PART THREE
THE TECHNIC 0F FASTING
CHAPTERVI
CAUTION AND COUNSEL
COMPETENT GUIDANCE IS REQUIRED FOR PROTRACTED FASTS:
SHORT FASTS:
CORRECTIVE DIETARY
MUCH though it is to be desired by those
who know the inestimable benefits to be derived from a fast that
is scientifically conducted, there is but small hope that this
natural means of bodily purification, of disease eradication,
will ever prove a popular method of health restoration. Self-denial
and self-control are two virtues that the average mortal is content
to relegate to the side-lines in the game of life. Or, if he be
not content so to do, it is easy to shift responsibility to those
whose profession it is to prescribe a remedy the purpose of which
is to suppress the manifest symptom, to ease present distress
or disturbance. The cause of local expression, of the symptom
or symptoms, has no place in a philosophy of this character, yet,
unless the source of disease is attacked and removed, health is
really never his who depends upon symptomatic alleviation. And
again, when one is ill, no real self-denial or control is needful
to curtail or even entirely to omit food. And, while it is many
times accentuated in the text that food withdrawal is the easy,
and at once the natural and the scientific measure to be employed
whenever illness occurs, since hunger and disease never exist
simultaneously in the animal body, few possess courage to apply
it.
Now, while in acute or chronic disease
there are difficulties to be encountered in prolonged fasting,
the results of a "fast to a finish", to the cleansed
systemic condition produced by the process of elimination thus
engendered, are nevertheless those that thereafter, with proper
care of the body, insure continued normal physical existence.
And, as above stated, nature constantly indicates abstention from
food in disease, but especially does she do so when acute prostrating
illness develops, as well as when certain symptoms, become chronic
in character, are present.
In more than thirty years of experience
with the fast as a therapeutic agency, the writer has discovered
that by far the most satisfactory diet upon which to break a fast
is one confined to vegetable broths or soups, prepared in such
manner as to preserve both vitamin and mineral content, excluding
at the same time all but finely comminuted solid matter. Broths
thus made, when eaten slowly, are fully insalivated, easily digested,
and their food material is absorbed and assimilated without difficulty.
In casting about for a dietary that would accomplish these ends,
much observation and experiment were in order, and in the course
of investigation it was determined that where, in functional disease,
a fast protracted in length made upon its subject demand for absolute
rest, hence precluding attention to daily duty in business or
otherwise, a diet restricted to soups similar to those upon which
a fast is broken in great degree permitted the function of elimination
to preponderate, satisfied stomach craving if present, and did
not, excepting in slightest measure, interfere, either psychologically
or physiologically, with intake and outgo of vital force.
Naturally when corrective eating is substituted
for fasting, the process of bodily purification, of systemic cleansing,
is prolonged; but the symptoms produced are in modified form similar
to those noted during the progress of an absolute fast continued
to its logical end, the return of natural hunger. And the results
that accrue, though delayed and not equal to those obtained by
a "fast to a finish," are eminently satisfactory.
For many reasons, quite obvious ones too,
complete abstention from food in illness occasions in those who
are uninformed upon the benefits that follow in its train, and
who are ignorant of the physical resources of the human body and
of the physiological changes that abstinence occasions, thoughts
that are decidedly deterrent. And this though, as is so often
iterated herein, no real desire for food exists at the time. The
patient himself may be fully cognizant of body resource and of
the advantages that follow abstinence, and he may possess the
necessary will to impose upon himself the discipline needful for
successful issue; but in the usual instance there are relatives
and friends, who are not, as is the sufferer, in touch with nature,
and here opposition often evolves that in effect annuls the action,
if not the inclination. On the other hand, there is this to be
said: if the patient has the will and the determination to carry
to conclusion an absolute fast, if, under guidance during its
continuance, he employs the essential eliminative agencies,
and, if no serious organic condition is uncovered, as it surely
will be if it exists, relief with recovery will occur much more
rapidly and satisfactorily than is possible when even the small
amount of sustenance contained in the restricted regimen described
is ingested.
And this brings us to the purpose of this
short chapter, which is intended both as caution and as counsel.
No one, unless so acutely ill as to be compelled to do so, should
attempt protracted abstinence from food unless competent guidance
is available. The "fast to a finish" is not an affair
for personal conduct. In it organic disease may be uncovered,
and from day to day after the first week or so symptoms may and
will develop that need to be dealt with by the expert hand. Without
the advice and encouragement of one skilled in the therapy of
inanition fear may drive out courage, and then hasty and ill advised
attempts to relieve mental and physical distress will surely entail
calamitous issue.
But for him to whom the tenets of the
text appeal a happy mean exists. In incipient illness, in times
of slight physical depression when preventive measures are in
order, or when functional disturbance of character more or less
severe occurs, then shorter periods of abstention from food may
safely and with benefit be personally employed. The omission of
food for periods ranging from one to ten days need in the ordinary
instance occasion no difficulty nor engender fear. But always
the eliminative accessories that are dwelt upon in connection
with fasting, absolute or partial, and with restricted diet in
illness, are faithfully to be used. Daily colon flushing, daily
cleansing baths, and every aid to elimination through every natural
channel must accompany and assist the basic procedure.
Alternating with these shorter fasts there
should occur intervals of corrective dieting, and the broths already
mentioned, prepared to suit individual taste and requirement,
will here fit the condition presented. The soups may be varied
in ingredients, and one pint is in amount sufficient for one meal.
Baths and enemas should he taken as during the fasting stage,
but their administration is to be timed so as not to interfere
with digestive function. Preferably they should precede the meal,
allowing at least an interim of about one hour before ingestion.
It may be that in certain cases the system will for a time object
to the ingestion of the specially prepared broths. Fruits, however,
may be and usually are tolerated, and here a change may be made
to a dietary of fruit alone, taking care that but a single sort
be eaten at a meal and that this be perfectly ripened.
Children in illness readily respond to
the fast, yet, with growing bodies and with undeveloped physical
resource, the absolute fast, excepting for periods one or several
days in duration, is, unless there is acute disease, here to be
inhibited. But always recourse may and should be had to the one-food
dietary, either interrupted or continuous, at the same time, as
for the adult, plying enemata and cleansing tub baths.
In the list of vegetables that may be
utilized for the preparation of broths none can quite take the
place of the tomato. This plant occupies a position that lies
between the classifications of fruit and vegetable; it contains
food elements of every sort in varying proportion, including relative
parts of virtually all of the mineral matter needful for systemic
maintenance, being especially rich in potassium and sodium; and
it carries the three essential vitamins, "A", "B",
and "C". Its acid content is one that acts in the nature
of a solvent, aiding in the digestion of other foods. Used when
thoroughly ripe, in its natural or in its canned state, it satisfies
both taste and nutrition, and broth made from it is the ideal
form of sustenance for breaking a fast and for use during times
of corrective eating, when the latter are interspersed with short
fasts. There are subjects by whom a diet of tomato alone may be
eaten with benefit for several weeks or longer, excluding the
while intervals of total abstinence from food, but always employing
the eliminative aids. The onion is also valuable in this respect,
and a "tomato fast" or an "onion fast", weeks
in duration, may ordinarily be personally conducted with great
benefit when the eliminative accompaniments are included in the
procedure.
It is explained that for the purposes
of the text to fast means to abstain from all food material save
water. The latter is to be used at all times for drinking, whether
the subject be fasting or dieting--this when thirst demands. But
during abstinence drinking increased quantities of water, hot
or cold, makes for solvency and assists in replenishing body fluids,
and in flushing body organs.
In summation, long experience confirms
the conclusion that fasting protracted in length of duration should
never be undertaken unless the subject be under competent direction.
In usual instances, even though essential accessory detail be
faithfully observed, personal conduct may and probably will, for
reasons given, lead to disaster. But a series of short fasts,
interspersed with intervals of corrective eating, may with safety
and with benefit be personally conducted, as may periods of partial
abstinence on the one-food plan, the latter liquid in form. It
remains to be added that many times, in order to secure best results,
the competent director will deem it advisable or essential to
make use of the interrupted or of the one-food fast when dealing
with temperaments who by nature possess or who develop in disease
certain mental or physical idiosyncrasies.
CHAPTER VII
PREPARATION FOR THE FAST
TRUE HUNGER DISAPPEARS WHEN DISEASE APPROACHES:
TAPERING OFF TO A COMPLETE FAST:
THE FUNCTION OF THE LIVER:
TWO PLANS FOR FASTING
WHEN disease appears in humankind, it
is, as said before, not only a cautionary but a curative process.
A disturbing element needs removal; tired and abused organs need
rest and repair. Instinctively real food desire, true hunger,
disappears; in fact, for some time previous to actual disability,
hunger has been absent. Appetite or stimulated demand for sustenance
may, however, be in evidence and may remain in evidence even after
illness is manifest; but disease and hunger cannot exist at the
same time in the human body.
Bodily functions are swift in their adaptability
to conditions, and bodily organs accommodate themselves and their
labors even to abuse. Consequently, in a system accustomed to
continuous excess food supply, nature carries on existence in
spite of handicap until accumulation and subsequent decomposition
institute disease. Could the subject recognize that prevention
of later evil lies entirely in his own hands, the greater portion
of physical suffering would be eradicated; but prevention compels
personal denial of personal habit and enjoyment; and denial in
this respect is the hardest of all virtues to inculcate and to
practice.
The simplicity of the application of the
fast constitutes one of its principal drawbacks. To a mind convinced
on final argument of the efficacy of the method, nothing is more
easy than to begin the omission of the daily ration, irrespective
of the mental and physiological changes that are involved. But
food stimulation, always an important factor in disease, asserts
the power of habit over the body; and, even though the will of
the patient has been brought to understand the futility of dependence
upon artIficial aids to health, as embodied in medicine and in
methods akin to it, general knowledge is lacking concerning the
proper means to pursue in order to overcome habit and to meet
the physiological changes that ensue when food is denied the body
for the purpose of prevention or of cure of disease.
The cultivation of a habit is a slow and
insidious process, and so, in lesser degree perhaps, is its destruction.
Abruptly to cease an action, normal or abnormal, habitually connected
with bodily function, causes both physical and mental disturbance.
Witness, for instance, the attempts of a victim of tobacco, alcohol,
or morphine to escape from the toils. In the ordinary case will
power alone may accomplish the result sought for. But in the purifying
process of the fast abnormal desire is removed, and physical habits
of this sort are thus easily conquered.
In many cases the will required to begin
a fast is present, and, were this the sole consideration, food
might at once be denied. But, because natural physiological change
is always gradual in accomplishment, a like approach to cessation
of digestion is essential. The ideal manner of effecting the readjustment
of organic action, the consequence of lowering to zero the intake
of food, is to diminish by degrees the amount ingested, for suddenly
to omit food at the inception of a fast sets the stomach clamoring
for supply at the hours which habit has fixed, and the results
of deprivation are then comparable to those experienced by the
toper or the drug victim when drink or narcotic is denied. Nervous
reaction is at once apparent and depression follows. Only in acute
disease should abrupt entrance be made to the fast, and this solely
because at such times nature makes the issue and removes effectively
all desire for food.
Daily baths and enemata, natural means
for external and internal cleansing of the body and aids to elimination
which do not disturb function as do purgatives, mark the commencement
of treatment; and these accompaniments, with the omission of the
midday meal, embody the first stage of approach to the period
of total abstinence from food. Omitting the noon meal and lessening
quantity at other meals paves the way; and, in the ordinary instance
of functional disease, gradual diminution of food supply should
occupy an interim of about ten days or two weeks, after which
tomato broth, onion broth, or some similar light fluid food, in
limited quantity, may be used, dropping then to lemon juice with
honey in hot water taken about three times daily. In fact, half
a lemon and a dessert spoon of honey to a pint of hot water may
in many instances be given with benefit several times each day
during the non-food interval. The slight effort of digestion required
for this usually pleasant beverage does not to any degree interfere
with the eliminative processes, and in cases where suggestion
may be used with profit, it performs this service.
If as sometimes happens the omission of
the midday meal occasions distress, ripe fruit in small quantity
may be eaten at the usual hour. Soups made of vegetables gradually
becoming lighter in food value should constitute the morning and
evening meals until they are dispensed with, and then it is well
to use the lemon and honey as described or the juices of fruit
alone for the last few days preceding the fast itself.
In the ordinary patient the omission of
the noon meal may cause slight disturbances, such as dizziness,
headache, or stomach craving. These are mostly the results of
habit change, and usually they disappear within three or four
days, when there are commonly no further unpleasant symptoms as
the remaining meals are omitted. In the two-meal period elimination
of digestive toxins begins to gain over their formation, and,
as the patient gradually lowers ingestion, it becomes most evident,
from the discharges in the enemata and from the odor that emanates
from skin and breath, that the body is undergoing strenuous house-cleaning.
These phenomena make it apparent that previous continuously overburdened
digestive function, with consequent defective nutrition, has filled
the entire system with toxic products, and that complete purification,
coupled with rest for the organs of digestion and those allied
with them is necessary for regaining physical balance. A new foundation
is to be constructed as the old is removed, and a change in physiological
condition is to be effected by casting from the body the active
cause of disease, and by renewing, through cell reconstruction
and rest, the functioning ability of those organs that long have
been hampered in operation.
At the portal of the circulation of the
blood, like a faithful sentry, stands the liver. The function
of this organ is to receive digested food after its absorption
through the villi, which are short hair-like processes residing
on the walls of the intestines, and designed for this purpose.
Receiving digested food in this manner, the liver then proceeds
to separate it into that which may be used for rebuilding of tissue
and that which is waste. Its products are, on the one hand, tissue-nutriment,
and, on the other, the peculiar secretion known as bile. Bile,
even when normal in character, is essentially a waste product,
and, after separation by the liver, it is stored in the gall sac,
whence it is discharged into the intestines and utilized in the
digestive processes. Nature is loath to cast out any material
as useless, and one of the most striking instances in her economy
is this utilization of an essentially waste product in the digestive
function.
When overworked by overfeeding or other
abuse, the liver cannot successfully perform its task of inspection,
and the bile retained is carried into the blood current. Surplus
of this fluid is also apparent intestinally in these circumstances,
and with it the headache, the cold, or a bilious crisis occurs.
The minute cells of the liver have individual
work to perform in separating nutritive matter from waste; and,
unless care be taken to furnish a food supply correct in proportion
and quality, bile is secreted and excreted in quantity greater
than the system requires, and is itself absorbed and reabsorbed,
with additions from other sources, until congestion results, the
circulation is vitiated, and the bowels are filled with bilious
toxins poison and repoison indefinitely. All habits having a tendency
to cause digestive disturbance, such as the use of tobacco or
alcohol, careless eating and overeating, hinder the functioning
of the liver. Any interference with its duties prevents the blood
from receiving the benefit of its inspection, and an impure product
is the consequence. All parts of the body show distressing symptoms
of fatigue and exhaustion when the cells of the liver become diseased
through intemperate living and ignorance of the specific duty
of the organ as a member of the human machine. And this, of course,
is true with reference to the functions of any other of the vital
parts of the body; but so closely is the work of the liver connected
with that of the processes of digestion that detailed description
of it and its labors is deemed essential to full understanding
of the method discussed herein.
As has been indicated, there are two plans
to be followed when the fast is employed as a means for the relief
and cure of disease. One of these requires the patient to continue
the period of abstinence from food to its logical conclusion,
the return of natural hunger. The length of this period depends
upon individual physiological peculiarity and organic condition.
The other plan makes use of shorter intervals of abstinence, alternating
with periods of lowered but corrective diet. What has been written
may then be qualified to the degree that, when short fasts of
one or two days, or of a week, are undertaken for the relief of
slight indisposition or for the prevention of acute disease, no
such extended preparation as is described is needful. For the
longer fasts, the fasts that cleanse the system to purity, preparation
as outlined must be precedent. The short fast and the compulsory
fast of acute disease alone may be abruptly begun. However, extended
preparation for a fast is to be preferred in all cases where it
may be employed. It serves to lessen physiological shock, it curtails
the length of the total abstinence period, and in all senses is
to be considered as a beneficial process of gradual purification.
CHAPTER VIII
SYMPTOMS OCCURRING DURING FASTING
WHAT SYMPTOMS MEAN:
VARIETY OF SYMPTOMS PRODUCED BY ELIMINATION
SYMPTOMS of disease are the evidences
of abnormal conditions that are present within the body, and they
indicate with more or less accuracy the degree of functional or
of organic disturbance. In addition they enable the experienced
observer to apprehend the point or points of least resistance,
the organ or organs that are hampered in the performance of function.
In fasting, these signs of disease, during the first days of abstinence,
are seen to be exaggerated or increased in severity; but this
is a logical consequence of the method as applied, for its purpose
is that of elimination of circulating, clogging, poisonous material.
The extreme process of elimination in operation at this time fully
uncovers the focus of disease, and exaggerates in the very cure
itself signs characteristic of morbid conditions in the organs
involved, organs whose resistance has been assailed to the point
of break-down in function. To the orthodox view this phenomenon
at once is suggestive of an increase in the severity of disease
alone, since in the commonly accepted opinion the symptom represents
a segregated cause. But, rightly regarding disease as arising
from a single primary source, the intellect trained in the application
of natural means of treatment finds cause for rejoicing rather
than for fear. Exaggeration of symptom is apparent because nature
has accepted the open road presented, and is proceeding rapidly
to effect relief and cure. And it is to be observed that the greater
the struggle made at this time, the greater the vital force in
reserve.
In any method for the treatment of disease
nothing can be done unless nature cooperates. In some methods
her means of cure, elimination, triumphs in spite of treatment,
and this is nowhere so fully demonstrated as in traditional orthodoxy,
which regards the symptom as disease in segregated form. By means
of drugs and measures allied, the signs manifested are checked,
suppressed, turned into other channels. The fact has been and
is ignored that, with cause thus suppressed but still in action,
disease is certain of return in aggravated form.
To delay treatment in order that a distinct
symptom may develop, thus permitting of accurate symptomatic diagnosis,
is evidence of faulty conception both of the character of disease
and of its remedy. While waiting, the case is proceeding either
to cure or to death. At the first appearance of distress active
natural measures are in order, and these are certainly not to
be classed with drugs or with any means for the suppression of
a localized pathological condition.
For centuries the human race has been
educated therapeutically by precept and argument diametrically
opposed to truth. For instance, in the orthodox method of handling
the sick, if heart action is high, a depressant is administered;
if it is low, a stimulant is given. When signs of illness appear
upon the skin, attempts are in order, not to remove the inward
cause, but to eradicate the outward sign, "to drive it in."
In these instances, because of energy consumed in fighting both
disease and drug, reaction occurs, and the organs affected are
less able to recuperate when the obstructed avenues of vitality
are finally cleared sufficiently for function. The latter occurs
when nature, as she often does, asserts herself despite the drug.
Orthodoxy refuses to admit the unity of disease and cure, and
likewise refuses to assist nature in the purifying process of
disease. The thought and hope of the physician trained to regard
disease from its natural concept is this: that the organs of the
body of his patient may prove equal to the work of elimination;
and to further this end, he makes use of every natural eliminative
aid. In spite of the mildness or the severity of its manifestation,
it is only through bodily purification that disease may be cured.
Since the physiological changes involved
in the application of fasting for the cure of disease need to
be made gradually, as has been related, the ideal method of approach
to the period of abstinence is to prepare the system by lessening
by degrees the intake of food; but, whether begun in this manner
or without preparation, as is necessary in acute crises, resultant
symptoms are in general alike. When the intake of food is stopped,
the stomach is naturally emptied and commences its enforced vacation.
All energy heretofore applied to the processes of digestion is
now directed into eliminative channels, and, with the assistance
of a blood current continually growing in purity, inflammation
that may be present is allayed, and congestion in veins and glands
is relieved. The stomach will from time to time be disturbed by
its neighboring organ, the liver which during a fast is solely
an organ of elimination, and which then discharges its bilious
excretion in large amounts into the alimentary canal It has been
stated that this product of the liver is essentially waste, but
that, even so, it has its use as a digestive fluid in health.
However, when a fast is in progress, bile is profusely poured
into the intestines, and it is then to be regarded as naught but
poisonous refuse excreted by tissue, and it is at once to be removed
from the system lest it be again absorbed into the circulation.
When food is no longer being ingested,
the bowels proceed to evacuate their fecal contents, receiving
and casting out the waste then deposited in them from blood and
the visceral organs; the kidneys, the lungs, and the skin assist
in the purifying process; in short, the sewerage system of the
body centers its entire energy in supreme effort to overcome toxemia
by clearing away internal impurities. The involuntary absorptive
functions are, however, still active, and they continue their
work, even upon excreted waste; hence, lest poisonous reabsorption
occur, the most expeditious means must be employed in order to
remove this refuse from the intestinal channel. The blood, following
its mission, gathers excrete from cell structure, and supplies
what it may for rebuilding purposes. The latter it discovers in
that reserve supply of nourishment that is naturally stored in
the interstices of tissue. As the process of elimination or purification
continues, as refuse diminishes in amount, the density of the
blood stream is gradually reduced, and the labor of the heart
is thus progressively lightened.
In some diseased conditions the action
of the heart is low, in others, it is high. While it is reasonable
to expect that the beat of the heart will show lower register
when the blood is laden with waste and is dense in quality, after
all, physiological temperament determines heart action both normal
and abnormal. Disease in some subjects is invariably accompanied
with fever and a rapid pulse; in others a sluggish heart with
lowered temperature prevails. But whether in disease heart action
be high or low, poisonous substances are present in the blood,
and these acting upon the nerves that control the heart, the latter
may develop irregularities that seem to indicate organic defect,
and that are often so diagnosed. But, following the argument of
the text, it is obvious that, whatever the symptom, improvement
in heart action must necessarily result in a fast when elimination
has advanced sufficiently to have removed the major portion of
poison circulating in the blood. No fear need be entertained concerning
the ability of the heart to perform its function during a fast,
for the organ, as each day goes by has lighter work to do, and
it is served with the increasing nerve power of a system that
is gradually purifying itself.
As soon as a fast is entered, elimination
asserts its predominance. In many instances desire for food is
replaced by repugnance, and there is no hunger until the process
of purification is completed. The very odor of food, and even
the perfume of flowers are to some subjects annoying. In aggravated
form this symptom offers the possibility of serious organic deficiency.
This statement is not to be taken as conclusive or as a rule,
for often in cases in whom bilious excretion predominates, eases
whose illness is purely functional in origin, the symptom described
occurs. In any event it should be carefully studied and its immediate
causes analyzed.
In some instances patients have claimed
the sensation of false hunger, of appetite, from the beginning
to the end of the fast, but this was due to irritative conditions.
There are variations in this sign, more or less to be attributed
to the time devoted to the preliminaries, and, when the fast is
properly begun and properly continued, neither false hunger nor
true hunger is ever in evidence until the end.
Another symptom always present is the
thick yellowish-white coat donned by the tongue during abstinence
from food. This is in evidence until the impurities of the body
are eliminated, and the clearing of the surface of the tongue
is one of the positive signals that indicate a complete and successful
fast. This coat deposited upon the tongue is perhaps the simplest
sign of a foul internal state, and it is also an indication that
elimination of impurities is taking place. When food stimulation
due to excess supply dominates elimination, the coated tongue,
then invariably present, signifies the effort of nature to rid
the system of gathering waste. At times during a fast, when the
secretions of the body continue to be acid in character, an apparently
clean tongue may develop, and in this event strict interpretation
of the symptom might lead to the inference that the system is
cleansed and is ready again for feeding. The "acid tongue"
is easily recognized, for pulse and temperature assist in guidance,
while it is altogether probable that additional evidence of its
cause will be discovered in the appearance of small ulcers or
cankers upon the mucus membrane of the mouth or upon the tongue
itself.
Like the tongue, the breath becomes laden
with disagreeable evidences of a foul interior, and during the
earlier portion of the fasting period, its odor is most offensive.
Gradual improvement in this respect is an indicator of the progress
of purification which the body is undergoing, and the termination
of a successful fast is heralded by an odorless breath.
One of the products of fermentation within
the body during disease is known by the name of acetone. There
is no doubt that acetone, the result of the decomposition of organic
matter, is present in greater or lesser degree in many cases during
the fast. It is not at any time necessarily a product of the albumen
of food, but is more probably the result of the destruction of
that part of the body albumen that has come from the breaking
down of tissue cells, waste that, instead of being normally eliminated,
is retained with consequent decomposition. In other words, the
material that produces acetone has served its purposes as living
cell growth. In cases under medical treatment its presence is
regarded with dread, and at times when it appears, as it is apt
to in anaesthetized subjects under the knife of the surgeon, operations
have been abandoned because of the fear of death while the paralysis
of the anaesthetic endures. Its appearance in a patient undergoing
a fast is an indication of derangement of more than ordinary gravity.
In health there is no production of acetone, since discarded cell
waste is eliminated before fermentation can occur. Once food is
denied and cell refuse is discharged into the channels of evacuation,
acetone, when it is present, appears in all the excretions, and
its characteristic ether-like odor is most pronounced. In cases
like these one of the signs of the beginning of the end of the
fast is discovered in the disappearance of acetone from urine,
breath, and excrete generally. It is then no longer formed, since
the body is again in position to produce normal healthy cell structure
balanced by normal elimination of waste.
In disease it is quite usual to observe
body odors that are unpleasant. These are again manifestations
of foulness within, manifestations signifying that toxins exist,
and that nature is seeking to remove them through every organ
of elimination, not the least of which is the skin. One experienced
in handling mental disease soon becomes expert in distinguishing
the marked odor attached to most lunatics. Even in the milder
forms of nervous derangement, such as hysteria, emanation from
the body is distinctly changed, so much so that it is frequently
noticed by the patient himself. Effluvium, usually disagreeable
in character, is present in disease other than that connected
with the mental processes and with the nerves--witness, for instance,
the distinctive odor of the victim of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Because of the predominance of the eliminative function during
a fast, the smell of the body is then decidedly more perceptible
than is the case in functional disease when food is supplied.
So true is this that the presence of a fasting subject can at
once be detected by one familiar with the phenomena of the method.
The excretions at this time are strongly impregnated with bile,
and the peculiar odor that is characteristic of this fluid is
most apparent. This results because the entire system has been
called into eliminative action, and temporary saturation is the
result. The breath is laden with this ill-smelling exhalation
until purification is complete, and the skin carries it until
the latter point is reached in the progress of the fast.
In cases of acute illness and in what
are characterized as bilious temperaments, after the beginning
of a fast, annoying symptoms may develop--dizziness on rising
suddenly, spots before the eyes, and general malaise and weakness.
But these signs are not discovered in all instances and they cannot
be established as guides. Some there are who abstain from food
for as many as thirty or forty days without disagreeable symptoms
other than the offensive and the coated tongue. In these instances
vital organs are fully capable of function and are equal to their
tasks. On the other hand, there are those in whom all of the signs
described are in evidence in varying intensity until nearly the
end of the fast. The latter are those who suffer from extreme
functional derangement or who possess vital organs that are structurally
defective.
To those, who, through high-living and
overfeeding, have given the liver work beyond its capability,
the experience of the fast is often trying. Bile is cast out in
large amounts and floods the intestines to such extent that, often
before it can be carried downward, some of it finds its way into
the stomach, with nausea and vomiting as sequelae. There is no
absolute certainty of the appearance of this sign, but it is usually
present in the subjects referred to. In extreme form nausea with
vomiting suggests either the presence of an obstruction in the
small intestines situated below the opening of the gall duct,
or that of organic disease of the liver. If the latter exists,
the vomited fluid is ordinarily blackish in color; if the former
be the case, the bile vomited is usually yellow or greenish-yellow
in tint. In any event the symptom is distressing and it may be
more or less serious as to cause, but a number of instances with
it intermittently in evidence are noted that progressed to favorable
outcome.
The above remarks may be amplified by
stating that, for the reason that excessive vomiting of bile during
a fast is a symptom that indicates the probability of organic
disease of the liver or an obstruction of the intestinal tract,
in these cases caution is urged in the employment of the protracted
fast. The symptom is not to be regarded as alarming when the fluid
raised is yellow or greenish-yellow in hue, nor when nausea occurs
at infrequent intervals. But if its color be a vivid green or,
as in instances of extreme organic derangement, blackish in tint,
the case may be considered as serious in character and of doubtful
prognosis. In any event, when nausea is present during a fast,
it is far better to rid the stomach of its contents through the
mouth than to permit them to remain with the certainty of absorption
and toxication. For this purpose drinking of warm water, a quart
or so at a time, will ease the act of retching, and at the same
time will cleanse the stomach. If difficulty is found in vomiting,
titillation of the palate with the end of the index finger will
usually suffice to cause the muscular contraction necessary. And
this sort of stomach lavage is much more simple in operation and
just as efficacious as that by means of a pump. In fact, whenever
during a fast there is reason to suppose that the stomach because
of inaction has gathered secretion upon its walls, cleansing of
the organ in the manner described is in order, and it is always
beneficial.
There are patients with livers organically
diseased who undergo a fast with no appearance of bilious vomit.
Observation in post mortem examination leads to the conclusion
that these subjects usually are affected with some form of cirrhosis,
and the instances referred to were in body of thin and wiry type.
On the other hand, those in whom excessive vomiting occurs during
fasting usually are inclined to obesity, and, if organic disease
exists and death follows, post mortem examination will in all
probability show a liver deteriorated or degenerated in structure.
Bile forced into the stomach may produce
through irritation spasmodic contractions of the diaphragm, or
hiccoughs. These may also occur because of other stimulation of
the diaphragmatic nerve, a frequent happening in cases of functional
disturbance of the liver or of the small intestines. When the
reason for this annoying symptom is purely functional in character,
it may ordinarily be quickly relieved by drinking water or by
inducing vomiting; but, if it persists, the case at once assumes
gravity in prognosis, for in all probability extreme organic defect
has been uncovered. This observation is entitled to additional
credence because of several instances in whom persistent hiccoughing
occurred shortly before death, and in whom the autopsies revealed
organic disease of the upper portion of the small intestine.
In the earlier stages of a fast there
will probably be fermentation with consequent formation of gas
in the bowels, and this may continue for a few days, depending
upon the amount of waste retained, and upon what may be termed
the virulence of the bilious excretion deposited in the intestinal
tract. The gas formed is often the cause of colicky pains, and
is always a source of uncomfortable moments until it is discharged.
To this end manipulation of the abdomen and hot water applications
upon its surface are of much assistance. By these measures peristalsis
is stimulated, and the inflated bowel is reduced by forcing the
gas to the rectum, thence to discharge. However, the enema is
to be regarded as the greatest ally of the body for the assistance
of bowel evacuation, and it should be resorted to in the circumstances
related and in all other similar situations.
In all cases in the fast the evacuations
from the bowels are much alike. At first old feces more or less
abundant in quantity are discovered floating in a brownish fluid
that often shades to black. Solid waste is usually present for
a number of days, although its amount depends in great measure
upon the time devoted to preparation for the total abstinence
period. These formed feces offer definite evidence of the truth
of the statement that an overloaded colon does not fully evacuate
its contents even though daily passages are the rule.
At some point or other in the purifying
process there appear in the evacuations stringy masses of white
or yellowish mucus. In catarrhal cases these are discovered at
the beginning of treatment and they usually continue in evidence
until purification of the system is completed. In other subjects
mucus commonly does not appear until the fast is well under way,
but it is certain to be found in the discharges before the end
of abstinence.
More extended discussion of this phenomenon
will later be given, for upon it is based a most interesting question
in pathology. It suffices here to say that, when the intestinal
walls are about freed of old feces, and are in the relaxed condition
that results from the processes in operation during the fast,
bowel excretion takes the form of an exudation of pathogen from
the blood, and this waste is deposited in the form of mucus upon
the walls of the intestines. The mucus membrane of the latter
in its relaxed state will usually freely slough this coating,
especially if peristalsis is stimulated by manipulation of the
abdomen and the enema is properly employed. The deposit is discharged,
often in formed bodies. An instance recurs in which there came
away a mass tubular in shape, eight feet in length, a replica
of a portion of the intestinal tract. And often shorter formed
sections are discovered. This mucus is viscous, glue-like, in
consistency, and, when it disappears, systemic cleansing is near
its end.
The more usual indication of disease as
it affects body temperature is fever, but in cases of differing
temperament, quite frequently after the beginning of a fast, temperature
drops a degree or so below normal. This is the result of the absence
of food stimulation, for there is nothing inherent in the fast
itself that occasions this phenomenon. Even when food is being
ingested in cases of long-standing debility temperature is often
below register, and in other instances it rises above normal in
proportion to the severity of disease. Abstinence from food tends
to restore both temperature and pulse to normal, be they high
or low at its inception. While the average register of body heat
is given at about 98-2/5 degrees Farenheit, and the average pulse
at about 72 beats to the minute, these figures are not to be regarded
as the normal for every organism. There are variations both above
and below the standards given that cannot in every instance be
considered as arising from disease. A fasting case is here cited
in whom, when abstinence was initiated, temperature was constantly
at ninety-four degrees; no change was noted until the twentieth
day, when an increase of nearly a degree occurred; and average
individual normal of ninety-seven degrees was reached ten days
later and was thereafter maintained. Here undoubtedly disease
was the cause of the abnormally low register observed before the
fast, but the norm of the patient in health was subsequently perceived
to be slightly below the standard commonly accepted. In a few
subjects temperature at the beginning of a fast was so low as
not to admit of register upon a clinical thermometer, but invariably
normal individual average was reached before the end of treatment
Adjustment to standard is likewise attained when fever is a symptom
in evidence, and here the change is more rapidly accomplished
than when temperature is sub-normal. Body heat, as is seen, has
its established tabular measure, and, when it habitually fails
by several degrees to reach the common average, the conclusion
must be that vitality is deficient. And accompanying sub-normal
temperature is always the slow and sluggish pulse, while fever
with its raised degrees of heat carries a super-normal heart beat.
Of the two pathological states, prognosis in the former is the
more favorable. When a condition of extremely low temperature
is encountered, hot applications over the spinal column and hot
therapeutic baths frequently administered greatly assist in restoring
and conserving body heat.
Abnormal temperature and abnormal pulse
as well are but symptoms of a pathological condition, and, whether
they be high or low, they denote that there is in progress a struggle
for life that has little need to be suppressed. If pulse and temperature,
either or both, are above or below normal at the beginning of
a fast, they will descend or ascend to natural register when disease
disappears, or perhaps while some of its symptoms are still displayed.
Due to the removal of food stimulation, as has been said, in many
instances both temperature and pulse may drop to register slightly
below the average shortly after entering upon a fast. And the
author lists a few cases with pulse at the beginning of abstinence
at about fifty beats to the minute, while one is recorded with
the very low rate of twenty-eight. Temperature in these subjects
was not, however, sufficiently sub-normal to occasion surprise.
While the rates noted in these cases were chronic and most exceptional,
they gradually rose to standard for the individuals as the fast
progressed to completion.
When the fast is concluded and the body
is in the process of rebuilding, a properly balanced vegetarian
dietary assures a temperature and pulse with no apparent tendency
to rise or fall above individual normal. If, however, the dietetic
change has been one from a regimen that formerly included flesh
foods to one that is wholly vegetarian in character, pulse register
will very probably show a reduction of several counts from its
former average.
Several references have heretofore been
made to the known absence of hunger in disease. This truth should
be self-evident. But additional confirmation is offered in connection
with changes of body heat as observed in health and in illness.
Physiology asserts and scientific investigation proves that there
can be no digestion in the absence of digestive juices, and that
there is virtually no secretion of these fluids when body temperature
is above normal. Why, then, feed during fever? Without digestion,
there can be no nutrition, no upbuilding of tissue structure.
Why add the burden of eliminating matter that is not digested,
that is useless and noxious excess, to the already extreme effort
that nature is making in order to reduce over-stimulated heart
action and super-normal body heats To correct this condition the
only effective measures are to withhold food, to remove the fermenting
waste that is causing disease, and to rest those organs that have
been functionally unable to cope with tasks beyond their ability
to perform. A fever is really a blessing in disguise; it indicates
organic activity, which means vitality in reserve. It should never
be suppressed, since it is the result of a struggle between the
forces of health and disease in which the vital organs will prove
the victors if they are correctly, and this means naturally, assisted.
Habitually low temperature, on the other hand, predicates organic
inactivity, small reserve vitality, a condition that is usually
chronic in character, and yet one that admits of improvement under
treatment with perhaps surer prospect of correction than do febrile
crises in their more extreme forms. But because sub-normal temperature
and lowered pulse rate are ordinarily confined to chronic illness,
duration of treatment is correspondingly more extended than in
those in whom fever and heightened pulse denote acute disease.
Depending upon the physiological tendencies
of the individual, after the beginning of a fast and during its
several stages, many symptoms not specifically described may develop
alone or in combination with others. While some of the phenomena
that occur at this time may be ascribed to the depression that
succeeds food stimulation, by far the larger number are due to
the extreme elimination of body waste in progress. Bowels, kidneys,
lungs, and skin are utilized to the limit of their abilities,
and, when any one of these means of discharge becomes obstructed
because of excess, or has its function impeded because of defect
in structure, nature at once seeks another organ to serve as a
channel of egress, selecting the latter with no apparent consideration
of either its fitness for the service demanded or its ability
to perform it. But always the least resistive passage becomes
what in this instance may be called the victim.
A few of the simpler symptoms encountered
in the earlier stages of fasting have been mentioned, but others
more or less common appear in consequence of the unvarying tendency
of nature to utilize toxemic elimination paths of least resistance.
In some subjects a rash upon the skin occurs; in others a cold
with excessive discharge from the nose, bronchial tubes, throat,
and eyes is the form in which the results of the purifying process
in action is displayed. The salivary glands may excrete in quantity,
causing constant expectoration of spittle that may be either fluid
or viscous in consistence. The last named functional sign is apt
to prove most annoying and disagreeable, so much so that, because
of it, fasts at times have been altered in procedure from protracted
to interrupted, in order that partial resumption of digestion
might change, which in this juncture it never fails to do, the
unusual course through which elimination is occurring.
When headaches occur with other symptoms,
they are of course due to sudden release of toxic matter, are
commonly located in the frontal portion of the brain, and are
coincident with the prior stages of abstinence, when the system
is accommodating itself to the physiological change of habit then
in progress. As purification proceeds, headaches vanish, and in
purely functional disturbances the brain experiences more rapid
relief than do the organs of the trunk. Connected with headache,
in severe functional derangement and when there is organic deficiency,
are visual spectra, fiashes of white or colored light. And in
the graver forms of organic disease a muscular tremor, accompanied
with a rotary motion of the eyeball, or even with crossed eyes
and faulty vision, sometimes takes place. The latter peculiar
variation in symptom has been observed shortly before death, and
in extreme form it would seem to indicate approaching dissolution.
Again, partial deafness with humming in
the ears is apt to befall. This may ordinarily be relieved locally
by careful and constant springing of the inner ears with hot water,
assisted by proper manipulation with the tips of the index fingers.
This procedure will usually disclose collections of wax, after
the removal of which the symptoms disappear. The presence of this
secretion at this time in quantity above normal again discloses
the extreme of elimination to which the organism is subjected
while the function of digestion is suspended. Subjects which,
before fasting, have suffered from partial deafness, find this
defect much aggravated until the removal of the wax is accomplished
and congestion is relieved.
Types that suffer from extreme congestion
of the liver or from obstruction of the upper portion of the small
intestines may intermittently experience contraction of the muscles
of the hands and arms with cramping pains--the legs are rarely
affected. Local relief may here be obtained through hand vibration
and deep manipulation along the spinal column in its cervical
and upper dorsal regions.
Emaciation in the fast cannot properly
be regarded as a symptom pathologic in origin. It is the result
of the elimination of toxic substances from the system, and there
is also a loss occasioned by the use by cell organism, and by
brain and nerves, of the reserve-pabulum stored in the interstices
of tissue. Diminution in weight due to the latter reason is, however,
slight in comparison with that arising from toxemic elimination.
It may be stated that wasting of the body is usually greater in
cases in whom organic atrophy or cirrhosis exists than in those
who suffer otherwise from disease, but, in a fast, loss of weight
is proportionately less in the instances referred to than it is
in the presence of functional disease or of organic hypertrophy.
In his True Science of Living Dr.
Edward Hooker Dewey quotes from Yeo's Physiology a table
purporting to show the estimated loss of the several tissues of
the body in instances of starvation. The table follows:
| Fat | 91% |
| Muscle | 30% |
| Liver | 56% |
| Spleen | 63% |
| Blood | 17% |
| Brain and Nerve Centers | 0% |
"On the shelves of the Crerar Library (Chicago), or any other library of similar equipment, are many books on fasting. I know none that is even half way scientific, nor a quarter way trustworthy. One reason for this is that fasting is the sport of amateurs, as one writer calls it. He might have added that it is the fad of faddists and the field of the faker. To further complicate matters, it is all mixed up with religion. Every religion has always had religious feasts, which are gorges, and its fasts.
"Prof. Morgulis of the University of Nebraska has just put out a truly scientific book on the subject. The only trouble about this book is that it is so accurate, scientific, and technical that the man who needs it most cannot understand it.
"Fasting is a remedial agent of enormous power--power for good and power for harm. Nothing the doctor carries in his saddle bags approximates fasting in its therapeutic possibilities. In fact, a doctor attends a patient through a long illness, giving him four kinds of medicine four times every day, it is probable that the under-nutrition through which the patient has passed by reason of his loss of appetite, vomiting, diarrhoea, or other quality of his disease, or the dieting to which he was subjected, influenced both the patient and his disease far more than did the medicine which was given.
Comes now Dr. Frederick M. Allen, A.
B., M. D., of the Rockefeller Institute Hospital, who about the
year, 1915, advanced his "discovery" of the "starvation
treatment" of diabetes. There is no need to devote more time
to him than to say that as far back as 1878 Dr. Edward Hooker
Dewey successfully employed the fast in treating diabetes mellitus.
A quotation now follows from Fasting
and Undernutrition, the book of Professor Morgulis of the
University of Nebraska College of Medicine. This is the author
mentioned by Dr. Evans, who attributes to the Professor the only
scientific work written upon the fast--so scientific in fact that
the man who needs it most cannot understand it. In his book Professor
Morgulis has devoted himself solely to the physiological aspect
of abstinence from food with its effects upon animals in health,
neglecting its therapeutical possibilities, excepting to say in
his preface:--"In the hands of the skilful practitioner
of medicine total abstinence from food may prove a wonderfully
effective weapon in restoring health. The therapeutic value of
inanition, however, should be studied experimentally and not be
left to the judgment of amateur enthusiasts. The practical value
of inanition will never be fully utilized until both laymen and
the medical profession lose their instinctive fear of fasting".
(My italics.) Professor Morgulis, scientific in mind and expression
though he may be, makes in the statement given the egregious error
of confusing inanition, starvation, with fasting, forgetting or
perhaps not knowing that there is no malnutrition comparable to
the starvation that accompanies overeating.
Quotations from the writings of these
men of science are made thus at length for several reasons. It
is desired that the reader may be impressed with the truth that
fasting for therapeutic purposes--fasting for the prevention and
relief of disease--has been known and practiced for all of the
historic ages of man. It is also to be emphasized that all animate
nature, save man, instinctively refuses food when physical balance
is disturbed. And, whether the discussion conducted herein be
from the standpoint of science "scientific" or not,
it will stand the sole test that makes for truth in that the results
connoted are based upon long, faithful, and accurate observation
and experiment of minds as capable of receiving and recording
the phenomena connected with abstinence from food in illness or
in health as are those of the scientists quoted. And it should
possess the further distinction of being easily understandable
by him who needs it most.
The premises of the argument underlying
the application of a fast for therapeutic will bear repetition.
Disease, in whatever form evidenced, whatever the symptom displayed,
has its origin at the threshold of digestion. In disease itself
lies relief. Disease and cure, viewed from the standpoint of nature,
are a unity. The former may not be suppressed lest the latter
fail of attainment. When an organism, constituted as is the body
of man, becomes the victim of its own violation of hygienic law,
when the avenues through which vital force, the source of life,
is transmitted, are permitted to become obstructed, unless these
channels are cleansed, are opened for the passage of energy, life
ceases and death occurs. In order that the passages through which
the life principle reaches the separate parts of the human body
may be free and unobstructed, a system of elimination exists.
Building of tissue--assimilation--takes place as the result of
food ingested and digested, but health depends upon a balance
between nutrition and elimination. And there is no eliminative
agency known to science comparable with a properly administered
fast.
Dr. Evans has said that the book of Professor
Morgulis is a treatise upon the fast that is truly scientific.
And there is no doubt that Fasting and, Undernutrition is
a thesis most carefully prepared and couched in purely scientific
terms. But it deals entirely with inanition in healthy animals
and with a few short fasts undertaken by healthy human professionals.
Fasting in health and fasting when disease is in evidence are
two distinct processes, and the writer believes that even science
must concede differing chemical transformations and reactions
in sickness and in health. And further, because the results of
many years of observation, experiment, and induction are placed
before students in terms that are easily understandable, it must
not be concluded that the truths discovered and related are non-scientific
and are to be discarded as fallacies. Yet the professed scientist
is most free in offering the sort of criticism mentioned and inferred,
and this has its weight with those who are subservient to intellectual
authority, with those who are either unwilling or incapable of
thinking for themselves.
It is thus seen that obstacles are put
in the way of the practice of fasting as a therapeutic measure
by the scientist and by the ignorant layman, but this has a direct
advantage in promoting investigation, for criticism, especially
from scientific sources, necessarily induces in an intelligent
and conscientious observer intense concentration upon all phases
of the subject. No point that may conduce to favorable issue is
overlooked; no natural law or accessory is permitted to remain
without investigation. Considerations merely selfish in character
might here prove motives for a certain sort of endeavor--desire
for gain, the hope of triumphing over other schools. But a broader
deeper feeling actuates the true student of nature In him the
search for perfect understanding of cause and effect, the giving
of a truth to the world the relief of physical suffering, are
the stimuli that impel him to surmount the obstacles he meets
and that bring success to his labors.
The discovery of the general therapeutic
worth of the fast was soon followed by a knowledge of its value
as a diagnostic agent. Properly directed, the method never fails
to uncover every weak point in an ailing body, to reveal the exact
location of organic distress or defect, the focal point of disease.
Continued experiment and observation established the desirability
of correct approach to complete abstinence from food through gradual
diminution of intake, thus insuring systemic accommodation to
the physiological changes involved, while permitting elimination
naturally to dominate. Here also was demonstrated the importance
of enemata and cleansing baths for the purpose of facilitating
the disposal of the harmful products of catabolism.
During a fast, as elimination of body
waste progresses, the observer is permitted, to a degree approaching
accuracy, to determine the condition of function of each vital
organ, and, if structural defect is present, it is certain to
be detected. For cessation of food intake inhibits organic labor
with the exception of that compelled by systemic utilization of
the reserve contained in tissue. At this time organs, the functioning
ability of which is equal to normal demand, completely relax with
no symptoms of distress and with no signs of defect in structure;
while organs diseased, either functionally or structurally, maintain
a state of congestion combined with distress or pain, the latter
due to inflammatory conditions or to lesions already formed. In
addition, the internal chemistry of the organism is more or less
fully and accurately revealed, since discharges from the body
are most easily analyzed, unmixed as they are with the products
of recently ingested food.
In the event that grave organic defect
exists in a patient, signs more or less determinant are displayed
both during the time of preparation and in the early stages of
a fast. Serious symptoms do not as a rule transpire until about
the second or third week of abstinence, and then these demonstrations
may assume any of the forms of debility. In the experience of
the writer are several cases in whom at this period violent delirium
occurred, as well as others who suffered from milder mental derangement.
But in all of these instances, even in those in which death succeeded,
there was rapid emergence from the mental cloud, and consciousness
continued unimpaired either to dissolution or to recovery.
In the cases mentioned as having developed
extreme mental disturbance some structural deformation of the
colon was noted. This defect, despite the employment of high enemata,
acted as an obstacle to the movement of bowel contents through
the organ, and the refuse, liquid in form, purely waste and poisonous
in the extreme, was thus permitted to be absorbed in quantity,
giving rise to a degree of toxemia that induced the delirium.
No surprise is evinced at intoxication resulting from the consumption
of alcohol; none should be shown at the drunkenness produced by
poisons that are self-generated.
There are other instances in whom organic
development of the small intestines has been arrested in early
life through disease or through drugs, or in whom other forms
of deformation of this portion of the alimentary tract exist.
During a fast these subjects may exhibit distressing symptoms
that continue for some days. They seldom, however, experience
mental crises, but they do require exceeding care in direction,
both while fasting and in the after-period of rebuilding. But
always each case develops its own manifestations, and it does
not necessarily follow that severe forms of mental aberration
invariably proceed from intestinal organic defect.
When functional disease alone is the difficulty
to be overcome, the case in treatment is simplicity itself. Patients
of this class ordinarily are able to care for themselves throughout
a fast of the duration necessary. But, whenever organic disease
exists, whether in the form presented in Class 2, or in that in
Class 3 of previous mention (Chapter VIII), unpleasant and possibly
severe symptoms are inevitable. In these circumstances all of
the courage and the wisdom evolved through long experience in
handling disease as nature dictates are needed to meet the conditions.
Knowledge of the direct causation of the delirium, of the stupor,
of any and all of the symptoms of toxic poisoning, none of which
are ever wholly absent in extreme organic disability, then gives
confidence to the directing mind. It knows that, because of
abstinence from food, because of the purifying processes in progress,
because of reduced organic effort, the life of the patient will
be considerably prolonged. It also knows that, if death occur,
it is the result of lesions in the organ or organs involved, progressed
to a degree that even the minimized labor demanded is beyond performance.
Let it be repeated that in the fast there
can be no danger of death by starvation. The safeguard of all
life is hunger--true hunger, not appetite. And, when the process
of systemic purification is successfully completed--and this is
always possible unless conditions just noted are existent--hunger
must return and food must be supplied.
Skill in the treatment of disease by the
use of the fast and its natural accessories cannot be acquired
from books, for as yet there are none that cover any except basic
truths, and these with but meager detail. The subject is vast,
and it is the more interesting in that it controverts age-long
belief in the efficacy of drugs and the efficiency of the medicine
men, the opposition of whom to the spread of its teaching is still
most effective. Hence only long practice of the method with resulting
experience can give the knowledge essential in surmounting the
difficulties that may and do arise.
In concluding this chapter it is again
affirmed that the fast in itself is but a means to an end' a process
that permits of organic rest, physiological purification, and
bodily recuperation. Cure--recovery--cannot be achieved until
the subject agrees then and thereafter to cooperate with nature
thus permitting her to carry what has been successfully begun
to successful conclusion.
CHAPTER X
THE DURATION OF THE FAST
DISTINCTION BETWEEN APPETITE AND HUNGER:
THE LAW OF HUNGER DETERMINES THE LENGTH OF A FAST
THE DURATION of a fast to complete purification
is a matter that can never be predicated in any individual case,
for the beginning of the period of abstinence from food is coincidental
with illness, and the end is reached, in the absence of organic
deficiency, when hunger marks the return of digestive power. Until
true hunger becomes apparent, and it cannot be mistaken, a fast
which has for its purpose full systemic cleansing should continue.
Not until hunger indicates the need for food is the organism in
condition to receive and transform it into tissue structure.
The sensation of hunger is a safeguard
established by nature to insure bodily maintenance. It is the
first faculty that the infant exercises after birth, and its office
in all life is that of a watchful caretaker entrusted with interests
beyond the ordinary in import. Natural consciousness of hunger
has largely been usurped by appetite, by artificial craving produced
by the cultivation of the sense of taste and by regularity in
the habits of feeding. Hunger is an involuntary sensation --as
involuntary as is the beating of the heart. It is not created
by the individual, nor does it make its appearance at stated hours
or by exercise of the will. Hunger, the law that governs the conservation
of all physical life, is constructive; but appetite, its counterfeit,
easily called into being, and just as easily caused to appear
at fixed times, is destructive in effect.
In disease hunger is absent; and during
fasting appetite, too, ordinarily vanishes after a few days. When,
in the fast, toxic elimination is complete, hunger, not appetite,
returns. Hunger is normal; appetite is abnormal. And this distinction,
considered in connection with the breaking of a fast, is most
important. The question of resumption of feeding does not lie
for answer in the judgment of either physician or patient. It
rests with the law of hunger alone. During a fast that is to be
prolonged until hunger returns, food of any kind is an intruder,
for the energy of the body is being directed through the organs
of elimination towards cleansing the system of self-manufactured
poison. The coated tongue, the foul breath, all of the more or
less unpleasant symptoms heretofore described, are but signs of
the presence in decomposing condition of food and tissue waste.
And, being of decomposition, they are also signs of the death
of life-giving substances and of portions of the organism itself,
the products of which are most harmful unless promptly removed
from the body. When toxic elimination has reached the vanishing
point, the juncture at which rebuilding of cell structure is demanded
lest the body die, hunger will definitively appear. Hunger is
the abiding law of animal existence; it is the signal of instinct
by which the living organism perceives that food is needed for
repair and growth. And, in a fast, with it, the clean tongue,
the sweet breath, the signs of normal life, are coincident.
In functional disease a fast may be carried
to its logical end without anxiety, for resident in the body there
exists at all times a supply of tissue pabulum for use in repair
and growth, whether the latter be ordinary or extraordinary. This
reserve is constantly called upon in health or in illness, while
feeding or fasting, for the nourishment and upbuilding of nerve
and brain substances, and the latter never suffer deterioration
in quality nor in structure unless in themselves they are specifically
diseased. Even in instances of death from starvation, nerve tissue
and that of the brain show no loss. They make use of the food
reserve held in the interstices of tissue, and they draw upon
this accumulation for support. The nervous system regains its
energy, when depleted, through rest alone, but it maintains its
quality through the means described. Hence, so long as there remain
tissues, and this includes the blood, sufficient to carry on the
work of the functions and of the circulation, brain and nerves
will continue their directing tasks, and they cannot waste in
the process.
That a supply of healthy tissue food exists
within the body during a fast, and that it is not exhausted until
the return of natural hunger, does not rest for proof upon the
dictum of medical observation in cases of starvation. In the chapter
of the text devoted to illustrative cases an instance is cited
of eventual healing by first intention during a fast of fifty-two
days of a sore three inches in diameter, a suppurating sore so
virulent in character that the periosteum of the bone beneath
was exposed. Two cases of illness during pregnancy are also noted
in which the prospective mothers fasted for twenty-two and thirty
days respectively. In the bodies of each of these women the growth
of the fetus was progressive and normal, despite omission of ingestion.
Due to their functional disorder, hunger was absent in these pregnant
patients, but a supply of nourishment, and wholesome nourishment
at that, was at hand, and it served to maintain the organisms
of the mothers and to build those of the forming children for
the periods given above, and at term each mother was delivered
of a child in all respects physiologically normal.
The signs of a successfully completed
fast are most easily recognized. The tongue is pink and clean,
the breath is sweet, and appetite or false hunger is supplanted
by natural desire for food, a sensation that is exquisite beyond
description, and that may be realized only by a purified and regenerated
system.
Again, because of the importance of the
subject, iteration is made. Hunger is at all times to be distinguished
from appetite. Hunger is discriminative and preserves the body.
Appetite is abnormal desire and ultimately destroys. Hunger is
primarily indicated in the mouth, and, if not relieved, it becomes
an organic craving that can be satisfied only by digestible food;
but appetite cannot be so silenced; it continually searches for
this or for that; it is never satisfied.
Natural hunger indicates a system with
all channels of vitality freed from obstruction, with every nerve
sensitized to the extreme of response to impulse. This adjustment
of bodily power and function is invariably evident when a fast
has been scientifically conducted to completion. And it is here
observed that this conserved of the organism, this all-important
warder of its needs, stands ever in the guise of what may be termed
organic intelligence, for, in a body free from toxin-producing
substances, hunger displays selective intelligence, in great part
demanding foods adapted in kind and proportion to constructive
need. And, when the latter is satisfied, the hunger sense is quiescent,
to return only when the organism again signifies renewed desire.
With the return of natural hunger after
a fast, the food selective sensations, taste and smell, are discovered
to be unusually keen and active. Too often are these faculties
perverted by abuse to the extent of accepting and presumably enjoying
food and odors that are abhorrent to naturally constituted organisms.
At the conclusion of a fast, taste and smell act as co-indicators
with hunger in determining the limit of abstinence; they, too,
are restored to normal acuity. And with them thirst reverts to
standard--not a desire for liquid that is produced by stimulation
or by drug-exhaustion of the fluids of the body, but one that
makes known the natural need for their replenishment. The being
that eats when hunger, not appetite, calls, that drinks when thirst,
not stimulation, demands, and that follows unquestioningly the
selective sensations of taste and of smell, need never know disease.
It is sometimes good judgment to break
a fast before the system is fully purified, then to return to
abstinence after an interval of corrective diet. While this method
is perhaps not as satisfactory in result as is that of the logically
completed fast, it is at times expedient, and especially so in
personally conducted essays into natural therapy, when there is
lack of intelligent direction. Good judgment may also indicate
shortening the period of abstinence when there is certainty of
the presence of organic disease, or when preparation for the fast
has been carelessly performed or entirely omitted. But, even though
organic deficiency exists, the body is more certain of recovery
when a fast is undertaken, since organic labor is thus gradually
reduced, and progressive relief is afforded the system as a whole.
In these conditions the sole hope either of partial recuperation
or of ultimate cure lies in the systemic purification which the
fast permits and in the rest afforded to the defective organ or
organs which have been laboring under more than usual functional
strain.
The question, "How long must I fast
until my system is purified?" is one that may never be answered
with certainty. Each individual develops his own case, and each
case has its own limitations and requirements. And the further
fact is to be faced that no matured human body in which disease
is present may be brought to health within a definitely limited
period of time. A lifetime of wrong living, more or less extended,
has contributed to disease, and, especially in the chronic case,
it is unreasonable to assume that nature, even when permitted
a free hand, may within a few short weeks or months bring about
the physiological changes necessary to function.
When a fast is successfully completed,
the body functions in a sphere of natural activity, and no conception
may be had, save in the indicated condition, of the gratification
that accompanies the simpler acts that constitute physical life.
To eat rationally, to eat only at the demand of hunger and not
to excess, become pleasures that are exquisite, and that are not
marred with regret for the flesh pots.
Nature asks of him who would live the
balanced physical life but the will and the ability to follow
logically the details of the simple law outlined in this chapter,
the law of hunger, which, obeyed brings health for reward; but,
which, violated, condemns the offender to condign and lasting
punishment.
CHAPTER XI
BREAKING THE FAST
FRUIT JUICES AND VEGETABLE BROTHS:
GRADUAL.RETURN TO SOLID FOOD:
WHAT ABOUT MILK?
AT ONE point in the discussion comment
is made to the effect that one of the chief difficulties presented
by the fast is its simplicity of application. In a sense this
statement is paradoxical, but the method has been criticised adversely
because of injudicious trial by subjects who deemed that the sole
essential of this natural aid to health is abstinence from food.
There are reasons that are obvious for this erroneous conception,
which is based upon generally displayed and deplorable ignorance
of the anatomy and physiology of the human body. Physical pleasure
and physical pain are recognized sensations, but their causes,
save as to the acts that produce them, are most infrequently investigated
and are still more seldom understood, even when scientifically
explained. The author believes that most mature intellects are
capable of grasping the essentials of human anatomy and physiology,
and for that matter those of any of the systems of therapeutics,
that of medicine included.
But science has invented a language of
its own--its terms are more or less foreign to the lay mind. And
suffering humanity is not at all prone to devote many moments
to the translation of prescriptions in order to discover the nature
of their ingredients. What it wants is relief, and it wants it
delivered with despatch. And because humanity in general spends
little time in educating itself in the care of its bodies, excepting
in superficial ways, when illness occurs, it is necessarily dependent
upon its physicians, to whose interest it is to offer to the patient
assistance but not knowledge. It is really an attempt at release
from this sort of dependency that causes the average mortal to
grasp at some suggested remedy, whether it be a palliative that
has relieved a suffering neighbor, or whether it be the promise
of systemic purification which he is told will result from the
omission of the ingestion of food for a time. But, again, in the
average case, because of anatomical and physiological ignorance,
difficulties are sure to arise. It is the desire of the author
to present the details of the method described herein in statements
so plain, so free from technical wording, that any seeker for
truth in the cause of disease and its natural treatment may at
once read and understand.
A fast should be undertaken only in the
presence of disease, and it should be scientifically conducted.
The latter statement should be taken as meaning that, in so far
as the anatomical and physiological state of the patient may be
discovered by symptom and examination, they should be observed
and understood. Only in this manner may it be determined whether
systemic purification by the interrupted fast or by one protracted
to the return of natural hunger is the course to be pursued. If
morbid conditions, other than those that are at first apparent,
are latent, if the body has been carrying the burden of organs
that are structurally defective, the fast is certain to uncover
the facts, and it is then altogether probable that symptoms will
develop that will need to be coped with by competent experienced
hands. When, however, derangements that are purely functional
are in question, a self-piloted case may progress to the end of
the period of abstinence with success, but may not be able to
solve the problem of breaking his fast assured of conserving all
of its benefits.
An experienced director of the method
is well aware that there are subjects, in number sufficient to
be distinguished as a class, who, through physial defect in organs,
store within the system food-poison in amount greatly in excess
of that which is discovered in ordinary cases of functional disease.
These subjects are to be grouped under Class 2 in the division
of general disease forms tabulated previously. In them, constant
stimulation, which is directly due to cumulative poisoning in
progress, prevents recognition of the presence of the toxins themselves
until some more serious indiscretion completes the overturn of
physical balance. If now a fast is begun without preparation,
difficulties are immediately encountered, for elimination commences
with a rush of impurities seeking escape from the system, and,
for a time, the tide is irresistible. Food cannot be taken, even
though the will to eat exists, and abstinence must continue until
systemic purification is accomplished. In these circumstances,
during the first days of fasting distressing symptoms may develop,
and dread of the outcome may lead to an attempt to supply food.
If this is done, the trouble will be aggravated, for the whole
organism is saturated with toxic material, and nourishment added
then is just so much poison the more. Fear now takes full possession
of family and friends, and perhaps of the patient as well, and
the deadliest foe to the means that nature employs in dealing
with disease is called to offset the work already accomplished.
Medicine and neglect of the enema will then no doubt complete
what food occasioned, and the chances are that death will ensue.
In an instance such as this no defense of the method is accepted,
and it is visited with wide-spread and emphatic condemnation;
whereas, were the conditions observed received at their real worth,
they would be recognized as natural and salutary in origin and
action, and as evidences that extreme and successful organic effort
towards cure was at work.
To break a fast in the manner described
is a much more serious matter than to do so upon an incorrect
dietary at the logical end of abstinence. But the point of greatest
import here to be given attention is that of the confidence that
should be engendered and the care that should be taken lest, when
distressing symptoms occur, fear step in and with it food and
drugs. Relief for localized pain and distress lies in the administration
of copious enemata, duplicated and reduplicated, for only in this
manner may prompt removal of their toxic causation be effected.
In the ordinary instance a successfully
completed fast should be broken by the ingestion of the juices
of ripe fruit or of broths prepared from vegetables. The juices
of fruits that are fully ripened are most easily changed in mouth
and stomach for subsequent digestive processes, and there is but
small effort in handling them. The same reasoning is applicable
to the use of vegetable broths, strained through a coarse kitchen
sieve so as to remove fibrous material and hard solid particles.
There are many vegetables that lend themselves readily to the
preparation of these broths, and, when the latter are made as
indicated so as to exclude all but finely comminuted solid matter,
they are easily digested and their products are assimilated promptly
and without difficulty. When using the juices of fruit to break
a fast, it is suggested that those of sweet fruit be not mixed
with those of acid. One fruit at a time is the rule. At first
the broths should be confined in preparation to one vegetable,
such as the tomato or the onion. Later they may be varied in ingredients,
and combinations may be made of two or three kinds. The tomato
is perhaps the one vegetable that lends itself most satisfactorily
to the breaking of a fast, and it is in constant use for this
purpose by the author.
As gradual approach to abstinence has
been shown to be conducive to success in outcome, so, after systemic
cleansing has been wholly or in part accomplished, return to solid
food should be brought about by degrees. The digestive organs
have been deprived for a time of the exercise of their tasks,
and, if at first overloaded and hence over-stimulated by surfeit,
they are apt to refuse function, and toxication will perhaps recur
with results that may prove troublesome. Hence it is recommended
that, for several days after a fast is broken, not more than two
pints of the broths described daily ingested, increasing this
amount to three pints when digestion is fully reestablished. Vegetables
in solid form may then be substituted, with, as a variant, salads
of lettuce, tomatoes, and other like food-stuffs, alone or in
combination. It is further recommended that a daily two-meal plan
be thereafter adopted and adhered to, for, in most instances,
with proper selection, two meals each day are ample for constructive
demand. When return has been made to solid food after a fast,
the morning meal may be confined solely to fruit, while the second
repast should include a salad in some form or other.
In resuming feeding after fasting very
young children it is found that the strained juice of ripe tomatoes,
heated to about 200 degrees, or that of carrots boiled to tenderness,
gives satisfactory results. Malted milk or orange juice and honey
may also be used.
In some of the treatises upon fasting
for the relief of disease patients are advised, upon the return
of hunger, to resume feeding upon a dietary composed exclusively
of the milk of the cow, gradually increasing the amount ingested
until as many as eight quarts daily are consumed. The author differs
widely from this recommendation, and reasons in support of this
difference of opinion are here presented.
With slight variations referable to man
the milk of the cow contains all of the nutritive compounds required
by a growing animal, and it contains them in the proportions of
a correct scientific dietary. Popularly milk is regarded as a
beverage rather than, as in truth it is a nutrient vehicle most
concentrated in the combination of its elements. In order to present
a comprehensive idea of its composition, it is well to study the
solid products of milk as they are obtained by various processes
in the dairy, the kitchen, and the laboratory. It may also prove
helpful to enumerate and describe the classes into which the solids
of milk are divided. These are: (1) proteid; (2) fat; (3) sugar;
and (4) mineral matter.
Fat constitutes about four per cent of
the weight of milk. In the common process of making butter the
greater portion of the fat is separated from the other ingredients.
The liquid which remains, called buttermilk, contains the rest
of the nutrients of the milk excepting those small portions that
cling to the fat. On examining buttermilk after it has become
a little sour, it will be seen that it contains a white solid
which in the process of churning has been divided into very small
particles. This solid is casein, the chief proteid of milk. It
constitutes 3.3 per cent, or about one-thirtieth, of the weight
of the milk
The souring of whole milk also helps to
an understanding of its composition. When this takes place the
casein and most of the fat separate from the still liquid portion
(the whey), and form what is known as the curd. When, however,
the attempt is made to separate the curd completely for the purpose
of making what is known as cottage cheese, much of the fat is
usually carried off with the whey. And again in the processes
of manufacture of butter and cheese one becomes familiar with
the solid, casein, and with the fat of milk. But even the whey,
the liquid portion, has important solids in it that are less apparent
and consequently not as well known. By heating whey it is discovered
that it is filled with small particles of white matter that soon
sink to the bottom of the liquid. This is albumen, a substance
always present in cow's milk, though in much smaller amount than
is the casein. It resembles the albumen of the white of egg, and
it differs from casein by not curding when milk sours, and by
remaining in solution in the whey. Furthermore it does not form
curd in the stomach, which the casein does. This proteid which
by the process of heating is shown to be present in the whey is
the chief proteid in mother's milk, but in cow's milk it is, as
has been said, in very much smaller amount than the curding proteid.
Therefore, cow's milk, even if diluted and modified, can never
be a perfect equivalent for human milk, and it is easy to understand
that a proteid that remains dissolved in the whey is more readily
digested than one which curds soon after reaching the stomach.
Milk also contains five per cent of sugar.
This sugar is not like that which is used on the table, but is
much less sweet, and it acts differently from ordinary sugar in
the processes of digestion.
The mineral matter in milk constitutes
about seven-tenths of one per cent of its weight, and it is more
abundant in comparison with other nutrients than in any other
common food. This is as it should be, for this material is in
greater part intended for bone-building in the body of the calf.
When taken into the human system, the amount of mineral matter
present in cow's milk is much in excess of that needed for growth
and repair, and, entering the circulation and not being available
for constructive metabolism, it, like any other foreign matter,
acts harmfully upon the organism.
Milk as secreted by the cow, and consumed
as intended by the calf from its teats, is a food that is anti-acid
in digestive reaction, but, delivered for human domestic use hours
old, it is placed by fermentative changes in the acid-forming
class. At the end of a short fast, almost without exception, the
animal organism is in a condition of high acidity. It does not
need a mind professionally trained to conceive of the result of
pouring into a system in this state large amounts of protein,
carbohydrates, and fat, especially in the concentrated form in
which these elements occur in cow's milk. Nor is much mental effort
required to comprehend the difficulties that are encountered by
the eliminative organs in the attempt to rid the organism of its
surfeit of waste, while both assimilative organs and circulation
are forced to function with putrefaction at work at the source
of supply.
Now there are cases which, after a fast,
seemingly improve upon a diet of milk, but observation leads to
the conviction that the benefits noted, if any, are due first,
to the fast with its purifying effects, partial though they may
be; second, to the one-food regimen imposed; and third, to the
physical rest insisted upon. But whatever benefits accrue are
in most instances temporary, and it is but natural that this should
be so, for, even when the milk is handled without immediate distress,
all of the organs involved in body metabolism are called upon
to work to a degree that their labors are most inefficiently performed,
and the possibility exists that they may break with the effort.
It will be discovered that within a short time after the regimen
described has been imposed upon a patient, the latter will have
developed extreme congestion of the liver, high-colored, waste-laden
urine, and systemic bilious saturation. And these cases always
prove most difficult to bring to a purified state because of the
toxic impregnation that follows milk-flooding.
In the present discussion the digestive
capability under contemplation is that of a subject who has just
succeeded in ridding his system in whole or in part of the toxic
products of ingestion in excess of the needs of his body. In a
partial fast it is deemed best to resume feeding, while in a completed
fast hunger has returned and food must be supplied. If the milk
of the cow is the form in which nourishment is offered, and if,
in addition, not a small quantity, but, as advised, from four
to eight quarts daily are imbibed, for each quart consumed, an
equivalent in flesh food of about one pound is presented for digestion.
The purpose of the fast is at once defeated, since the most vigorous
of bodies is unable to transform and to assimilate this mass of
material, however digestible it may in essence be. The excess,
and it is virtually all excess, fills the alimentary tract with
decomposing waste, and the system is again in the developing process
of disease. And after all, the milk of the cow is intended only
as food for the calf.
There are instances upon breaking a fast
when some form of milk will be accepted by the digestive processes
of certain individuals when those foods already indicated as suitable
for the resumption of feeding are merely tolerated. In circumstances
like these the milk of the goat is recommended for consumption,
but in small amounts. Goat's milk in composition carries with
it lesser quantities of mineral salts than does cow's milk it
curds, not in masses, but in more or less separated particles
when it meets the gastric juices while its fats are held in suspension,
thus making them more easy of digestion. And there is this added
advantage that the goat is not susceptible to tubercular infection.
When, after a fast, digestive power asserts
itself, and the bowels begin naturally to respond, the enemata
are gradually discontinued. Suggestions as to their use in health
are given in the chapter devoted to a discussion of the internal
bath, but it may here be said that natural movements of the bowels
are dependent upon normal digestion; and this truth is but slightly
qualified by saying that for normal function muscular tone is
also a necessary condition in intestinal walls. For the attainment
of the latter and for the rebuilding of general muscular quality,
a system of exercise is recommended and insisted upon from the
time that the fast is broken. This, like the dietetic regimen,
should be entered upon in gradual manner, and should be increased
and extended in proportion as the body shows progressive capability.
The procedure to be followed in breaking
a fast demands both caution and care. At the end of a successfully
completed period of abstinence, with hunger in evidence, weak-willed
patients are almost certain to overstep the salutary limit of
ingestion. In cases like these acute crises may develop because
of congestion of the circulatory system. All of the organs of
the body will be included in the revolt and the brain itself may
suffer. When a gradual process of return to normal supply of sustenance
is not pursued, the benefits of a fast are largely annulled; hence,
if will power be lacking in the subject, its equivalent in supervision
must be furnished by the director of treatment, and, if needful,
personal watch should be established.
When there are structural organic defects
in the colon, they may or may not prove shortening to life; but,
when, at the end of a fast, feeding is resumed, even slight displacement
in this organ may retard elimination to such degree that absorption
of toxins will cause severe physical and even mental distress.
This is especially liable to occur in those cases that are without
guidance, in whom ignorance of the consequences of succumbing
to desire exists, and will control is feeble. And, even under
supervision, oftentimes, when desire impels and opportunity occurs,
the patient will overeat. This tendency must be controlled, for
serious results wait upon premature excessive demand upon the
functions. Defective or normal in vital parts, man here learns
to live within the limitations of his organs. Preparation for
a fast, and the fast itself, are seen to be comparatively easy
in accomplishment, but resumption of feeding after abstinence
is a more difficult procedure.