After the War; There Were Weeds:
Harvesting Herbs at Dawn
Harvesting Herbs at Dawn
His military service behind him, Ray was at last free to pursue the dream of his childhood-he wanted to become a doctor, the kind of gentle practitioner who crossed his mother's threshold the year he was sixteen. He had used natural methods of healing in the dispensary at Fort Lewis. He knew they worked. He had seen their healing power in the faces of countless soldiers who had come to him for help after word of his treatments filtered through the rank and file of the army. He wanted more than anything to learn all he could about herbs, and to use his knowledge to bless others.
With the full support of his young wife, he stuffed a few possessions into a canvas bag and traveled to Canada, where he studied under the renowned herbalist Dr. H. Nowell at Dominion Herbal College. After earning his Master Herbalist Degree, he returned to Olympia and set up practice in the midst of Washington's verdant orchard country.
The war eventually came to its explosive halt with the terrifying detonation at Hiroshima, and a battered world struggled to begin the lengthy process of rebuilding. During those final war years and the agonizing time of recovery, Ray found that it was more than a simple challenge to practice as an herbalist.
First, there was the unrelenting demand of providing a living for his small family. Jobs were scarce, and many who provided employment lacked the cash to pay wages, and plenty of men traded labor for goods. Then there was the task of getting the herbs themselves. It was virtually impossible to order the herbs through wholesale houses. The influence of the war was felt in all of the nation's communities, and thousands of once-thriving businesses had closed their doors as a result.
But John Raymond Christopher was never one to take defeat gracefully. He met his challenge head-on. He secured a job weeding gardens each morning that provided cash, however meager. Each morning as the sun first touched the branches of the apple trees in the surrounding orchards, Ray moved deftly from one garden to another, pulling the tender young weeds from the fertile soil. Each day, just as other workers were first buttoning up their shirts against the misty Washington morning, Ray was collecting his pay and hauling the weeds away in large burlap bags.
At home, Ray would spread his morning's harvest across the tidy counter tops in their small kitchen. Then he would begin the painstaking process of washing each weed, rinsing the clumps of soil from each lobed leaf and each maze of roots. Fingering the clean weeds, he would sort them into careful categories and would prepare to use them that afternoon for the group of patients who pressed into his waiting room. It was a two-fold blessing-Ray had enough cash to sustain his family, and he also had the freshest herbs he could ever desire.
It was in Olympia, surrounded by the heady fragrance of apple blossoms and sustained by the "weeds" he harvested each morning, that Ray set up a thriving practice and began to see the astounding healings that were possible through herbal medicine.
It was in Olympia, too, that Ray proved he was practicing because he loved mankind, and not because he wanted to line his wallet. He taught his patients how to harvest their own herbs and treat themselves from the bounties in their own backyards.
One of the most powerful healing agents was, fortunately, one of the most abundant in the humid, fertile valleys of Washington. Ray knew that plantain, which had been used from the days of Galen and Pliny, was a powerful blood purifier with the ability to kill infection rapidly. He also knew that it immediately relieves the blood poisoning that can follow cuts, slivers, bites, and stings. In some of the most dramatic cases he treated in Olympia he used plantain, the herb later became the base for INF, his infection-fighting formula. In one astonishing case, a man had slipped while at work and driven a chisel deep into his palm.
He couldn't afford to take any time off, nor could he afford a doctor's bill, so he had grabbed a dirty rag and wrapped it around his hand to stop the bleeding. With the help of his crude bandage, he had finished his day's work and had even worked for a few additional days.
By the time he arrived at Ray's office, his hand was swollen and feverish, a red streak ran from the badly infected hand up his arm. A painful lump the size of a baseball in his armpit prevented him from dropping his arm to his side. The man was seized with pain and obviously frightened at the severity of his condition.
As Ray examined the wound, he asked the man why he had not seen his doctor more promptly when the signs of blood poisoning began to develop. "I just couldn't!" he cried. "This same thing happened to a friend of mine, and the infection was so bad that the doctor amputated his arm. I want to keep my arm! I heard about you. Isn't there something that can be done?"
Ray led the man out to the front yard of his office and pointed out a stand of plantain. "Oh, that!" the man laughed. "It's all over my yard. We've all been digging it up, trying to keep it from taking over!"
"Well, keep digging it up," Ray admonished him, "but this time rinse it off well and crush it." Ray then told him to put the crushed plantain directly over the wound and to bandage it in place, adding fresh bruised herb to the poultice each time it began to dry out. He also instructed his patient to brew some of the "weeds" into a tea and to drink at least three cups a day. The man offered to come back the next day, but Ray refused him. "I've given you a do-it-yourself method of healing your hand" he explained. "Just follow the directions, and you'll have no need for a follow up call."
A few days later the man did return-this time to pay for his office call and report what happened. He himself described the chain of events as "miraculous." Within thirty minutes after he applied the poultice, the excruciating pain and throbbing were relieved. Within a few hours, the red streak started to fade and the swelling in his armpit began to reduce. By evening, evidence of healing was strong. And now, as he stood in Ray's office, the hand was healed without heavy scarring. He had full use of his hand and arm, and was able to continue making a living to support his family.
In a similar case, a young girl had cut her foot on the jagged edge of a shell while clam hunting at the beach. Oblivious to the pain or the wound, she had continued to run in the sand for the rest of the afternoon, wading with friends in the shallow pools that lingered as the tide ebbed out to sea. By morning, the foot and leg were swollen and feverish, and an angry red streak crept toward her groin.
When her anxious mother phoned Ray, he repeated the same instructions regarding the plantain poultice. The next day, the child skipped into Ray's office and pressed several bills into his palm. Examining the money, he protested, 'This is too much. Your mother has sent the full amount of a house call. You didn't even come to the office. I can't accept this much." "Yes, it's the right amount," the girl told him. "Mama told me to bring you this much because my foot healed so quickly." As it turned out, Ray was paid many times over for the help he offered by phone. The girl's family owned a smorgasbord in Spokane, and were some of the few people in the area who were able to get butter and other fresh produce because of wartime rationing. Throughout the remainder of the war, they always saw to it that the Christophers had a little butter and some fresh fruits and vegetables as a token of their appreciation.
Plantain flourishes during the growing season, but dies along with other vegetation during the chill of winter. As soon as he recognized the value of plantain for his patients, Ray began to concoct concentrates, tinctures, and ointments that he could keep on hand year-round. He remembered one situation in which the ointment proved valuable. A mother called in the spring, before the plantain in Ray's yard had leafed out. Her ten-year-old son had been stung by a wasp. His hand was severely swollen, she said, and he had passed out as a result of the pain.
Ray tucked ajar of plantain ointment into his bag and left on one of his legendary house calls. When he arrived, the child was still unconscious and his hand was swollen to twice its normal size. Ray quickly spread a thick layer of plantain ointment over the sting in a circle about the size of a silver dollar, covered the ointment with a gauze patch, and then used a gauze bandage to hold the patch in place.
"Is that all you're going to do?" asked the alarmed mother. "That's all that needs to be done" Ray smiled, explaining that the ointment would draw the poison from the sting and relieve the pain and swelling. As they stood and briefly talked, the boy regained consciousness and sat up. Within half an hour, the pain was significantly relieved. By the next afternoon, his hand was back to normal and he was out at the street's edge, playing baseball with his friends.
Plantain's value prompted Ray to develop INF, a formula designed to kill infection and to capitalize on the benefits of plantain, no matter what the season. He began with a base of plantain. Next, he added black walnut hulls, which he knew could kill infection, destroy worms and parasites, and relieve the infection of poisonous snakebite or rabid animal bites. He completed the formula with calendula flowers, marshmallow root, golden seal root, and bugleweed, herbs that help to kill infection and clear toxins from the lymph system.
Because infection thrives on toxins and wastes, and because impure blood fosters disease and infection, Ray hoped to team INF with a formula that could purify the bloodstream and remove any infection that circulated throughout the body. The result of his quest was his Blood Stream Formula, a purifying formula of red clover blossoms, chaparral, licorice root, peach bark, Oregon grape or barberry root bark, poke and stillingia or echinacea, cascara sagrada bark, sarsapa-rilla root, prickly ash bark, burdock root, and buckthorn bark.
As with all of his formulas, Ray chose each ingredient with care and with keen insight into the properties of each herb. He began with red clover blossoms, an herb that gradually alters and corrects deficiencies or infections in the bloodstream. Besides purifying and cleansing the bloodstream, red clover blossoms remove any obstructions in the bloodstream, nourish and build the tissues of the circulatory system, and reduce any spasms or irritability in the blood vessels.
He chose chaparral for its ability to clear even stubborn infections. He had seen it heal boils, abscesses, carbuncles, and other severe infections by purifying the bloodstream. Ray had used it to completely clear up several severe cases of acne within six weeks because of its power to purify the bloodstream.
Echinacea was added to the formula because Ray knew it was the herb of choice for clearing blood poisoning. He had used it with success in clearing up the infection associated with gangrene, ulcers, and cancers. Echinacea has also been proven in scientific studies to kill both the staph and strop bacteria through stimulation of the immune system, and by adding it to the Blood Stream Formula, Ray knew the formula could be used to clear up staph infection of the bloodstream.
To this he added two of the most powerful purifiers in nature-burdock root and buckthorn bark.
Ray's successes with the Blood Stream Formula came quickly, and many were profound. One of the most dramatic cases involved a forty-five-year-old man who had developed severe sepsis, a system-wide infection. He had been ravaged; he had lost his hair and his fingernails. His eyes were ulcerated. He had even developed the signs and symptoms of leprosy. The infection had so debilitated him that he had suffered extreme weight loss; he looked more like a skeleton than a man. Ray gave him the Blood Stream Formula along with some sound nutritional guidelines, and within six weeks, he had gained back his weight and there was no sign of infection.
Used together with a proper diet, the Blood Stream Formula can even be used to clear cancer. A middle-aged woman Ray treated provided the perfect example of what can be accomplished by purifying the bloodstream with herbs and keeping it clean with proper diet. Her doctor had offered a dim prognosis and had sent her home to die of cancer.
Ray started her on the Blood Stream Formula, and asked her to take it faithfully for the period of several months. He also advised a sound diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, and nuts, and he asked her to avoid hard water, processed foods, sugars, and choles-terol-containing foods. Finally, he prescribed a three-day juice cleanse once a month, advising the woman to take only distilled water and carrot, celery, or grape juice during the cleanse.
Several months later, after following Ray's suggestions carefully, she sat on her doctor's examining table draped with a pale blue cotton gown. Much to his astonishment, the cancer was gone.
A few months earlier, he had been helpless against what he believed to be a terminal disease. That afternoon, he pronounced her cured.
As he used the Blood Stream Formula in his practice, he found that it had powers that surprised even him. One of these was the ability to reverse the Rh factor in the bloodstream, long considered a genetic trait that could not be "cured" or reversed. A baby born to an Rh-negative mother and an Rh-positive father develops severe complications, extensive liver damage, and life-threatening blood clotting if not treated immediately. Traditionally, the only "treatment" was complete draining of the baby's blood followed by total blood transfusion. Sometimes the treatment is successful, but in some cases the baby dies or develops permanent complications.
A woman in Brigham City, Utah, was an excellent example of both the problem and the proper treatment. She had borne three children, all of whom had inherited the Rh factor problem, and all of whom had narrowly escaped death as they struggled through the blood transfusion at birth. When she underwent open-heart surgery a few years later, her obstetrician gave her the stem warning that another pregnancy would very probably kill both her and her baby. She and her husband yearned for a large family, however, and approached Dr. Christopher's study group with a plea for help.
Ray started her on a basic program that included a sound diet. That's not all. He asked her to drink at least a gallon of steam-distilled water each day, and at least a quart of red raspberry tea each day. He advised a three-day juice cleanse once each month, and prescribed daily doses of the Blood Stream Formula.
After a time on the program prescribed for her, the woman became pregnant. She adhered to the program Ray prescribed for her throughout the pregnancy, and she suffered no complications. At its culmination, she delivered a strong, healthy baby completely free of the Rh factor. During the ensuing years, she and her husband became the parents of two more Rh-free babies.
Many of the experiences Ray had in Olympia shaped the direction of his career and led to the development of a number of his formulas. He often remembered one woman who came to him in despair. In the years since she had married she had gained almost a hundred pounds.
Her husband was threatening to leave her, and she herself was discouraged and felt defeated from her many unsuccessful attempts to lose weight.
Ray started with nutrition. He instructed the woman to faithfully adhere to the mucusless diet , a program of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, it calls for avoidance of foods that cause the body to produce mucus. He also prescribed a three-day juice cleanse once a month. Ray promised the woman that if she was faithful to the program, she would lose weight- not rapidly, but in a gradual, healthy way.
Months after her initial visit to him, he received a jubilant phone call. She had lost all the weight she had gained, and wanted him to bring his family to a dinner of celebration. After they finished a glorious vegetarian dinner, Dr. Christopher and his family were beckoned to the backyard. Ray was puzzled as he took his seat in one of the chairs that had been carefully arranged around a freshly dug grave. As he saw the array of bright wild flowers that were scattered over the mound of fertile soil, he imagined that they must be planning to bury a beloved family pet.
Suddenly the children began carrying from the house pots and pans of expensive aluminum. They placed each one carefully in the grave. Without saying a word, they marched to the outside cellar and hauled up slabs of bacon and large smoked hams, each to be buried with the pots and pans. At a time of rationing and severe economic depression, their act was one of special sacrifice, and an inspiration for another of Dr. Christopher's formulas.
Wanting to help those who struggled with weight control. Dr. Christopher formulated CSK Plus, a product to be used in conjunction with the mucusless diet for safe, effective weight loss without robbing the body of essential nutrients. To help appease the appetite and encourage weight loss, he combined chickweed, safflower flowers, burdock root, parsley, Norwegian kelp, licorice root, fennel seed, echinacea, black walnut hulls, papaya leaves, and hawthorn berries.
Throughout the years he practiced he saw people experience astonishing results with CSK Plus. The licorice root and fennel seed both curb appetite and relieve cravings.
The ancient Greeks nibbled on fennel seeds to control hunger during periods of fasting. From his studies, Ray knew that the body stubbornly holds on to fat reserves if it is not getting all the trace elements it needs, and the natural foods that enrich CSK Plus enable the body to release excess fatty tissue. Other herbs in the formula feed the adrenal and thyroid glands and help regulate metabolism for permanent weight control.
The formulation of CSK Plus was only one example of Ray's compassion toward people with conditions that were usually ridiculed. Another was the sensitivity he demonstrated when a family, weary from the struggle, brought in a fifteen-year-old boy ravaged with epileptic seizures. The boy, who regularly suffered as many as twenty-five seizures in a single day, could not be left unattended, and family members had hired a staff of nurses to watch him night and day. The epilepsy created a roaring cacophony of noise inside his head, and in an attempt to quiet it, the boy pounded his head against the wails until blood poured from his ears, nose, and mouth.
Doctors throughout Washington were helpless to relieve his condition, specialists called in merely shook their heads with weak apologies. The boy could not talk and had never attended school. Medical authorities proclaimed him severely retarded and told the family to institutionalize him. Instead, they came to Dr. Christopher in a desperate last attempt for help.
Help the boy he did. Ray began by giving his parents strict nutritional guidelines, and next used therapeutic massage. Finally, he gave the boy two herbal combinations designed to build and strengthen the tissues of the nervous system. Ray showed the boy's parents how to brew them into soothing teas that he could sip through parched lips.
Within six months, the boy that had been labeled retarded was speaking, and the family brought in tutors twice a week to begin the arduous task of teaching him. Instead of being handicapped as the doctors had determined, he was instead brilliant! Within a few months of tutoring, he was at the normal grade level for a fifteen-year-old. He enrolled in school, free of the seizures that had once completely crippled him.
The herbal combinations Ray used to help the boy became Nerve, MEM, and Relax-Eze, all formulated to heal the nervous system. MEM, a blend of blue vervain, blessed thistle, gotu kola, ginger root, cayenne, and Brigham tea, cleans and heals the tissues of the nervous system, restores memory, and strengthens the thought processes.
A combination of skullcap, wood betony, black cohosh root, hops flowers, valerian root, and cayenne, Relax- Eze also feeds and rebuilds the nerves. Especially rich in calcium and phosphorous, the herbs in Relax-Eze repair and nourish the spinal cord, the nerve sheath, and the capillaries of the nervous system. That's not all. The herbal combination helps reduce irritation of the nervous system, soothes spasms and tics, and relieves pain.
As a base for the formula, Ray used skullcap, an herb with the power to feed, regulate, strengthen and rehabilitate nerve cells without the side effects often caused by pharmaceutical nerve medications. Skullcap is naturally calming, especially for those troubled by worry or emotional distress. Ray watched it induce quiet, natural sleep in hundreds of his patients over the years. He often remembered one woman who had been troubled throughout her life with chronic insomnia, and for years she had never succeeded in sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time. After sipping a tea brewed from Relax-Eze, she slept soundly throughout the night.
It was also in Olympia that Dr. Christopher developed two career trademarks. The first were his famous house calls. His wife stood in the doorway on many a chilly night, their children gathered around her skirts as she waved goodbye to the dedicated herbalist who never considered the hour or the weather above the needs of his patients. He often traveled more than fifty miles one way through thick darkness and over orchard-lined roads to ease the suffering of a caller he'd never met.
The second trademark was his unwavering willingness to meet the challenge of conditions usually considered incurable by the orthodox medical establishment. On one of his famed house calls in Washington, he entered the home of a man stooped with the pain and paralysis of arthritis. Shifting slightly in his wheelchair and speaking through the grimace of excruciating pain, he turned to Ray and said, "Please, please help me."
"No one has been able to help me yet. I have tried every doctor available, but nothing has worked."
With a final burst of strength, he told Ray that the ineffective medical treatments had completely obliterated his financial resources. He had nothing left.
"Don't worry," Ray assured him, stroking the man's gnarled hand. "You don't need money to pay me. Let's see what we can do for you."
From his bag Ray took his morning's harvest of burdock. The first burdock of the season, it had firm roots and fresh, tender leaves. Ray chopped the roots and brewed burdock tea, and instructed the man to drink as many cups as day as he could tolerate. Then he fashioned the tender burdock leaves into poultices, which he gently placed over the locked, painful joints. As he taught the man how to make his own poultices, he prescribed a healthy diet and quarts of fresh juices.
Within weeks, the man's joints began to loosen, and for the first time in years, he was able to stand. As the healing continued, he was able first to walk, then to run. Eventually, he was completely healed, a stranger to the wheelchair that had held him prisoner for so many years. Only a few months after he first saw Dr. Christopher he was back on the job as a night watchman, walking his rounds without difficulty.
Ray's knowledge of the gripping pain of arthritis came first-hand. As mentioned, he was born with rheumatoid arthritis, a disease marked by joint swelling, debilitating pain, and the destruction of bone, cartilage, and joints. Much of his dietary knowledge came, too, from experimentation with his own disease. When he enjoyed fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, coupled with daily doses of olive oil or wheat germ oil, he scarcely noticed his arthritis. But if he ate breads or pastries, he needed a cane to walk. If he ate sweet foods laced with sugar, he became crippled. And if he ate red meat, he was relegated to his wheelchair within forty-eight hours.
He knew first-hand, too, the healing benefits of burdock root, which works a chemical reaction on the calcified joints of arthritis. He treasured it as one of the ingredients of Joint, a formula he designed to reverse arthritis and rheumatism.
To the burdock root he added yucca stalk, wild yam root, hydrangea, Brigham tea, chaparral, black walnut hulls, black cohosh root, wild lettuce leaves, sarsaparilla root, valerian root, and cayenne -herbs that detoxify and cleanse the body, remove calcium deposits, relieve pain, and kill infection.
Over the years of his practice. Dr. Christopher saw remarkable and complete healing of even the most advanced arthritis. He always warned patients that healing would not be immediate, there was much rebuilding and healing to be accomplished. In addition to Joint, he suggested that his patients use hot fomentations over extremely painful joints, a quart or two of kidney bean pod tea daily, faithful adherence to sound nutritional guidelines, and daily use of his Complete Tissue & Bone formula.
Dr. Christopher found that people stricken with an "incurable" condition were often the ones most willing to try natural herbal remedies. There seemed to be a pervading attitude that I've tried everything else... I guess herbs won't do any harm. It was just such a man that called him one blustery autumn day in Olympia.
A veterinarian doctor, he had contracted undulant fever fourteen years earlier in the packing houses where he had walked up and down the rows of carcasses, inspecting meats for the federal government. Despite advanced medical treatments by some of the nation's foremost experts, his condition had gradually deteriorated.
By the time Ray arrived at the house, the man was completely helpless. Attendants had to roll him over to prevent bedsores, and he couldn't sit up or feed himself. As Ray was introduced, the man gazed at him desperately. "I've never tried herbs, but I'm at the end of my rope!" he explained. "I've been given only days to live. Please help me- I want to live!"
Ray knew that the answer was a thorough cleansing, and he knew he didn't have much time to accomplish the task. He prescribed herbs to purify and cleanse the blood. He prescribed juices. And then he prescribed a combination of herbs that became one of his best-known and most effective-a formula designed to cleanse the bowels and colon. The veterinarian, near death, followed the prescriptions faithfully and, within six weeks, he was out mowing the lawn.
Neighbors who passed were astounded. "I thought you were dead!" they would call out to him. "No, sir! I've turned to herbs. And if you want to feel this great, you should see Dr. Christopher yourself!" From him and many like him, word spread of the herbal practitioner, filling the waiting room of Ray's office each morning.
The formula Ray gave the dying veterinarian was Fen LB, a combination he tailored over the years as patients gave him feedback. The product of extensive trial and error. Fen LB evolved as Ray's practice evolved. He carefully assessed patients; when one complained of cramping, he added ginger; when one complained that the formula made her nauseated, Ray added raspberry leaves.
When another complained of too much gas while using the formula, Ray added fennel to prevent gas and ease colic.
The importance of Fen LB is perhaps due to the fact that more than 90 percent of all disease is caused by congestion in the colon. The commonplace American diet of processed foods causes the bowel to weaken, creating pockets and balloons filled with old fecal matter. Dried, compacted matter builds up on the walls of the colon, becoming hard incrustations that soak up fluid; most people have pounds of this matter, which interferes with the body's ability to absorb nutrients. And the problem doesn't stop there. The toxins of "constipation" back up into the blood vessels, the lymph system, and even the body cells.
Ray knew that commercial laxatives were not the answer to the problem. They further weaken the bowel and cause it to lose its peristaltic action. Instead, he sought an herbal food that could tone, rebuild, and strengthen the colon while breaking loose the impacted matter on its walls.
The herbal food that Ray formulated works not only as a natural laxative, but it prevents toxic buildup in the bowel and works to tone, strengthen, and rebuild. He began with barberry bark, which stimulates the flow of bile and acts as a non-habit-forming laxative. He added cascara sagrada bark, a food for the peristaltic muscle that also works as a non-habit-forming laxative; cayenne, which stimulates the cells of the bowel and stops bleeding caused by irritation; ginger, which relieves gas and stops pain and cramping; lobelia, which acts as a catalyst and which prevents spasms and cramping; nausea-relieving red raspberry leaves, which restore iron and essential acids; turkey rhubarb root, a pure, mild laxative herb; fennel, which relieves gas; and golden seal root, which heals, rebuilds, and prevents infection.
As designed by Dr. Christopher, the formula works on both the small and large intestine, and is a combination of bowel "foods" that work compatibly together as a healing laxative.
Fen LB enabled Ray to help patients by getting to the source of their problems instead of treating mere symptoms. His credo was to work on pain without working on the cause is leaving the job undone, and he liked to remember many patients whose seemingly unrelated symptoms cleared once they started taking Fen LB.
One in particular was a woman who came to him because of severe pain in her shoulders which was so intense that she could not even lift her arms. After examining her briefly, Ray determined that she had a large pocket of fecal matter trapped at the ascending transverse junction of her colon. Toxic waste had drained through her bloodstream, irritating the nerves of her shoulder and eventually causing excruciating pain.
Ray began by massaging the reflexology point on her foot that corresponded to the ascending transverse junction of the colon. As he described it, she "screamed with pain" as he kneaded the spot. By the time the pain in her foot had eased, so had the pain in her shoulders. Ray followed the reflexology treatment with Fen LB, and she suffered no further recurrence of the shoulder pain.
Word of successes like these spread rapidly throughout the forested countryside surrounding Olympia, and Ray's practice grew rapidly, composed of the townspeople who worked the logging industries and apple orchards of the area. But while his practice was satisfying, there was something missing. Ray and Delia both loved the sunshine and the Olympia countryside was almost always blanketed with clouds or murky fog. Rarely did they feel the warm caress of the sun. They longed, too, for family.
Ray had grown up without the association of aunts, uncles, or cousins, and yearned for the rich companionship of his in-laws. Many times he remarked that had he been given the chance to pick any family in the world, he could not have done better than the Walker family.
And so the Christophers closed the practice nestled among the apple orchards of Olympia, satisfied with the knowledge that Ray had changed the lives of many who had waited on the wooden chairs outside his office. With their worldly possessions carefully packed and securely tied, they returned to their beloved Salt Lake City and to the waiting arms of eager family members.
Published and distributed by:
Christopher Publications, Inc.
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(801) 489-4254 (800) 372-8255
Copyright© 1993 Christopher Publications
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Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 1-879436-14-0
With the full support of his young wife, he stuffed a few possessions into a canvas bag and traveled to Canada, where he studied under the renowned herbalist Dr. H. Nowell at Dominion Herbal College. After earning his Master Herbalist Degree, he returned to Olympia and set up practice in the midst of Washington's verdant orchard country.
The war eventually came to its explosive halt with the terrifying detonation at Hiroshima, and a battered world struggled to begin the lengthy process of rebuilding. During those final war years and the agonizing time of recovery, Ray found that it was more than a simple challenge to practice as an herbalist.
First, there was the unrelenting demand of providing a living for his small family. Jobs were scarce, and many who provided employment lacked the cash to pay wages, and plenty of men traded labor for goods. Then there was the task of getting the herbs themselves. It was virtually impossible to order the herbs through wholesale houses. The influence of the war was felt in all of the nation's communities, and thousands of once-thriving businesses had closed their doors as a result.
But John Raymond Christopher was never one to take defeat gracefully. He met his challenge head-on. He secured a job weeding gardens each morning that provided cash, however meager. Each morning as the sun first touched the branches of the apple trees in the surrounding orchards, Ray moved deftly from one garden to another, pulling the tender young weeds from the fertile soil. Each day, just as other workers were first buttoning up their shirts against the misty Washington morning, Ray was collecting his pay and hauling the weeds away in large burlap bags.
At home, Ray would spread his morning's harvest across the tidy counter tops in their small kitchen. Then he would begin the painstaking process of washing each weed, rinsing the clumps of soil from each lobed leaf and each maze of roots. Fingering the clean weeds, he would sort them into careful categories and would prepare to use them that afternoon for the group of patients who pressed into his waiting room. It was a two-fold blessing-Ray had enough cash to sustain his family, and he also had the freshest herbs he could ever desire.
It was in Olympia, surrounded by the heady fragrance of apple blossoms and sustained by the "weeds" he harvested each morning, that Ray set up a thriving practice and began to see the astounding healings that were possible through herbal medicine.
It was in Olympia, too, that Ray proved he was practicing because he loved mankind, and not because he wanted to line his wallet. He taught his patients how to harvest their own herbs and treat themselves from the bounties in their own backyards.
One of the most powerful healing agents was, fortunately, one of the most abundant in the humid, fertile valleys of Washington. Ray knew that plantain, which had been used from the days of Galen and Pliny, was a powerful blood purifier with the ability to kill infection rapidly. He also knew that it immediately relieves the blood poisoning that can follow cuts, slivers, bites, and stings. In some of the most dramatic cases he treated in Olympia he used plantain, the herb later became the base for INF, his infection-fighting formula. In one astonishing case, a man had slipped while at work and driven a chisel deep into his palm.
He couldn't afford to take any time off, nor could he afford a doctor's bill, so he had grabbed a dirty rag and wrapped it around his hand to stop the bleeding. With the help of his crude bandage, he had finished his day's work and had even worked for a few additional days.
By the time he arrived at Ray's office, his hand was swollen and feverish, a red streak ran from the badly infected hand up his arm. A painful lump the size of a baseball in his armpit prevented him from dropping his arm to his side. The man was seized with pain and obviously frightened at the severity of his condition.
As Ray examined the wound, he asked the man why he had not seen his doctor more promptly when the signs of blood poisoning began to develop. "I just couldn't!" he cried. "This same thing happened to a friend of mine, and the infection was so bad that the doctor amputated his arm. I want to keep my arm! I heard about you. Isn't there something that can be done?"
Ray led the man out to the front yard of his office and pointed out a stand of plantain. "Oh, that!" the man laughed. "It's all over my yard. We've all been digging it up, trying to keep it from taking over!"
"Well, keep digging it up," Ray admonished him, "but this time rinse it off well and crush it." Ray then told him to put the crushed plantain directly over the wound and to bandage it in place, adding fresh bruised herb to the poultice each time it began to dry out. He also instructed his patient to brew some of the "weeds" into a tea and to drink at least three cups a day. The man offered to come back the next day, but Ray refused him. "I've given you a do-it-yourself method of healing your hand" he explained. "Just follow the directions, and you'll have no need for a follow up call."
A few days later the man did return-this time to pay for his office call and report what happened. He himself described the chain of events as "miraculous." Within thirty minutes after he applied the poultice, the excruciating pain and throbbing were relieved. Within a few hours, the red streak started to fade and the swelling in his armpit began to reduce. By evening, evidence of healing was strong. And now, as he stood in Ray's office, the hand was healed without heavy scarring. He had full use of his hand and arm, and was able to continue making a living to support his family.
In a similar case, a young girl had cut her foot on the jagged edge of a shell while clam hunting at the beach. Oblivious to the pain or the wound, she had continued to run in the sand for the rest of the afternoon, wading with friends in the shallow pools that lingered as the tide ebbed out to sea. By morning, the foot and leg were swollen and feverish, and an angry red streak crept toward her groin.
When her anxious mother phoned Ray, he repeated the same instructions regarding the plantain poultice. The next day, the child skipped into Ray's office and pressed several bills into his palm. Examining the money, he protested, 'This is too much. Your mother has sent the full amount of a house call. You didn't even come to the office. I can't accept this much." "Yes, it's the right amount," the girl told him. "Mama told me to bring you this much because my foot healed so quickly." As it turned out, Ray was paid many times over for the help he offered by phone. The girl's family owned a smorgasbord in Spokane, and were some of the few people in the area who were able to get butter and other fresh produce because of wartime rationing. Throughout the remainder of the war, they always saw to it that the Christophers had a little butter and some fresh fruits and vegetables as a token of their appreciation.
Plantain flourishes during the growing season, but dies along with other vegetation during the chill of winter. As soon as he recognized the value of plantain for his patients, Ray began to concoct concentrates, tinctures, and ointments that he could keep on hand year-round. He remembered one situation in which the ointment proved valuable. A mother called in the spring, before the plantain in Ray's yard had leafed out. Her ten-year-old son had been stung by a wasp. His hand was severely swollen, she said, and he had passed out as a result of the pain.
Ray tucked ajar of plantain ointment into his bag and left on one of his legendary house calls. When he arrived, the child was still unconscious and his hand was swollen to twice its normal size. Ray quickly spread a thick layer of plantain ointment over the sting in a circle about the size of a silver dollar, covered the ointment with a gauze patch, and then used a gauze bandage to hold the patch in place.
"Is that all you're going to do?" asked the alarmed mother. "That's all that needs to be done" Ray smiled, explaining that the ointment would draw the poison from the sting and relieve the pain and swelling. As they stood and briefly talked, the boy regained consciousness and sat up. Within half an hour, the pain was significantly relieved. By the next afternoon, his hand was back to normal and he was out at the street's edge, playing baseball with his friends.
Plantain's value prompted Ray to develop INF, a formula designed to kill infection and to capitalize on the benefits of plantain, no matter what the season. He began with a base of plantain. Next, he added black walnut hulls, which he knew could kill infection, destroy worms and parasites, and relieve the infection of poisonous snakebite or rabid animal bites. He completed the formula with calendula flowers, marshmallow root, golden seal root, and bugleweed, herbs that help to kill infection and clear toxins from the lymph system.
Because infection thrives on toxins and wastes, and because impure blood fosters disease and infection, Ray hoped to team INF with a formula that could purify the bloodstream and remove any infection that circulated throughout the body. The result of his quest was his Blood Stream Formula, a purifying formula of red clover blossoms, chaparral, licorice root, peach bark, Oregon grape or barberry root bark, poke and stillingia or echinacea, cascara sagrada bark, sarsapa-rilla root, prickly ash bark, burdock root, and buckthorn bark.
As with all of his formulas, Ray chose each ingredient with care and with keen insight into the properties of each herb. He began with red clover blossoms, an herb that gradually alters and corrects deficiencies or infections in the bloodstream. Besides purifying and cleansing the bloodstream, red clover blossoms remove any obstructions in the bloodstream, nourish and build the tissues of the circulatory system, and reduce any spasms or irritability in the blood vessels.
He chose chaparral for its ability to clear even stubborn infections. He had seen it heal boils, abscesses, carbuncles, and other severe infections by purifying the bloodstream. Ray had used it to completely clear up several severe cases of acne within six weeks because of its power to purify the bloodstream.
Echinacea was added to the formula because Ray knew it was the herb of choice for clearing blood poisoning. He had used it with success in clearing up the infection associated with gangrene, ulcers, and cancers. Echinacea has also been proven in scientific studies to kill both the staph and strop bacteria through stimulation of the immune system, and by adding it to the Blood Stream Formula, Ray knew the formula could be used to clear up staph infection of the bloodstream.
To this he added two of the most powerful purifiers in nature-burdock root and buckthorn bark.
Ray's successes with the Blood Stream Formula came quickly, and many were profound. One of the most dramatic cases involved a forty-five-year-old man who had developed severe sepsis, a system-wide infection. He had been ravaged; he had lost his hair and his fingernails. His eyes were ulcerated. He had even developed the signs and symptoms of leprosy. The infection had so debilitated him that he had suffered extreme weight loss; he looked more like a skeleton than a man. Ray gave him the Blood Stream Formula along with some sound nutritional guidelines, and within six weeks, he had gained back his weight and there was no sign of infection.
Used together with a proper diet, the Blood Stream Formula can even be used to clear cancer. A middle-aged woman Ray treated provided the perfect example of what can be accomplished by purifying the bloodstream with herbs and keeping it clean with proper diet. Her doctor had offered a dim prognosis and had sent her home to die of cancer.
Ray started her on the Blood Stream Formula, and asked her to take it faithfully for the period of several months. He also advised a sound diet of fresh fruits, vegetables, grains, seeds, and nuts, and he asked her to avoid hard water, processed foods, sugars, and choles-terol-containing foods. Finally, he prescribed a three-day juice cleanse once a month, advising the woman to take only distilled water and carrot, celery, or grape juice during the cleanse.
Several months later, after following Ray's suggestions carefully, she sat on her doctor's examining table draped with a pale blue cotton gown. Much to his astonishment, the cancer was gone.
A few months earlier, he had been helpless against what he believed to be a terminal disease. That afternoon, he pronounced her cured.
As he used the Blood Stream Formula in his practice, he found that it had powers that surprised even him. One of these was the ability to reverse the Rh factor in the bloodstream, long considered a genetic trait that could not be "cured" or reversed. A baby born to an Rh-negative mother and an Rh-positive father develops severe complications, extensive liver damage, and life-threatening blood clotting if not treated immediately. Traditionally, the only "treatment" was complete draining of the baby's blood followed by total blood transfusion. Sometimes the treatment is successful, but in some cases the baby dies or develops permanent complications.
A woman in Brigham City, Utah, was an excellent example of both the problem and the proper treatment. She had borne three children, all of whom had inherited the Rh factor problem, and all of whom had narrowly escaped death as they struggled through the blood transfusion at birth. When she underwent open-heart surgery a few years later, her obstetrician gave her the stem warning that another pregnancy would very probably kill both her and her baby. She and her husband yearned for a large family, however, and approached Dr. Christopher's study group with a plea for help.
Ray started her on a basic program that included a sound diet. That's not all. He asked her to drink at least a gallon of steam-distilled water each day, and at least a quart of red raspberry tea each day. He advised a three-day juice cleanse once each month, and prescribed daily doses of the Blood Stream Formula.
After a time on the program prescribed for her, the woman became pregnant. She adhered to the program Ray prescribed for her throughout the pregnancy, and she suffered no complications. At its culmination, she delivered a strong, healthy baby completely free of the Rh factor. During the ensuing years, she and her husband became the parents of two more Rh-free babies.
Many of the experiences Ray had in Olympia shaped the direction of his career and led to the development of a number of his formulas. He often remembered one woman who came to him in despair. In the years since she had married she had gained almost a hundred pounds.
Her husband was threatening to leave her, and she herself was discouraged and felt defeated from her many unsuccessful attempts to lose weight.
Ray started with nutrition. He instructed the woman to faithfully adhere to the mucusless diet , a program of fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, it calls for avoidance of foods that cause the body to produce mucus. He also prescribed a three-day juice cleanse once a month. Ray promised the woman that if she was faithful to the program, she would lose weight- not rapidly, but in a gradual, healthy way.
Months after her initial visit to him, he received a jubilant phone call. She had lost all the weight she had gained, and wanted him to bring his family to a dinner of celebration. After they finished a glorious vegetarian dinner, Dr. Christopher and his family were beckoned to the backyard. Ray was puzzled as he took his seat in one of the chairs that had been carefully arranged around a freshly dug grave. As he saw the array of bright wild flowers that were scattered over the mound of fertile soil, he imagined that they must be planning to bury a beloved family pet.
Suddenly the children began carrying from the house pots and pans of expensive aluminum. They placed each one carefully in the grave. Without saying a word, they marched to the outside cellar and hauled up slabs of bacon and large smoked hams, each to be buried with the pots and pans. At a time of rationing and severe economic depression, their act was one of special sacrifice, and an inspiration for another of Dr. Christopher's formulas.
Wanting to help those who struggled with weight control. Dr. Christopher formulated CSK Plus, a product to be used in conjunction with the mucusless diet for safe, effective weight loss without robbing the body of essential nutrients. To help appease the appetite and encourage weight loss, he combined chickweed, safflower flowers, burdock root, parsley, Norwegian kelp, licorice root, fennel seed, echinacea, black walnut hulls, papaya leaves, and hawthorn berries.
Throughout the years he practiced he saw people experience astonishing results with CSK Plus. The licorice root and fennel seed both curb appetite and relieve cravings.
The ancient Greeks nibbled on fennel seeds to control hunger during periods of fasting. From his studies, Ray knew that the body stubbornly holds on to fat reserves if it is not getting all the trace elements it needs, and the natural foods that enrich CSK Plus enable the body to release excess fatty tissue. Other herbs in the formula feed the adrenal and thyroid glands and help regulate metabolism for permanent weight control.
The formulation of CSK Plus was only one example of Ray's compassion toward people with conditions that were usually ridiculed. Another was the sensitivity he demonstrated when a family, weary from the struggle, brought in a fifteen-year-old boy ravaged with epileptic seizures. The boy, who regularly suffered as many as twenty-five seizures in a single day, could not be left unattended, and family members had hired a staff of nurses to watch him night and day. The epilepsy created a roaring cacophony of noise inside his head, and in an attempt to quiet it, the boy pounded his head against the wails until blood poured from his ears, nose, and mouth.
Doctors throughout Washington were helpless to relieve his condition, specialists called in merely shook their heads with weak apologies. The boy could not talk and had never attended school. Medical authorities proclaimed him severely retarded and told the family to institutionalize him. Instead, they came to Dr. Christopher in a desperate last attempt for help.
Help the boy he did. Ray began by giving his parents strict nutritional guidelines, and next used therapeutic massage. Finally, he gave the boy two herbal combinations designed to build and strengthen the tissues of the nervous system. Ray showed the boy's parents how to brew them into soothing teas that he could sip through parched lips.
Within six months, the boy that had been labeled retarded was speaking, and the family brought in tutors twice a week to begin the arduous task of teaching him. Instead of being handicapped as the doctors had determined, he was instead brilliant! Within a few months of tutoring, he was at the normal grade level for a fifteen-year-old. He enrolled in school, free of the seizures that had once completely crippled him.
The herbal combinations Ray used to help the boy became Nerve, MEM, and Relax-Eze, all formulated to heal the nervous system. MEM, a blend of blue vervain, blessed thistle, gotu kola, ginger root, cayenne, and Brigham tea, cleans and heals the tissues of the nervous system, restores memory, and strengthens the thought processes.
A combination of skullcap, wood betony, black cohosh root, hops flowers, valerian root, and cayenne, Relax- Eze also feeds and rebuilds the nerves. Especially rich in calcium and phosphorous, the herbs in Relax-Eze repair and nourish the spinal cord, the nerve sheath, and the capillaries of the nervous system. That's not all. The herbal combination helps reduce irritation of the nervous system, soothes spasms and tics, and relieves pain.
As a base for the formula, Ray used skullcap, an herb with the power to feed, regulate, strengthen and rehabilitate nerve cells without the side effects often caused by pharmaceutical nerve medications. Skullcap is naturally calming, especially for those troubled by worry or emotional distress. Ray watched it induce quiet, natural sleep in hundreds of his patients over the years. He often remembered one woman who had been troubled throughout her life with chronic insomnia, and for years she had never succeeded in sleeping for more than thirty minutes at a time. After sipping a tea brewed from Relax-Eze, she slept soundly throughout the night.
It was also in Olympia that Dr. Christopher developed two career trademarks. The first were his famous house calls. His wife stood in the doorway on many a chilly night, their children gathered around her skirts as she waved goodbye to the dedicated herbalist who never considered the hour or the weather above the needs of his patients. He often traveled more than fifty miles one way through thick darkness and over orchard-lined roads to ease the suffering of a caller he'd never met.
The second trademark was his unwavering willingness to meet the challenge of conditions usually considered incurable by the orthodox medical establishment. On one of his famed house calls in Washington, he entered the home of a man stooped with the pain and paralysis of arthritis. Shifting slightly in his wheelchair and speaking through the grimace of excruciating pain, he turned to Ray and said, "Please, please help me."
"No one has been able to help me yet. I have tried every doctor available, but nothing has worked."
With a final burst of strength, he told Ray that the ineffective medical treatments had completely obliterated his financial resources. He had nothing left.
"Don't worry," Ray assured him, stroking the man's gnarled hand. "You don't need money to pay me. Let's see what we can do for you."
From his bag Ray took his morning's harvest of burdock. The first burdock of the season, it had firm roots and fresh, tender leaves. Ray chopped the roots and brewed burdock tea, and instructed the man to drink as many cups as day as he could tolerate. Then he fashioned the tender burdock leaves into poultices, which he gently placed over the locked, painful joints. As he taught the man how to make his own poultices, he prescribed a healthy diet and quarts of fresh juices.
Within weeks, the man's joints began to loosen, and for the first time in years, he was able to stand. As the healing continued, he was able first to walk, then to run. Eventually, he was completely healed, a stranger to the wheelchair that had held him prisoner for so many years. Only a few months after he first saw Dr. Christopher he was back on the job as a night watchman, walking his rounds without difficulty.
Ray's knowledge of the gripping pain of arthritis came first-hand. As mentioned, he was born with rheumatoid arthritis, a disease marked by joint swelling, debilitating pain, and the destruction of bone, cartilage, and joints. Much of his dietary knowledge came, too, from experimentation with his own disease. When he enjoyed fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, and seeds, coupled with daily doses of olive oil or wheat germ oil, he scarcely noticed his arthritis. But if he ate breads or pastries, he needed a cane to walk. If he ate sweet foods laced with sugar, he became crippled. And if he ate red meat, he was relegated to his wheelchair within forty-eight hours.
He knew first-hand, too, the healing benefits of burdock root, which works a chemical reaction on the calcified joints of arthritis. He treasured it as one of the ingredients of Joint, a formula he designed to reverse arthritis and rheumatism.
To the burdock root he added yucca stalk, wild yam root, hydrangea, Brigham tea, chaparral, black walnut hulls, black cohosh root, wild lettuce leaves, sarsaparilla root, valerian root, and cayenne -herbs that detoxify and cleanse the body, remove calcium deposits, relieve pain, and kill infection.
Over the years of his practice. Dr. Christopher saw remarkable and complete healing of even the most advanced arthritis. He always warned patients that healing would not be immediate, there was much rebuilding and healing to be accomplished. In addition to Joint, he suggested that his patients use hot fomentations over extremely painful joints, a quart or two of kidney bean pod tea daily, faithful adherence to sound nutritional guidelines, and daily use of his Complete Tissue & Bone formula.
Dr. Christopher found that people stricken with an "incurable" condition were often the ones most willing to try natural herbal remedies. There seemed to be a pervading attitude that I've tried everything else... I guess herbs won't do any harm. It was just such a man that called him one blustery autumn day in Olympia.
A veterinarian doctor, he had contracted undulant fever fourteen years earlier in the packing houses where he had walked up and down the rows of carcasses, inspecting meats for the federal government. Despite advanced medical treatments by some of the nation's foremost experts, his condition had gradually deteriorated.
By the time Ray arrived at the house, the man was completely helpless. Attendants had to roll him over to prevent bedsores, and he couldn't sit up or feed himself. As Ray was introduced, the man gazed at him desperately. "I've never tried herbs, but I'm at the end of my rope!" he explained. "I've been given only days to live. Please help me- I want to live!"
Ray knew that the answer was a thorough cleansing, and he knew he didn't have much time to accomplish the task. He prescribed herbs to purify and cleanse the blood. He prescribed juices. And then he prescribed a combination of herbs that became one of his best-known and most effective-a formula designed to cleanse the bowels and colon. The veterinarian, near death, followed the prescriptions faithfully and, within six weeks, he was out mowing the lawn.
Neighbors who passed were astounded. "I thought you were dead!" they would call out to him. "No, sir! I've turned to herbs. And if you want to feel this great, you should see Dr. Christopher yourself!" From him and many like him, word spread of the herbal practitioner, filling the waiting room of Ray's office each morning.
The formula Ray gave the dying veterinarian was Fen LB, a combination he tailored over the years as patients gave him feedback. The product of extensive trial and error. Fen LB evolved as Ray's practice evolved. He carefully assessed patients; when one complained of cramping, he added ginger; when one complained that the formula made her nauseated, Ray added raspberry leaves.
When another complained of too much gas while using the formula, Ray added fennel to prevent gas and ease colic.
The importance of Fen LB is perhaps due to the fact that more than 90 percent of all disease is caused by congestion in the colon. The commonplace American diet of processed foods causes the bowel to weaken, creating pockets and balloons filled with old fecal matter. Dried, compacted matter builds up on the walls of the colon, becoming hard incrustations that soak up fluid; most people have pounds of this matter, which interferes with the body's ability to absorb nutrients. And the problem doesn't stop there. The toxins of "constipation" back up into the blood vessels, the lymph system, and even the body cells.
Ray knew that commercial laxatives were not the answer to the problem. They further weaken the bowel and cause it to lose its peristaltic action. Instead, he sought an herbal food that could tone, rebuild, and strengthen the colon while breaking loose the impacted matter on its walls.
The herbal food that Ray formulated works not only as a natural laxative, but it prevents toxic buildup in the bowel and works to tone, strengthen, and rebuild. He began with barberry bark, which stimulates the flow of bile and acts as a non-habit-forming laxative. He added cascara sagrada bark, a food for the peristaltic muscle that also works as a non-habit-forming laxative; cayenne, which stimulates the cells of the bowel and stops bleeding caused by irritation; ginger, which relieves gas and stops pain and cramping; lobelia, which acts as a catalyst and which prevents spasms and cramping; nausea-relieving red raspberry leaves, which restore iron and essential acids; turkey rhubarb root, a pure, mild laxative herb; fennel, which relieves gas; and golden seal root, which heals, rebuilds, and prevents infection.
As designed by Dr. Christopher, the formula works on both the small and large intestine, and is a combination of bowel "foods" that work compatibly together as a healing laxative.
Fen LB enabled Ray to help patients by getting to the source of their problems instead of treating mere symptoms. His credo was to work on pain without working on the cause is leaving the job undone, and he liked to remember many patients whose seemingly unrelated symptoms cleared once they started taking Fen LB.
One in particular was a woman who came to him because of severe pain in her shoulders which was so intense that she could not even lift her arms. After examining her briefly, Ray determined that she had a large pocket of fecal matter trapped at the ascending transverse junction of her colon. Toxic waste had drained through her bloodstream, irritating the nerves of her shoulder and eventually causing excruciating pain.
Ray began by massaging the reflexology point on her foot that corresponded to the ascending transverse junction of the colon. As he described it, she "screamed with pain" as he kneaded the spot. By the time the pain in her foot had eased, so had the pain in her shoulders. Ray followed the reflexology treatment with Fen LB, and she suffered no further recurrence of the shoulder pain.
Word of successes like these spread rapidly throughout the forested countryside surrounding Olympia, and Ray's practice grew rapidly, composed of the townspeople who worked the logging industries and apple orchards of the area. But while his practice was satisfying, there was something missing. Ray and Delia both loved the sunshine and the Olympia countryside was almost always blanketed with clouds or murky fog. Rarely did they feel the warm caress of the sun. They longed, too, for family.
Ray had grown up without the association of aunts, uncles, or cousins, and yearned for the rich companionship of his in-laws. Many times he remarked that had he been given the chance to pick any family in the world, he could not have done better than the Walker family.
And so the Christophers closed the practice nestled among the apple orchards of Olympia, satisfied with the knowledge that Ray had changed the lives of many who had waited on the wooden chairs outside his office. With their worldly possessions carefully packed and securely tied, they returned to their beloved Salt Lake City and to the waiting arms of eager family members.
Published and distributed by:
Christopher Publications, Inc.
P.O. Box 412 Springville, Utah 84663
(801) 489-4254 (800) 372-8255
Copyright© 1993 Christopher Publications
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN 1-879436-14-0
"Natural Healing with Herbs for a Healthier You"
