DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FASTING

[자연치료]

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FASTING

DRUGS CAUSE ORGANIC TROUBLES:
SCIENTISTS QUOTED ON FASTING:
AUTO-INTOXICATION

ONE of the most serious obstacles to general acceptance of the fast as a therapeutic measure by both the public and the medical profession is the innate subconscious element of fear engendered by orthodox dicta that nourishment must be supplied lest vitality fail. Man must eat, sick or well, "to keep up strength." The degree to which this conception is fallacious may be gathered from the text; yet very recently medical science has "discovered" the efficacy of "short fasts" in the treatment of diabetes and in the reduction of obesity. Prediction is made that eventually all of the information gathered upon the therapeusis of the fast by those who, like the author, have devoted years of service to the task, will be adopted and claimed as original by the dominant cult.

It is unfortunate that enthusiasm produced by the beneficial effects of personal trial of abstinence from food for the relief of disease has caused the recipients of these benefits to rush into print, detailing their experiences and advising other sufferers to go and do likewise. In greater part the articles and books referred to have been written by men incompetent of understanding more than the mere results obtained in their own individual cases; and the consequences of such ill advised essays into unfamiliar fields are obvious. Regardless of the rationale of the method, and ignorant of the physiological changes that the administration of a fast involves, other inexperienced hands undertake the treatment without guidance, with the result that in many instances harm to the patient succeeds, with consequent unmerited adverse criticism of the method.

In the milder instances of functional illness no possible harm can result when food is omitted for one or for several days, provided the needful aids to elimination are employed. But protracted fasting in the absence of skilful, scientific guidance is, as indicated, fraught with the probability of injury to one who has the temerity to undertake the experience acting upon his own impulse.

If human bodies continued to exist from birth in the usually normal organic condition they then possess, the fast applied when functional disturbance occurs in all probability would proceed to its logical end without difficulty. But, through constant wrong living, through chronic abuse of the vital processes, through lowered muscular tone and consequent impedence of nerve force, and through the effects of symptomatic suppression by drug dosage, the average adult acquires defects in organic structure.

In infancy, when functional disease develops, a drug is given for the suppression of the symptom, and virtually always nourishment is supplied. Two errors in treatment are here noted--the administration of a substance reputed to possess properties that will remedy, that is, suppress, the symptom leaving the cause of the disturbance to take care of itself; and the ingestion of food by an organism which, because of disease, is incapable of digesting the same. The results are that in many instances the children die; in others, functional paralysis of portions of the alimentary tract is caused; in still others, the resistive powers of the infant are such as to permit it to survive, despite both dosage and the administration of food. Yet in the latter event harm rather than benefit derives, and, since the evil is done during the growing period, retardation of organic development occurs, and in future years disease symptoms arise at the points affected in infancy.

Careful observation of thousands of fasting subjects gives proof that a scientifically conducted fast will result in the correction of all ailments that are functional in cause, but that it can never, either through the effects of itself or of its auxiliaries, wholly overcome organic defects. However, the fast will do this--it will uncover the condition of the system, and, if defects or deficiencies exist, it will cause their nature to be clearly displayed. It is in effect an infallible diagnostic expedient.

One whose organs are functionally equal to the requirements of elimination undergoes a period of abstinence from food with no severe distressing symptoms. And, when unusual manifestations occur, it is virtually certain that in some degree defects in organism lie within the body. Post mortem examination of subjects who died while a fast was in progress has given convincing evidence upon this point, and it has further demonstrated that in these cases death would have happened whether the patient were fasting or feeding. To this may be added the observation that, because of lessened organic labor, life in the instances referred to was for a time prolonged. But there are cases in whom distressing symptoms appear as results of organic deficiency which has not yet progressed to an incurable state. These cases may, under proper guidance, hope for relief that may prove permanent.

A drug with regard to its effects upon the animal body may be said to be any substance that will influence metabolism--the continuous process by which living cells undergo chemical change. Hence a drug also influences the functioning of the vital organs. According to this definition foods, even though they be excellent in quality and reasonable in quantity, react as drugs upon the organism. That is to say, food both influences metabolism and the functioning of the vital organs. But food is not necessarily poisonous in its effects as are all substances ordinarily classified as drugs; yet it is easily seen that, if taken in too great quantity, if not properly combined, if ingested when hunger is absent or when emotion is aroused, or if it be unwholesome in quality, food will act as poison upon tissue and upon organic function. In like manner substances formed within the body from the process of tissue waste may act as do drugs upon living cells. This occurs when elimination is inadequate, and hence arise the auto-toxins, through the effects of which systemic resistance, that is, immunity from disease, is reduced, and the way opened for the large group of so-called infectious maladies.

It cannot be fairly assumed that, upon dissecting a body after death, lesions that are present in any organ are due solely to previous drugging. Where two such agencies as disease and drugs have been simultaneously acting upon a living organism, it is difficult, in the absence of a standard, to decide whether a specific result is due to one, or to the other, or to both. But it is a significant fact that, in every instance of death occurring during a fast as recorded in the writer's experience, each of the subjects, with but a single exception, had been drugged in early life, and that the effects of this dosage upon vital organs and tissue, as shown in arrested development and in structural change, were precisely such as could and would have been caused by an active poison. Preponderance of evidence gathered from the findings of these autopsies makes for the presence at some period previous to death of some toxic substance, some active noxious agent, that permanently and harmfully affected tissue structure.

DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FASTING

DRUGS CAUSE ORGANIC TROUBLES:
SCIENTISTS QUOTED ON FASTING:
AUTO-INTOXICATION

The constant use of drugs to suppress the symptoms of disease in the growing child not only lowers physical resistance but it also retards the development of the vital organs, which in some instances suffer permanent deformation. Yet, despite this handicap, the framework of the body eventually reaches normal adult dimension. The disparity presented by organs in whole or in part nearly infantile in size functioning in a body adult in proportion necessarily causes forms of distress that will assuredly end in chronic disease, since the undersized organs are not equal to the demands made upon them. The process that is predominant when a fast is in progress is that of elimination, and it is easy to understand that, in a body in which, for instance, portions of the intestinal tract are under dimension, or in which one or other of the organs of special function is structurally imperfect, the labor of ridding the system of accumulated waste is beyond the ability of the organism perfectly to accomplish. Therefore, to the degree in which organic defects exist is determined the severity of the struggle with disease. In other words, the effort which is being made to east out from the body gathered impurity becomes proportionately more difficult when organic imperfections are present. In the normally developed adult body chronic disease or drugs may produce like effects, but here vital organs are of full dimension, and results are shown, not in arrested development, but wholly in structural tissue-change.

Whenever, because of organs functionally incapacitated for any reason, the products of food and tissue waste cannot be evacuated through proper channels, general poisoning of the blood stream occurs. The resulting condition is known as auto-intoxication, or toxemia, referred to previously as a state of unbalance when both secretion and excretion are checked and the blood is surcharged with waste to the degree of developing a crisis or acute disease. This state gives rise in the subject to manifestations that may become alarming. The brain may be affected to the extent of mild delirium, hiccoughs persistent in character may occur, or the patient may sink into stupor; and there are other forms which the symptoms may take that will cause distress. In a fast that has been correctly approached toxemia so intense in degree can never arise. But if, as happens when inexperienced direction is given, food is discontinued abruptly, accessories are omitted, and no preparatory period of dieting is observed, symptoms as mentioned are apt to be manifested. Even when all essentials are correctly followed, slight toxemia may be present in cases that are fasting, when these are sufferers from chronic functional disease or from some structural organic defect. But, if the subject has been prepared for the period of abstinence in the manner heretofore described, and, if the hygienic accessories of treatment are consistently employed, symptoms that are distressing are not likely to occur.

The presence of toxins in the body is for the most part attributable to inability of the eliminative organs to perform their work. For some cause or other the latter do not dispose of waste in amount sufficient to balance intake or production. When difficulty is encountered in disposing of the refuse produced progressively during a fast, lack of eliminative power is its causation, and this arises from nerve force impeded through impingement of vertebrae, from structural organic defect, from lesions caused by previous drugging, or from waste production so extreme that even normal organs are unable to cope with it.

The physician who holds the concept that disease and cure are a unity is not at all concerned with the presence or absence of the various toxins, nor by the symptoms in evidence, save as they act as indices of the functioning ability of vital organs. If the latter are in normal structural condition, the products of food in excess of need may interfere with function because of simple congestion, which we have seen is easily relieved. But the vital parts of the human body are in many instances structurally defective through drug dosage or through food stimulation, and these organs may in consequence be brought into action only by the administration of additional drugs or by further stimulus. In these circumstances elimination can take place only abnormally, with in all cases but partial removal of body waste. In treating disease by natural methods the character of the toxin is not considered excepting in so far as it is an indication of the severity of illness, and the thought paramount concerns the condition of the organs involved, with their ability to function, rather than with the nature of the circulating poison.

The toxication or poisoning that results from absorption of certain products of metabolism has been said sometimes to cause delirium in the subject. This phenomenon, because it has infrequently been observed while a fast was in progress, has given rise to the contention that protracted abstinence from food occasions insanity. Nothing can be further from truth, for, when toxic elimination has been successfully accomplished, when the system is fully and physiologically purified, mentality is at maximum; and, on the other hand, cases displaying mental aberration to toxemia caused by overfeeding are speedily brought to sanity when food is denied. In fact, extreme auto-intoxication occurs more frequently when the subject is feeding than when he is fasting, and an overfed system is productive of poisons the effects of which upon mentality are more serious and more lasting than are those of stimulants or narcotics.

Wounds and broken bones are healed and united by natural processes, and it is only through the operation of the latter that cures may be achieved. The fast and its accessories are not in themselves "processes", as the term is here used. Their office is that of the removal of obstacles that lie in the paths of action invariably pursued by nature in effecting her purpose of systemic cleansing, of casting out of the body the poisons that are the source of its disease. As a result of restoration of function that follows a successful fast instances do occur where organic structural break-down is arrested and the organ is again placed in functioning condition, but these instances are exceptional. However, undertaking a fast in the hope that it in itself will succeed in overcoming to the point of recovery serious structural organic defects, wounds, and broken bones, is to hope for an absurdity. In these circumstances the benefits that accrue from the application of the method are proportioned to the degree of the power of the organ or of the tissue involved to recover itself.



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DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FASTING

DRUGS CAUSE ORGANIC TROUBLES:
SCIENTISTS QUOTED ON FASTING:
AUTO-INTOXICATION

Death during a fast cannot occur unless there is organic disease, and not then unless the organ or organs affected are in such degenerated state as not to permit of repair; and it is conclusively demonstrated that in a scientifically directed fast, although death in the conditions cited cannot be averted, yet because of organic labor lessened, life is prolonged for days or weeks, and distress and pain, if present, are much alleviated.

The differentiation between starvation and fasting is made herein upon the basis that starvation occurs in consequence of food being denied to a system that is in need of sustenance, and that fasting consists in intentional abstinence from food by a system in disease, a system which in consequence of its physical unbalance is not only without desire for nutriment, but which in reality is in no need of it until its organism is purified and again in condition to perform its functions normally. The distinction stated may be admitted, yet the fact is not altered that the two processes are in essence largely identical. But it has been observed that, deposited within the body, lies a reserve store of aliment, and it is also to be observed that this reserve is not in the main utilized for tissue rebuilding, but is in most part intended at all times for the support and maintenance of the nervous system; and it is only when this supply of nerve sustenance is exhausted or prevented from serving its purpose that starvation occurs. Because of the possibility of these happenings in disease, the body may starve though it is well fed, for often in instances of overfeeding there is mal-assimilation, often an essential organ is rendered functionally incapable through congestion, in consequence of which the nervous system is hindered from consuming its necessary nourishment since the channels of supply are obstructed. Hence it should be apparent that in functional disease during a fast starvation can begin only when fasting ends--at the disappearance of disease, at the return of hunger.

Whether we regard the vital principle, the animating force of the animal body, as an entity or, as modern science would have it, as the result of chemical transformations, it must be agreed that, during a fast whatever tissue construction occurs happens in consequence of nutriment supplied from the reserve noted above, and this Dr. E. H. Dewey termed "Nature's bill of fare for the sick." Deprived of food, the subject then must subsist upon this menu, details of which have already been given in the table quoted from Yeo's Physiology, a table which shows the estimated losses of the several tissues of the body in cases of starvation. During periods of abstinence from food the organism then subsists upon itself, and loss of body weight must occur. Directly this loss is due to the elimination, first, of the waste that caused disease, and, next and continuously with the other, of the refuse produced by catabolism or cell destruction. The dominant process in action at this time is that of expulsion of diseaseproducing matter, and it is obvious that the latter is at no point available for the repair of tissue, and that, held within the system, it acts not only obstructively in the avenues of vitality, but that it also toxically vitiates function. This is true of all refuse retained in the organism at any time, for this material, because of delay in expulsion, is rendered harmful through putrefactive changes.

The points of difficulty related heretofore are in a sense technical in character, but there are objections which embody personal opinion and prejudice that at times develop into serious obstacles. While fasting for the relief of disease has been known and practiced individually in all countries of the world from prehistoric times, it was never advanced in any land to the point where it could be regarded as a distinct system of therapeutics until the decade beginning about fifty years ago. Its rise from sporadic application to the dignity of a school occurred about that time in the United States, and from then on its exponents and practitioners, persisting in the face of scientific opposition, gradually accomplished their purpose by proving their contentions, and at length have the satisfaction of seeing their conclusions accepted and adopted without apology or acknowledgment by what may be termed intellectuaI authority.

There is no form of ignorance that is so difficult to overcome and to instruct as is of the "scientific" mind. And, when the latter, as it sometimes does, obtains a conception of its error, it is extremely loth to admit, first, that it has not always been in possession of the truth, and, second, that it should render due credit to the mind responsible for its change of concept or belief. And, if the position of the individual be such that he may with authority employ the power of mere assertion, it is usually much the easier way to announce as one's own discovery that which formerly one has denied and condemned, perhaps through prejudice, but more often through sheer ignorance.

In this connection quotations are made from several articles and books recently issued by medical authors. These screeds are given with small comment, but they serve to illustrate the contemptuous attitude assumed by those of whom Louis Kuhne years ago said this: "Everywhere the new science of healing finds sympathetic acceptance, except among a few sceptics and those who believe that they know everything better than anyone else, and who generally consider it superfluous to make practical trial of any method strange to the tenets of their own."



DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FASTING

DRUGS CAUSE ORGANIC TROUBLES:
SCIENTISTS QUOTED ON FASTING:
AUTO-INTOXICATION

First let us hear Dr. W. A. Evans, who writes How to Keep Well, a syndicated letter at present published daily in various newspapers throughout the country. Dr. Evans has this to say about fasting:

"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.



DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED IN FASTING

DRUGS CAUSE ORGANIC TROUBLES:
SCIENTISTS QUOTED ON FASTING:
AUTO-INTOXICATION

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.