For information on testing/diagnostic work: Contact Dr.Letitia Dick-Watrous, ND in Spokane,WA USA or Dr. Jared Zeff, ND in Vancouver, WA USA near Portland, Oregon Also: http://songofhealth.com/ (member site about Carroll/Dick protocols)	Dr. Dick's Story Dr. Dick's Program Dr. Dick vs. Dr. Danney Eulogy by Dr. Zeff Legacy Constitutional Hydrotherapy Carroll Food Test
Dr. O.G.Carroll (damaged photo)

From: http://www.wellspringofhealth.com/articles/carroll.html
by Dr. Deb Solocheck

Dr. Otis G. Carroll is considered one of the most significant naturopathic physicians of this century. He practiced through the 1920s, in Spokane, Washington. His clinic was the most famous west of the Mississippi, and was the primary teacher of those who taught my teachers, Dr. Bastyr, Dr. Dick, and others. His clinic was a “Mecca” of healing, drawing people from all over the world. His work was based upon the European nature-cure approach, which favored a simple, vegetarian diet, hydrotherapy, homeopathy, and herbal medicine.

With all of his success, he was unable to help his chronically ill son. This stimulated his continual search for better methods, which led him to the work of Stanford's Dr. Abrams, a professor of physiology. Abrams had been experimenting with new techniques in diagnosis. Dr. Carroll modified Abrams work to devise a method of testing for foods which are not well digested or metabolized in a particular body, and thereby become a source of maldigestion, intestinal toxemia, dysboisis, and chronic irritation to body tissues. This naturopathic concept was not a part of standard medicine. Through this work, Carroll discovered that his son was intolerant to fruit, which he had always thought was a perfect and healing food for anyone. He removed fruit from his sons diet, and for the first time his son recovered.

In applying this method of testing to all of his patients from this point on, he determined that there were common categories of food intolerance. Most people tested intolerant to one of the following foods or food categories: milk, egg, meat, sugar, fruit, and potato. In addition, he discovered that most people had a problem with one or more combinations of food, similarly not well tolerated. The most common food combinations were these: grain and potato, grain with milk, grain with fruit, grain with sugar, fruit and sugar. Food intolerance is not limited to these categories, but most commonly a person we test will fall into one of these.

Occasionally we need to look to other possibilities, such as soy, nuts, fish, etc.
Food intolerance testing as devised by Dr. Carroll is similar in some respects to the bioelectronic testing of Voll, from which many biofeedback mechanisms currently in use have evolved. In the testing, a blood sample is placed in a specific electric circuit, and exposed to various foods in contact with a reagent. Fluctuations in the current are detected, and thereby the outcome of the testing determined. (For further information, you may want to consult writings by or about Abrams, such as “The Electronic Reaction of Abrams”, which is available from Health Research Press of Mekuloumne Hill, California. Copies of Abrams books and papers can be found at the library of the National College of Medicine in Portland, Oregon.

Food Intolerance Testing is not an allergy test. Currently, we are aware of several different kinds of reactivity to foods. Intolerance has to do with digestion and metabolism, and is an enzymatic phenomenon, genetically determined. Food intolerance means that a particular body does not digest or metabolize a particular food well. As a consequence, maldigestion occurs, and toxic metabolites* are formed in the intestine and absorbed into the blood. These will affect or interfere with normal function of the body, and become part of the basis of chronic illness. Allergy is different. It is an immune system reaction in which food is perceived as if it were a foreign protein and the body inappropriately reacts, creating symptoms. Allergy is often the result of an underlying intolerance. There are other, less well defined reactions, which can occur to food in a body, which are generally referred to as food sensitivities.

*A food intolerance-vaccination-autism connection?: Autism

http://www.classicalformulas.com/naturopathy_and_nutrition.html
Naturopathy and Nutrition
By: Dr. Les Moore

"Naturopathy has a synergistic relationship with all other natural therapies but none more so than with nutrition. Diet and nutrition are a cornerstone of health, wellness, and vitality. We are what we eat, digest, absorb, and eliminate. We assimilate nutritional information to make who we are, and eliminate information that is harmful to our body. From a naturopathic perspective, we examine nutrition from four different aspects: macronutrients (protein, carbohydrate, and fat balance), micronutrients (vitamins and minerals), specific nutritional needs (for particular situations or disease processes), and food reactivity. There are three different types of food reactivity that we assess: food allergies, food sensitivities, and food intolerances.

If one of the most important functions of naturopathy is to detoxify the body for biopurification, then one of the most important functions of healthful nutrition is to prevent intoxication. In our treatment protocols when we say, "remove the injurious foods," we mean to remove the foods which cause intoxication of the body. In general, this may be done by eating a diet rich in fresh, well-grown, well-prepared whole foods that are low in total calories, total fat, refined carbohydrates, food additives, and stimulants, and eliminating the foods to which one is intolerant, allergic, or sensitive to.

Food allergies are immune system mediated, and may be immediate or delayed reactions up to seventy-two hours later. With food allergies we can observe immune system activity in the body. Food sensitivities are not immune system mediated. We don't know what pathway they follow in the body; our science hasn't quite caught up to understanding exactly what is happening. We may get a blister on our tongue every time that we eat a particular food, but we can't observe any immune activity in the body. Food intolerance is the oldest approach to identifying food reactivity that we have. It is the enzymatic inability to properly digest or absorb a particular food or combination of foods. Since many food allergies and sensitivities can be managed by elimination and then reintroduction at moderate levels, we believe that food intolerances are the most important since they are constitutional, we are born with them.

There are numerous methods for determining food allergies and sensitivities- the elimination diet, challenge diet, Coca Pulse test, cytoxic test, RAST test, ELISA test, skin test, sublingual test, VEGA test, EAV, and others. None of these is entirely satisfactory. The main method that we use for biopurification is the food intolerance method developed by Dr. Abrahms, a medical doctor and physiologist, of Stanford in the early 1900's and used by Dr. Otis G. Carroll and his followers. It is the method that has been used the longest with good clinical results and is the method which has been used most extensively in conjunction with hydrotherapy and biopurification.

Dr. Carroll practiced in Spokane, Washington from 1908 until 1963. During the early years of his practice he had a number of difficult cases which he could not cure. His auscultory (stethoscope) exam showed him that the problem in such cases was usually in the stomach (this was a time when physicians used their stethoscopes as an art and science, listening to the heart with such subtleties as an Oriental practitioner listening to the pulse). The concept of food allergy was almost unheard of, but Dr. Carroll experimented with different foods to find which were causing the problems. From these findings he was able to devise a method for identifying a patient's intolerance to a food, food group, or combination of foods which should be avoided because they cannot be digested and/or assimilated properly by that patient. Such an intolerance appears to be constitutional and unchanging, similar to one's blood type.

In the words of Dr. Carroll, "Health must at all times come from and be maintained by digested foods." When a person eats foods to which he is intolerant, these foods are not properly digested and assimilated. If these foods are high in carbohydrates, fermentation occurs; if they are high in proteins, putrefaction occurs; if they are high in fats, rancidification occurs. All lead to a slow poisoning of the intestinal tract and eventually of all the body systems. Each unique, individual person will respond differently to eating his food intolerance, depending on his constitutional strength. A person with a weak constitution is more susceptible to developing early symptoms of toxemia such as intestinal discomfort, asthma, skin eruptions, fatigue or mental confusion with ingestion of even minute amounts of the irritating food. Another person, with a strong constitution may eat his or her food intolerance several times a day without the slightest noticeable discomfort. However, it was Dr. Carroll's hypothesis, based on over sixty years of clinical observation, that even though a person's constitution was strong, if they ate their food intolerance, a strain was placed on the whole organism, and sooner or later systemic damage would occur. One is reminded that a tumor of the colon takes about twenty years to develop before the person experiences any symptoms. Similarly, a tumor of the breast takes about twelve years of development before it becomes palpable. During these years, the person may have felt great. Prevention is always the better cure."

From: http://medherb.com/Therapeutics/Gastrointestinal_-_Food_Sensitivities_and_Disease.htmGastrointestinal - Food sensitivities and disease
by Paul Bergner Medical Herbalism 11(1):7-13

Food allergies and sensitivities are commonly seen in a clinical herbal practice. The science behind the phenomenon, which was noted even in the Hippocratic medical literature, is controversial; sometimes no objective evidence from standard immunological tests can explain the observed result of consumption of the offending food. This article, then, is based on clinical traditions and the observations of the author over 25 years of practice. Identification of food intolerances is vitally important to the clinical herbalist, because many conditions will not improve, despite the best herbal treatment, until the offending food is removed.

Dr. Otis Carroll, a naturopathic physician who practiced in Spokane Washington from 1908 through 1962, was one of the first modern physicians to systematically screen his patients for food intolerances. Carroll, who was also an accomplished Thomsonian herbalist, was trained to look for food sensitivities as an obstacle to cure in stubborn cases during his study early in the century with Henry Lindlahr, M.D., N.D. of Chicago. He cured a number of difficult cases by removing offending foods during the 1930s, and began to screen for them routinely. He eventually applied an intuitive screening method which usually was verified by withdrawal and rechallenge of the food.(This was the older method before he developed a testing procedure.) Carrol came to believe that everyone has one or more foods that they are constitutionally intolerant of, and which, if consumed by that person, will impair digestion and health. Carroll’s students were in turn teachers of many of the older generation of naturopathic physicians practicing today. More complete discussions of Carroll’s methods are available in Nature Doctors (Medicine Biologica; Portland, Oregon, 1994) and Lectures in Naturopathic Hydrotherapy (Eclectic Medical Publications, Portland, Oregon, 1988)

There are only a few naturopathic physicians throughout the US and Canada trained to do the complex Carroll Food Test. There are no conventional medical tests that diagnose digestive enzyme deficiency. They are all geared for immune-mediated allergies, not digestive problems. But there are tests which might help. The elimination of ANY kind of food problem, whether allergies, intolerances, or the least understood--food sensitivities would help to reduce stress to the body, toxicity, and whatever else they might cause.