exercise daily in the fresh air.
• He prescribed 10min of exercise in the morning followed by a cold dip or shower, and that you should try and walk and/or cycle daily, with more exercise planned on weekends.
• He discussed the importance of the mind-body connection, he believed stress interrupted our immune systems ability to keep us well. Fear was the largest stressor. He taught that our whole self needs peace and this comes from thoughts of love, having faith, and the ability to forgive.
• He avoided words like "you have been diagnosed with...." He understood how the state of mind played a massive role in healing a patient. 

He promoted the simple daily habits of good health for society. We have to be mindful of what we put in our mouths, we need to move more outside, and be wary of the thoughts we hold in our minds. I am so frustrated that a holistic health doctor like this was shunned by the so called health industry. The reasons for this have origins in the 1910 Flexner report on medical education. 

Abraham Flexnor was sponsored by the American Medical Association (AMA). The AMA is funded largely in part by the pharmaceutical industry. Today it has over 270,000 members and in 2018 had a revenue of 332 million dollars. The recommendation of the report was that pharmaceutical medicine be taught in medical schools. It was the establishment of the biomedical model as the gold standard of medical training and teaching on preventative medicine, nutrition, and natural therapies be excluded. From that time Western medical schools concentrated on drug therapies backed up by surgery. The simple preventative habits of exercise and nutrition that Dr. Williams was espousing was old fashion and frankly quackery.

His book "Health and Healing in the new age - 5th revised and enlarged edition of Hints on Healthy Living" was published in 1949. Brenda Sampson who was cured of debilitating arthritis wrote the book "New Zealand's Greatest Doctor Ulric Williams of Wanganui : a surgeon who became a naturopath" which was published in 2003. 

If Dr. Williams had been practicing today he would have been considered a GP that relied on preventative medicine and would have had an international following. Instead he fought for his ability to practice as fellow doctors, politicians, and high profile businessmen tried to shut him down. It's high time these simple health habits were discussed and implemented by our sick, decaying society. Our human body is the greatest instrument we will ever own and given the right environment it can heal from most diseases, and thrive. 

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