In those individuals in whom this development takes place, the foundation for
asthma is laid in the respiratory tract. That this explanation of the cause of asthma is valid is shown by the fact 
that elimination of
toxemia, restoration of normal nerve energy and correction of the mode of living results in a
permanent clearing up of symptoms and the individual no longer suffers with asthma. As no other
means of care results in a more rapid freeing of the body of its toxic load than physiological rest,
nothing brings relief from asthmatic paroxysms as certainly and as speedily as the fast. But relief is not all the sufferer wishes. He wants to get well and this is precisely what he
accomplishes if the fast is conducted long enough and his mode of eating and living after the fast
are made to conform to his genuine physiological needs. The length of the fast required to enable the asthmatic to breathe freely and easily will depend
on the severity of the condition. Usually within twenty-four to thirty-six hours the worst cases are
enabled to lie flat in their beds and to breathe easily and sleep. Breathing is not normal at this
stage, as the stethoscope quickly reveals. There will be rales in the lungs, as there will be mucus
in these structures. Indeed, the secretion of mucus will not cease for several days. I favor carrying the fast to the clearing up of all abnormal sounds in the lungs, if this is possible. In very thin and weak individuals this is not always to be recommended. In such instances, a fast as
long as it is safe must be followed by a period of light eating and then another fast is
recommended. In long-standing cases of this kind, several short fasts and periods of careful
feeding may be required before full recovery results. Some fasting advocates advise not taking nourishment until at least thirty-six hours after all
asthmatic symptoms have cleared up. But these experts also urge a return to the fast if eating is
followed by asthmatic sensations. The recurrence of symptoms so soon after eating is resumed is
certain evidence that the fast has not been carried far enough to permit full systematic readjustment. I do not favor playing with asthma in this manner. In the long run, where a more extended fast is
possible, it will prove more effective and the results will be far more satisfactory. 9122
Arthritis: Two Years or Twenty-eight? “Two years!” exclaimed a patient, when told it would require a minimum of two years for him to
get well of his arthritis by fasting and other 
Hygienic
 methods. “I have taken twenty-eight years
already. What are two more years?”
He had been a bacteriologist working in a laboratory and giving nothing more than the usual
attention to his health, when he developed the first signs of arthritis. He was in intimate daily
contact with physicians of the highest order and received the best care the profession had to offer
in this disease. But, as is generally known and is admitted by the profession, no cure for the
disease exists. Palliation—relieving symptoms without removing the cause of the disease—is all
that is provided, and this does not prevent the spread and intensification of the trouble. With the passage of the years, joint after joint became involved until, when the foregoing remark
was made to a 
Hygienist
 who had been consulted, the patient was a twisted and distorted man
walking with the aid of crutch and cane, in a much stooped position. He was unable to turn his
head from side to side, and in constant pain. He was told that there was a possibility that some of his joints were ankylosed—fused—and
that, if so, these joints would remain ankylosed. There is no way to un-fuse ankylosed joints. They
remain fixed, immovable. The good news was, in this case, however, that he could be freed of
pain. He could be restored to usefulness and he could enjoy life. This man underwent a lengthy fast—one of thirty-six days. There was great improvement. He
was freed of pain, witnessed the disappearance of swelling from some of his joints, its reduction
in others and the slow return of movement to joints that had long been stiff. Two years were not enough. It took four years to complete all the improvement possible in this
man. During this time he had a second long fast and several fasts of a few days each. His eating
between fasts was carefully supervised; he was given daily sun baths and after a certain 
amount of
initial improvement had been made, he was given daily exercise. Result: his spine is almost straight, the use of his arms and legs is normal, he can turn his head,
he walks in a nearly upright position, he does not use cane or crutch, he has no pain, he looks the
“picture of health,” and he works like a slave. He has remained in excellent health with no recurrence of pain or swelling for a period of seven
years, and feels so well that he has taken on a lot of political activities in addition to his regular
work, which is enough for one man. His was an extreme case and required a lengthy period for recovery. Let us consider for contrast
a milder case, of shorter duration with less joint inflammation and stiffness: Mrs. G. was forty-four
years old. She was the wife of a Canadian school principal. Her arthritis was of but a few months
standing, but it was painful and crippled her movements. Mrs. G’s physician could promise her
nothing but temporary relief which was aspirin or cortisone for the rest of her life. He told her
there would be a probable spreading and increase of pain. She journeyed to the States and
underwent a fast. The fast lasted only three weeks, but it freed her of all pain and inflammation and
restored normal movement to her joints. “I am going to advertise you all over Canada,” she said to the 
Hygienist
 who conducted her fast
and after-care. She kept her word, but the important thing in this connection is that, after the
92passage of over three years, she is still free of arthritis. She has had no recurrence of pain and
inflammation. Her enthusiasm for fasting in particular and 
Hygiene
 in general knows no bounds. These two cases may be taken as typical of hundreds of similar cases the writer has seen
recover during the past more than forty years. Not all of these recoveries have continued on for
years without recurrence; some of the individuals were foolish enough to return to their former
disease-producing mode of living, but they have been able to remedy the recurrences by returning
to good physical behavior, so that they have remained well. Keeping well requires that we give a reasonable amount of intelligent attention to the manner in
which we live. It takes no more time and effort to eat sensibly than it does to eat imprudently and
indiscriminately. One must breathe—it requires no more time to breathe pure air than it does to
breathe impure air. Indeed, in all the ways of living, not more time, often less time is required to
live rightly than wrongly. Why shall we go through life taking an antacid after each meal, when it is possible to eat in such
a way that we can at all times be comfortable after meals? Why shall we take aspirin for recurrent
headaches, when we can live in a manner to avoid headaches? Why take a daily laxative, when it
is easily possible to have normal bowel movements? The intelligent reader will have no difficulty
in answering these questions. Discomfort has meaning to the observing and reasoning individual. The intelligent man should
see in all discomforts and pains hints of warnings that he should slow down and eliminate some of
his indulgences. He should heed their warnings. Nature is a remarkable teacher and if we accept
her instructions and observe her warning signs, health and long life will be ours. Because of its very painful nature and its tendency to completely incapacitate the sufferer,
rheumatic arthritis is one of the most serious and most dreaded disease of man. Developing, as it
does in the joints, it soon, unless its causes are removed, makes an invalid or a semi-invalid of the
patient. The pain is so severe and so persistent that it rapidly destroys all peace of mind and
prevents rest and sleep. Although probably developing most frequently in cold, damp areas,
arthritis is found in all localities. Several varieties of arthritis are known, but listing then is of no practical importance. Were we
laboriously to draw a picture of each of the several varities in the forms of the disease, we would
be but filling up space and wearying the reader. All of these several variations are traceable to the
same underlying cause, and are remediable by eliminating this cause. Pain and swelling of the tissues surrounding the joints are prominent features of the early stages
of arthritis. As soon as inflammation develops, efforts are made to immobilize the joint. The
muscles and ligaments become tensed and contracted, the on-guard condition thus developed
seemingly increasing the pain. Involving as it does the joints, especially the surrounding tissues, arthritis presents a more
complicated problem than the more simple, transient pains and aches that may be called
rheumatism, such as lumbago, or so-called muscular rheumatism. Developing, as it frequently
does, in the cartilage that pads the ends of the bones of the joints, the arthritis may lead to
destruction of the cartilage and produce deformity. If the cause is not removed, the denuded ends of the bones will ultimately unite (ankylose) so
that the joint becomes fixed and immovable. When this bony union takes place the pain ceases, but
the joint is forever lost. Rheumatic arthritis is not built in a day. The vigorous and strong may practice enervating habits
for years before it evolves. Or such individuals may, after its first appearance, hold it in check for
93years before it becomes a serious crippling influence. We should know that arthritis represents an
end-point in a pathological process that has been years in its development. Before the development of the joint inflammation, there are aches and pains, with periods of not
feeling well, periods of not being able to sleep, of poor appetite, of indigestion, and of other
evidences that all is not well within. So long as we continue to close our eyes to the existence of
the many “minor” symptoms and refuse to recognize them as forerunners of the more complex
stages of disease, just so long will we refuse to make 
those changes in our way of life that are
essential to the prevention of arthritis. How often do people who are bothered with vague musuclar pains, a little stiffening of the
joints, a “touch of neuritis,” an “attack” of lumbago or of sciatica, mistake the significance of these
warning signs. They palliate these symptoms with drugs, massage, manipulations, hot baths, and
persist in the way of life that builds trouble. Suppressing symptoms does nothing to remove their causes and fails to check the further
development of a chronic state and the possible development of invalidism. Fundamentally and primarily the cause of arthritis is toxemia. This is the summing up of a
multitude of abuses of the body in eating, drinking, emoting, in sexual activity, and in other forms
of activity. Eating too much from childhood lays the foundation for the toxemia. No one knows just
how many subtle toxins are involved in the cause of arthritis. It may be said that hundreds or even
thousands may be involved in its production. Years will elapse before it becomes possible to isolate all the compounds amino acids alone
are capable of forming with one another and with other by-products of proteins and carbohydrates. It is safe to assume that no single poison is alone and independently responsible for the evolution
of any complex pathology. How can we hope, in our present state of ignorance, to isolate and analyze one particular toxic
substance that is the cause of cancer or of Bright’s disease or of insanity? Can it be asserted with
any degree of assurance that the toxins responsible for any one or all of the so-called degenerative
diseases differ in any essential? The character of the disease resulting from the toxic saturation is
determined by individual factors rather than by the character of the toxin. I describe the cause of arthritis as a perversion of nutrition in a toxemic subject. There seems to
be no doubt that the primary irritation leading to the abnormal changes in the joints is due to the
presence in the blood and lymph of an unstable toxic material accumulating for months and years in
one who is enervated. These sufferers are always heavy eaters, but are especially prone to overeat
on sweets and starches—bread, potatoes, cakes, pies and candy. Their joints are likely to be stiff and they find it difficult to get around in the morning when they
first arise. Stiffness wears off after a little use of the limbs, but the knee joints, ankle joints, elbow
joints, and other joints of the body are likely to complain bitterly when used. There may be no pain
and there are rarely any constitutional symptoms, so that the patient is likely to think that the
stiffness is entirely local. Wrong food combinations, excesses of starches and sugars, condiments, coffee, tea, liquors, and
tobacco are potent factors in laying the groundwork for the evolution of arthritis. Added to these
factors may be any form of 
enervating emotional unrest, sensual indulgence, and physical
overactivity. With all of this said, arthritis seems to develop only in those of the so-called gouty or
arthritic or rheumatic diathesis—or predisposition. Diathesis is only a word and will remain more
or less meaningless unless we understand the factors behind the predisposition. Rheumatic arthritis, as distinguished from traumatic and tubercular arthritis, represents an
94impaired state of nutrition in addition to the common toxemia. The calcium deposits and stone
formation that are part of the disease indicate that the nutritional perversion is similar to, if not
identical with, that which is back of the formation of gall stones, kidney stones, hardening of the
arteries, deposits of lime on the valves of the heart, deposits in the feet in gout, and the formation
of stones in other parts of the body. When enervation and toxemia have lowered resistance, anything that puts an added strain upon
the body may precipitate an arthritic crisis in one who is predisposed to the development of
arthritis. Acute illness, “infection,” a “focus on infection,” indigestion, an unusual meal, cold,
getting wet, anxiety and overindulgence of the emotions, may precipitate a crisis. So-called infections from abscessed teeth or abscesses elsewhere in the body should be
recognized for what they are—
secondary sources of trouble. Super-added to toxemia and
gastrointestinal putrefaction, they complicate the condition of the patient. They are never primary
causes. Yet, it sometimes happens that a patient is able to resist the other sources of troubles but not
these plus the secondary "infection,” so that, when the source of secondary "infection” is removed,
the symptoms temporarily clear up. This is heralded as a great victory for 
science. Recurrence too
frequently vitiates the victory. There have been so many kinds of treatment for arthritis that it would be needless to try to
enumerate all of them. It can only be said that none of them have proved satisfactory. Spas, springs,
water cures, mud, salt, soap baths, sulphur baths, hot baths, electro-therapy, packs, drugs,
nostrums, and serums have all had their day and have been found wanting. Some of them have
afforded temporary relief in many instances; none has been more than a palliative. To get well and remain well of rheumatism, lumbago, muscular rheumatism, inflammatory
rheumatism, gout, arthritis, no matter what form it may assume, the sufferer must discontinue all
enervating habits and learn his limitations and respect them. Every normal habit indulged to satiety
and every abnormal habit produces disease. Here is the origin of every so-called disease. The end
is chronic disease and premature death. Until we learn to recognize the fact that symptoms are the result of toxic saturation and learn the
source of the intoxication, we are left with nothing we can do for the sick except provide a brief
and questionable palliation. The man who can offer his patient nothing more than an 
anodyne
 or a
sedative
 can do much harm but he can do no good. To be truly effective the care of the arthritic case should be directed at the removal of the cause
of the disease. To give drugs, whether aspirin, cortisone or other of the drugs now in use for
arthritis, which are intended to do nothing more than provide the patient with brief periods of
relief from pain, is to remove no cause. Although most of these drugs are given to “relieve” the
pain, it is asserted that cortisone temporarily relieves some of the other symptoms, but it does not
go beyond palliation, while it does build a more difficult condition to remedy. The body has remarkable recuperative powers and it often succeeds in restoring health in spite
of the remedies. It can do a much better and more speedy job if the remedies and the causes that
have built the disease are removed. The body must be given an opportunity to eliminate its toxic
accumulation by means of a fast and then an opportunity to alter its blood chemistry by means of a
more or less radical change in the plan of eating. This done, the results will be surprising. We do not restore normal nutrition by removing the effects of impaired nutrition. The proposal
to cut into the arthritic joints and scrape away the deposits of lime is but a proposal to try another
means of spectacular palliation. Even if it could be successfully done, it would be but a short time
95until more deposits would take the place of those scraped away. The cutting and the scraping
would have to be done all over again. Nothing can more certainly or more rapidly alter the state of the nutrition of the body than a fast. No other means at our disposal brings about a more rapid change in the chemistry of the body,
especially of its fluids and secretions. Fasting relieves the pains of arthritis, for example, more
effectively than drugs and does it without risk or harm. The duration of the fast in arthritis will have to depend on individual circumstances and should
never be undertaken except under the personal supervision of one who is thoroughly familiar with
the techniques of fasting. It is customary to advise the arthritic to exercise the affected joints to prevent these from
becoming fixed. It is asserted that this stays the development of ankylosis or bony union. However
much truth there may be in this claim, the forced activity tends to aggravate the inflammation and
intensify the pain. I find it better to let the affected joint rest until fasting has enabled the body to
remove the deposits and infiltrations from the joint and to clear up the inflammation. In this way
the stiff joint spontaneously limbers up and may be used without pain. The vast majority of patients with arthritis whom I have been called upon to care for have been
in advanced stages of chronic disease. They have all had months to years of the usual forms of
treatment, including the removal of several “foci of infection,” and they have still suffered. Indeed,
their history shows that they have grown progressively worse under such forms of treatment. They
have been in pain. They were deformed. They were more or less helpless. Why? I repeat: the
primary cause of their suffering had been neglected. Recovery from chronic arthritis is a slow evolution out of a state of ill health and into a state of
biochemical dependability. It involves many factors—age, weight, extent of the disease, its
duration, degrees of joint destruction, the amount of ankylosis, previous habits of living and eating,
the amount of nerve energy in reserve, the character of complications that exist (such as heart
disease), the occupation, disposition and environment of the patient. All of these factors determine
the extent of recovery possible and the rapidity with which recovery can take place. Chief among the requirements of recovery is a willingness and determination to carry out all
instructions. Those who cheat and who balk at restrictions and rules are less likely to achieve the
return of good health. An absolute minimum of sugar and starches should be included in the diet. Self-control, self-denial, many restrictions, a dogged determination to get well, even if the
restrictions are sometimes irksome and the progress discouraging, help in recovery. 9623
Peptic Ulcer
When, on July 28, 1939, William J. Mayo, M.D., the last of the two brothers who established the
famous Mayo clinic, died, the press carried the story that he died of a sub-acute perforating ulcer,
an abdominal ailment he had specialized in treating. Said one dispatch: “Stricken shortly after he
returned from a winter vacation in the southwest, Dr. Will underwent a stomach operation at the
clinic last April and never fully recovered.”
It was but a few years after Dr. Mayo’s death when it was announced from this same clinic that
operation for ulcer is not good treatment. While operations are still being performed for ulcers,
they are not performed so frequently as formerly. It is no unusual thing for a specialist to die of the disease in which he specializes. That they
“take their own medicine” attests to their sincerity; that they cannot protect themselves reveals that
the knowledge they possess is not dependable. A man may be a leading surgeon and not know the
cause of the peptic ulcer, and endurated (hardened) pylorus, the fibroid tumor, the gallstone or
kidney stone that he cuts out. This is a very unsatisfactory situation; without a knowledge of cause,
the specialists is working in the dark. The symptoms of “diseases of the stomach" are many—and often not nearly so clear-cut as the
layman may imagine. It is true there are a few more or less “fixed symptoms” of stomach ulcer—pain, tenderness at
the pit of the stomach, vomiting and hemorrhage, but these may also be symptoms of cancer or they
may be present in less serious diseases of the stomach. For these reasons diagnosis of ulcer from
the symptoms alone is very difficult. X-ray and fluoroscopic examinations are made to confirm the
examiner's suspicions, but it is only in exceptionally pronounced cases that this means can prove
anything conclusively. The fact is that the X-ray often indicates ulcer where no ulcer exists and often fails to reveal an
ulcer where one does. Falsely called an “executive's disease,” peptic ulcer is said to kill 11,000 persons a year in this
country, through hemorrhage and complications. Thirteen million Americans are said to have
peptic ulcer. It may be open to serious doubt that there are that many executives in the nation. Abuses in eating, drinking, smoking, sex, the emotions, and in other facets of living are the most
likely causes. Tilden says that “the sexually enervated are slow to reproduce tissue. Ulcers refuse
to heal; infections slowly, but surely, take place; chronic diseases are uncontrollable.” In the
sexually abused there is laid the groundwork for the evolution of many diseases. The prevailing concept is that peptic ulcer, that is, ulcer of the lower end of the esophagus, the
stomach and of the upper end of the duodenum, is due to the action of the gastric juice (the
hydrochloric acid and pepsin) of the stomach digesting and corroding the walls of these parts of
the digestive tube. As the food is carried below the duodenum, bile and other juices render the
content alkaline, so that there is no action of the pepsin and hydrochloric acid, hence no peptic
ulcers below the duodenum. This concept is far from being as certain as some believe. The membrane of the stomach is
chemically non-corrosive. For untold ages the lining of these organs has been in contact with the
digestive juices and this juice has been digesting the toughest protein foods that man has eaten and,
97normally, throughout all this time, the gastric juice has not digested the delicate lining of the
stomach, esophagus and duodenum. To say that suddenly the acid and pepsin of the stomach digests and corrodes the lining of these
organs and let the matter rest there is to fail to understand the cause of peptic ulcer. It is said that something happens to the internal chemistry of the body to cause the gastric juice to
digest the stomach; it is believed, by some, that emotional stresses may be the cause of this
chemistry change. Once the
 membrane collapses, so the theory runs, the stomach juice certainly
acts on the tissues and extends the ulcer, often eating through the wall of the stomach or duodenum
(perforation) with fatal results. It is significant in this connection that this digestion that is assumed to be certain is an
exceedingly slow process, often requiring years for its climax. Yet this self-digestion does not occur in the healthy stomach, no matter how much acid may be
secreted. Hydrochloric acid is a normal secretion of the glands of the stomach, a necessity in the
digestion of protein foods. To believe that it is disease-building is not rational. An excess of acid
secretion due to some evanescent cause may give rise to discomfort and distress, but there will be
no digestion of the lining membrane of the stomach. There may be a flow of the contents of the
stomach back into the gullet, resulting in the symptom commonly called “heart burn,” but this will
not result in any damage to the membrane. Long-continued suffering with heart burn (most often seen in those who overeat on sugars and
syrups and those who wrongly combine their foods, and who drink liquids with meals) may result
in sufficient irritation of the lining of the esophagus and stomach to cause inflammation, but up to
this point, at least, there will be no digestion of the walls of the gullet and stomach. The acids of
decomposition, resulting from overeating and imprudent eating, are the acids that complicate
gastric and duodenal ulcer. Experimentally, fresh tissue from other parts of the body, when sutured to the gastric wall, is not
digested and this suggests that the walls of the digestive tube are not digested by the gastric juice. But I think that an even stronger reason to doubt the role of the digestive juice in producing peptic
ulcer is the fact that ulcers develop in many other part of the body—the nose, sinuses, mouth,
tongue, throat, colon, bladder, womb, cervix, vagina, gall bladder and upon the surface of the
body, as in varicose ulcer— without the digestive action of the gastric secretion. There is in ulcers, in each of these other locations, a preliminary and persistent inflammation
with hardening and a subsequent breakdown of tissue. The evaluation of ulcer of the esophagus,
stomach and duodenum out of chronic irritation and inflammation and hardening seems to be as
certain as its evolution out of these pre-ulcer states in other locations. The history of cases of gastric and duodenal ulcer reveals that very early in life, the patient had
developed gastro-intestinal irritation and inflammation. The mode of living and eating that resulted
in the irritation continued, added to, intensified, and the recurring discomforts were palliated with
drugs, until the patient passes through the already indicated stages of pathological evolution—
irritation, inflammation, a gradual thickening of the mucous and sub-mucous tissues (hardening),
and, then, ulceration. The increasing hardening chokes arterial circulation, cutting off oxygen and the food supply, so
that the tissues break down, giving rise to an open sore or ulcer. Cancer may be the final ending in this evolution. It is one of the endings of a chain of symptoms
starting with irritation, and passing through inflammation, thickening and swelling (hardening or
induration), ulceration (ulcer formation), and fungation (cancer). 98The same chain of causes and effects may precede both endings or cancer may evolve out of the
ulcer. It should be understood that both of these diseases—ulcer and cancer—represent end-points
in a process of pathological evolution that had simple beginnings and became more complex as it
developed. This is the reason why the search for a specific cause for cancer has been so
disappointing. All of the cancer-producing (carcinogenic) agents so far discovered are causative in only a
certain percentage of cases—in those in whom the ground has already been prepared for cancer
development. Ulcer, like cancer, is an ending in a chain of symptoms that begins far back of the evolution of
the ulcer itself. Repeated stomach crises (gastritis) end in ulcer. The ulcer develops after scores of
gastric crises that have occurred frequently in infancy, childhood, youth, and maturity. Ulcer is
classed as an organic disease, which means that abnormal changes have taken place in the structure
of the wall of the organ affected. Organic changes follow in the wake of vascular (artery and vein) degeneration and hardening. Indurations (hardenings) wait upon circulatory changes, particularly asphyxiation of the tissues. Ulceration may be said to be an active degeneration from cell apoplexy; cancer is passive
degeneration from cell asphyxiation. The beginning of both these forms of disease is irritation. All
chronic forms of inflammation begin as irritation and are followed by ulceration and, if the
location favors stasis (stoppage of the blood flow), induration and cancer will follow. The major links in this chain of pathological evolution are enervation, intoxication, irritation,
inflammation, induration, ulceration and fungation. That last is cancer. Should cancer be the only
unknown element in this pathological composite? Concomitant with the gastric ulcer is a chronic state of excessive acidity of the stomach, a
condition known as 
gastric hyperacidity. The common belief is that the excess stomach acid is a
purely local condition. It is not recognized that this hyperacidity is symptomatic of the systemic condition of the
sufferer. This is the reason that treatment is only local; whereas, if it were recognized that the local
state is but a phase of a constitutional state, a more rational and more successful plan of care could
be instituted. If the gastric irritation and inflammation continue, and they will if toxemia is not eliminated and
its causes removed, the inflammation will extend to the gall duct and gall bladder and even into the
liver itself. Or it may extend up the pancreatic duct into the pancreas. As the patient’s mode of
living is not corrected and the systemic condition back of the irritation 
and inflammation is
increased and intensified, the disease spreads from membrane to membrane and new diseases
develop. Feeding the ulcer patient is a difficult problem. Not only is there a greatly impaired ability to
digest food, but there is the irritation of the ulcerated surface that is occasioned by so many
different foods. What a life one leads when reduced to the necessity of conforming to the requirements of a
capricious stomach! In peptic ulcer, due to the secretion of too much acid, it is customary to feed
small, frequent meals of bland foods. These are intended to use up the acid and to reduce, as much
as possible, the mechanical irritation of the ulcer. But feeding the patient every three to four hours, sometimes oftener, and even at night, means
that the patient is continually overeating. The very feeding program causes the excess secretion to
be continued and helps to perpetuate the same condition it is intended to palliate. Using food as a
99palliative is certainly not a correct dietary procedure. There are many different diets that are prescribed for ulcer patients and there are various plans
of treatment. Each has its own advocates, but the results of each plan of care and feeding are far
from satisfactory, for the reason that they ignore cause. Milk diets, cream diets, sippy diets, bland
diets, frequent small meals, and similar feeding programs are all intended to palliate symptoms. These diets cause less immediate irritation of the ulcerated surface, but they remove no cause,
hence health is not restored. This is not a valid plan of feeding and it defeats its own purpose by
adding to the systematic impairment that is back to the ulcer. Drugs are also used to palliate symptoms—drugs to relieve pain, tranquilizers for depression,
drugs to “coat the stomach.” antacids to counteract the acidity. Other drugs employed in ulcer
cases are intended only to provide short periods of relief from symptoms. They remove no cause,
hence they restore no health. Even the latest method of freezing the glands of the stomach is but a
palliative measure. It makes a digestive cripple out of the patient, but removes none of the causes
of peptic ulcer. Operations for peptic ulcer continue to be performed. And they are still very unsatisfactory. The
wall of the stomach in gastric ulcer is pretty generally irritated and inflamed. In this broad field of
inflammation the ulcer develops at the most inflamed point. This means that the part in which the
greatest pathological change has occurred must ulcerate. Removing the ulcer does not remove the
field of inflammation. Another point of the inflamed surface breaks down and another ulcer results. This simply means that removal of an ulcer leaves the field open for the evolution of another
ulcer and recurrence is the rule. Recurrence is due to the fact that the cause of the ulcer is
untouched by the operation. Indeed, if the stomach is removed, and the cause untouched, trouble
will evolve elsewhere out of the same causes. Surgery does not and cannot restore 
health. It is a
means of palliating symptoms and rarely anything more. Anemia is a frequent aftermath of removal
of large sections of the stomach. Gastroenterostomy (formation of a connection or communication between the stomach and the
small intestine, thus by-passing the pylorus) is a serious and crippling operation frequently
performed where ulcer and thickening of the pylorus are suspected. It should be gratifying to know
that it is not a necessary operation—that the thickened pylorus, like a thickened nasal membrane,
can be thinned by the fast. Fear and anxiety, coupled with the insistence of the surgeon that an operation is urgently needed,
cause many patients to permit themselves to be rushed into an operation. The surgeon often paints
vivid and frightening pictures of the dangers of delay. The equally startling post-operative picture
is painted by one who has had the operation. There is the operation, perhaps the subsequent operation for the relief of adhesions, the not
infrequent gall bladder drainage or removal, a second or even a third operation on the stomach for
recurrent ulcer, and the disillusionment that accompanies the return of symptoms. The
disappointment and bitterness often shatter the patient’s faith in medicine, but, alas! It comes too
late. The constitutional condition behind and preceding the incidence of peptic ulcer is by far the
most vital factor involved in its evolution. The anemia frequently seen in ulcer patients is probably
less due to the slight loss of blood through the ulcer than to the failure of blood making consequent
upon the general nutritional impairment of the patient. As the nutritive impairment precedes the formation of the ulcer often by several years producing
in many instances the so-called “ulcer race” the original impairment is not to be blamed upon the
100ulcer. Everything in the condition of the patient, both those pathologies that precede the ulcer and
those that are concomitant with it or successive to it, point to an existing constitutional impairment
which forms the basis of the ulceration. This is one reason that purely local treatment of ulcers is
so uniformly unsatisfactory. Any sore (whether on the exterior of the body or on the inside skin—the membrane lining the
digestive tract) will heal more rapidly and readily if unhampered. It must not continaully be
irritated by handling, rubbing, wrinkling, contracting and expanding. The irritation resulting from these mechanical activities, breaks down the healing tissues and
causes bleeding. The sore will heal better if given rest. For this reason, the first step necessary to
insure healing of a peptic ulcer is to ensure complete rest for the ulcerated organ. Nothing provides
this local rest of the digestive organs more completely than the fast. Irritation of the raw surface of the ulcer resulting from the gastric acidity will also prevent
healing of the peptic ulcer. New tissue cannot form in the presence of such irritations. Since fasting
causes a cessation of a secretion of gastric juice, which otherwise bathes the ulcerated surface,
this source 
of irritation is removed by the fast. In most cases only about three days of fasting are
required to suspend the secretion of gastric juice. The small amount of juice secreted thereafter
will be very weakly acid. Thus the fast speedily removes three sources of local irritation—the mechanical irritation
brought on by particles of food in contact with the raw surface, mechanical irritation resulting from
contraction and expansion of the walls of the stomach and wrinkling of its surfaces in receiving
and handling foods, and chemical irritation caused by the acid gastric juice. With the removal of
these sources of irritation, healing can proceed at a satisfactory rate. But fasting has another and more profound effect in the restoration of health to the ulcer patient. “Since it is easy to demonstrate,” wrote George Weger, M.D., “that the quckest way to overcome
constitutional acidity and restore normal alkalinity is by an absolute fast while resting in bed, one
can readily see that a complete fast serves not alone a dual purpose, but every purpose.” He
cautions against breaking the fast too soon, saying that this is a frequent cause of failure. “
The fast
must be continued until all reactions indicate that systemic renovation has been completed.”
It is also important to know that the fast results in the thickened lining of the pylorus becoming
thinned so that this passage again becomes normal, providing, of course, that this is done before
scar tissue has formed. Fasting will not result in a removal of scar tissue. As there are stages of
pathological evolution that cannot be remedied, it is the part of wisdom to remove all causes of
disease and restore the tissues to a normal state before such irreversible stages are reached. Pyloric inflammation will quickly improve and the patient will recover health if the habits of the
patient, especially his eating habits, are corrected. While I have especially emphasized the
necessity of correcting the habits of eating, it should be understood that all enervating habits should
be discontinued. Recovery from an ulcer involves far more than mere temporary healing of the ulcerated surface. Ulcers do heal and then recur, often doing so several times in the life of an ulcer patient. Ulcers
are frequently surgically removed, only to recur. The fact that there have been numerous instances
of recurrence after four and five operations for gastric ulcer is sure evidence that the operation
does not restore health. It fails to remove cause and until this is done there can be no genuine
recovery. Restoration of good health can take place at every stage of the pathological evolution which I
have pictured, from the irritation of the first cold to ulceration, inclusive, but when cachexia (the
101defining symptom of cancer) has evolved, the condition is irreversible. 10224
Migraine
“I know that my headaches are due to constipation,” a sufferer with migrane told me one day. “I’m
certain that if I could get rid of constipation, I would not suffer with headaches.” She had suffered
for years and had been the rounds of the disease-treaters. She had had about all the forms of
treatment the various schools of healing could offer, but she had never received more than brief
periods of evanescent relief. I told her that she had the true picture reversed. If she would get rid of her headaches, she would
be free of constipation. To this statement she replied: “You are crazy.” I replied: “I know it, and
so are you.” She asked: “What do you mean?” Then I explained to her that headache is a symptom
and constipation is a symptom and that symptoms do not cause each other, but that if she would get
rid of the common cause of both symptoms, she would be free of both of them at the same time. She accepted this as a logical approach to her troubles. No one else had ever suggested to her
that it would be essential to remove the cause of her suffering in order to end the suffering. They
had all depended on treatments to do what only removal of cause can do. She had a relatively short fast to enable her encumbered body to unload its accumulated toxin
and this was followed by a better way of living. She had no more headaches and her constipation
ended at the same time. Commonly referred to as “sick headache,” and “bilious headache” migraine is defined as
“periodic cephalalgia, (pain in the head), characterized by the absence of any local lesions which
might cause headaches, and peculiar as regards the visual and oculoplegic symptoms and psychic
symptoms which may accompany it.” Standard medical works state that there is evidence to sustain
the view that migraine is allergic in nature and I have even read the positive statement that it “can
be shown to be hereditary in every instance.”
Also called 
megrim
 and 
hemicrania
, this 
syndrome
 is characterized by periodic headaches,
often one-sided, and accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and various disturbances of the senses,
particularly disturbances of the eyes and ears. There is also likely to be intolerance to light 
and
noise, great prostration and an incapacity for mental concentration. Few if any other so-called functional diseases are accompanied by so much suffering. Indeed, it
is not an uncommon thing for these patients to become drug addicts in their search for relief from
their symptoms. Walter C. Alvarez, M.D., says that it is usual to put such patients in a hospital and give them
every test known to science and that as always in cases of migraine, nothing is “found that could
cause the migraine.” This is in line with the usual statement in standard works that no cause for the
disease is known. Dr. Weger, on the other hand, makes a very profound observation in relation to the disease:
“The toxemia theory can be more effectively demonstrated in its application to migraine than in
diseases of less regular periodicity. Due to frequent recurrence and consequent opportunity for
observation, every disease building factor can be checked and demonstrated in any given case so
that the whole complex can be laid bare and uncovered to the understanding.”
Women who have migraine (the disease is rare among men) are enervated and toxemic. They
suffer with poor digestion, often with menstrual troubles, and congestion of the pelvis. It is not
103difficult to determine the relation of migraine to the menstrual function, pelvic congestion and other
abnormal states of the reproductive organs. Poisoning coming from the digestive tract, added to the
prior enervation and toxemia, quickly builds migraine in those who are predisposed to its
evolution. I recall a typical instance in which I told a woman with migraine that she could be made well—
not 
cured
—in a period of from four to six weeks. “I don't believe you,” she stated. “Why should
fasting help when nothing else has?”
I have heard similar statements many times in these cases. When she was relieved of the
headaches, of course, she had no reason to disbelieve further. But in most of these cases, the
sufferers have no ground in their past experience to give them hope that permanent relief can be
achieved. Certainly none of the mere palliative treatments in vogue have given any confidence. Ergotamine and other “pain killing" drugs, as well as coffee freely used, to damage and fail to
remove any causes. It is rarely necessary for a sufferer with migraine to have more than a few headaches after she is
started on a 
Hygienic
 program. Indeed, she is most likely to get rid of her aches while she is still
fasting and they are not likely to recur when eating is resumed. There are long-standing cases where the nervous systems have been badly impaired by nerve-
depressing drugs. Here an extended period of strict self-discipline and a strong determination to
stick to a healthful program is required if the individual is to recover fully. Aside from such rather infrequent cases, most women can get well of 
their migraine by resort to
a relatively short fast. But this must be followed by a genuine correction of living habits
afterwards. Ten days to three weeks of fasting under experienced supervision, will suffice in most
cases. After-care also, in both the breaking of the fast and in the general return to good living habits,
should be equally well supervised. 10425
Hay Fever
The woman was an invalid. She had to be carried from bed to chair and from chair to bed. She
was too weak to walk more than a few steps at a time. Among her several complaints was hay
fever with which she had suffered each season for a number of years. It was 1918, and we were
busy making the world safe for democracy. Every Sunday she was taken by her husband to a Bible class. He would bring along a reclining
chair for her to use during the class. It was at this Bible class that she met a 
Hygienist
 and was
induced to try 
Hygiene
 as a means of recovering health. Weak as she was, she underwent not one
but several short fasts. Today as I write her story she has reached what many would consider old age, 73 years. She is
in good health. She has been able to work through these decades. For more than forty years she has
had no recurrence of hay fever. She has lived all of this time in southern climates where the air is
filled with pollens almost all the year. She has no allergies and eats any wholesome food that she desires. She is, however, but one
among thousands who have recovered from hay fever by the unloading of toxins and correcting the
mode of life. In hay fever the Schneiderian membrane (a mucous membrane) of the nose becomes highly
sensitive as a consequence of a state of chronic irritation (inflammation) for a lengthy period of
time. Particles of dust, lint, and pollen, easily add to the irritation and cause it to “water” and
become congested. The excited, irritated and inflamed state of the mucous membrane of the eyes,
nose and throat seen in hay fever is but a state of what was formerly known as catarrh. To put this
very simply: the sensitive condition of those membranes is due to the fact that they are sick—
inflamed. Today hay fever is said to be an allergy or to be caused by an allergy. Precise descriptions of
allergy vary greatly. In general it is defined as “a
 condition of unusual or exaggerated specific
susceptibility to a substance which is harmless in similar amounts for the majority of members of
the same species.”
Yet it seems to me to define allergy as an unusual sensitivity is to beg the question—and to
explain nothing. The baffled expert hides behind the brilliant obscurity of his definitions. Allergy is now said to
be due to failure of one of the normal defense mechanisms of the body. If there is truth in this, it
must not be permitted to blind us to the fact that the symptoms that are called allergic reactions
represent the calling into play of another of the body’s normal defense mechanisms. If one means
of defense fails or is inadequate, there are other modes of defense at the command of the living
organism which it may call upon. It is not left helpless because of the failure of one mechanism. Whatever else we may think of allergy, we must recognize that it is not a self-caused state. Why
is one man allergic and another not? Or, take the theory that allergy represents the failure of a
defense mechanism, why does the defense mechanism of one fail while that of another does not? To answer this question, we return to our basic cause of disease—toxemia. What is the cause of hay fever? It is a chronic inflammation of the nasal passages growing out of
a pronounced toxemic condition that commonly has lasted for years. Toxemia is the basic cause of
105all inflammations of the lining membranes of the hollow organs of the body. So long as the toxemic
state is maintained by enervating habits and so long as overeating is persisted in, there is no
possibility of recovering from hay fever. Anyone can test this statement for himself. Abstain from food for a time and watch the nasal
discharge and other symptoms of hay fever clear up. There is simply no need for any one to go on,
year after year, suffering with hay fever. Let the sufferer bear in mind that the pollens, the hair of
animals, and other substances to which he is sensitive of allergic, are normal elements of his
environment and he will realize that his sensitivity of them must be due to something within
himself, rather than in those perfectly normal things that do not trouble other people. All of these
elements are sources of allergic annoyance only to the sick. The healthy are not allergic. The hay fever sufferer will cease to be troubled as soon as he is restored to health. He will not
again be affected by them so long as he maintains a state of high level health. There are numerous
means of palliating the symptoms of hay fever, but as none of these remove any causes, none
restore the patient to health. Each season he is forced to return to the means of palliation, to rush off somewhere to escape
the source of his irritation. This is expensive, time-consuming and—futile. The hay fever sufferer should take a real vacation: he should go to bed and abstain from food. This will be both less expensive and more effective than sea voyages or junkets to pollen-free
mountains. Once the sufferer has been freed of his toxic load and the irritated state of the
membrances of his eyes, nose and throat has been corrected, all symptoms of hay fever come to an
end and they do not recur if he lives healthfully. Any return to enervating habits and to overeating
will result in a recurrence of the hay fever. The period of fasting required in hay fever is commonly longer than that required for the more
simple ailments. The time will run, in the average case, from ten days to four or even five weeks. Overweight individuals will require a longer fast than those of average weight or less. Allergy in hay fever, as well as in migraine headache, is not a cause but a symptom. The answer in both instances lies in disintoxication by fasting, by cleansing, by proper modes of
living. 10626
High Blood Pressure
High blood pressure is said to be second to hardening of the arteries as a cause of heart disease in
this country. By high blood pressure in this instance is meant that form of increased blood pressure
that is called hypertension. Due to a narrowing of the arteries, pressure builds up behind the
constricted vessels, thus adding to the work of the heart. Blood pressure may be understood if we think of a water hose through which water is flowing. The water flows through the unobstructed hose with a certain degree of pressure. If a nozzle is put
onto the hose, so that there is some obstruction to the flow of the water, there is an increase in
water pressure. If the opening of the nozzle is reduced, the water pressure increases still more. The
smaller the opening of the nozzle, the more water pressure is built up behind it. The same thing occurs in the arteries, in what is known as 
essential hypertension
. The aorta, the
largest artery in the body, may be compared to a tree trunk. The main arteries branch off from this
and other arteries branch off from these, like the branches of a tree. The branching continues, until
some of the branches are so small that they may be regarded as the twigs of the arterial tree. It is the narrowing or constriction of these arterioles that results in the
 building up of blood
pressure. Far from being disease of old age, hypertension is frequently seen in the young, even, in
rare instances, in babies. It is estimated that today five million Americans suffer with some degree of hypertension. As the
standards of normal blood pressure are not valid, the probability is that a far higher number of
Americans than this figure indicates have high blood pressure of the hypertensive type. Perhaps in
the vast majority of instances, the pressure is not high enough to constitute an annoyance or a
hazard, but its tendency is to increase with time. In no case should its causes be neglected. It is essential that we recognize the fact that high blood pressure is an ending in a chain of
causes and effects that extend back in the life of the patient for years—tensions in business and
personal affairs over-taxing the nervous system. Excessive venery is one of the most prominent causes, but lasciviousness when it is in control of
the mind is equally as pernicious. Excessive eating, coffee, tea, tobacco, alcohol, and a lack of
poise are among the most common causes. Salt eating undoubtedly contributes to its production,
but to blame high blood pressure on this alone is to ignore all the many other influences in the life
of the patient. In traditional Alice in Wonderland fashion of starting with a result as a cause, hypertension is
said to cause heart disease, and the hypertension is blamed upon the nerves. The fact that substances liberated by the kidneys, by the adrenal glands, perhaps substances
liberated by the thyroid and pituitary glands, can also cause high blood pressure, tends to reveal
that the condition may be more than simple nerve irritation—that it is a symptom of a general or
systemic state. This being true, the remedy is not some temporary forced reduction of pressure, but
a thorough removal of the causes of systemic impairment. Treatment is commonly directed to depressing the nervous system. The surgical procedures of
removing the thyroid gland and portions of the sympathetic nervous system are both based on the
assumption that the organs of the body are causes of disease. The fact that high blood pressure
never develops spontaneously in animals is given as the reason for the thought that the nervous
107system is involved in the cause of hypertension in man. Drugs given to depress the nervous system, to relax the arterial system, and to depress the heart
are the most common means of reducing blood pressure in cases of hypertension. It hardly needs to
be pointed out that such treatment removes no cause and provides reduction to the pressure only so
long as the drugs are being taken. Indeed, in most cases, the blood pressure tends to rise in spite of the depressing effects of the
drugs, after they have been taken over a brief period. The drugs all result in more or less annoying
and often serious side effects, so that there is a constant search for new, and it is hope, less
injurious drugs. Certainly the treatments in vogue are not satisfactory, neither to the patients nor to
their physicians. Multiple causation makes specific treatment a tragedy. The remedy must be as many-sided as the
cause. It will not do, for example, to have the patient discontinue the eating of salt and permit him
to continue to indulge in tobacco. Every element of cause must be removed to achieve certain and
lasting results. We should also recognize the fact that in high blood pressure we deal with a
symptom of a general systematic state that has been years in the making and is the result of many
correlated antecedents. The whole of the systemic abnormality must be remedied if we are to be successful in our
efforts to provide permanent reduction of blood pressure. Treatment directed at the symptom
cannot do more than provide a brief palliation of the symptom. The speed with which fasting results in a marked reduction of blood pressure indicates the
importance of rest in reducing systemic tension and excitement. The reduction may be so great in a
very few days as to astonish the patient. As the toxic load is reduced, the nervous system becomes
less irritated, the functions of the kidneys, adrenal, thyroid and pituitary glands are restored to
normal, so that blood pressure falls to new levels, even to normal or slightly below, and tends to
remain down after eating is resumed. Indeed, it will remain at or about the normal level so long as
the patient continues to live in a manner to avoid the redevelopment of toxemia. All of this is to say that the reduction of blood pressure secured by means of the fast is a genuine
reduction and not a forced state. The organism is not crippled in the process as it is when a gland
or portions of the sympathetic system are removed. If we cut out causes instead of cutting out
organs, we secure a genuine and lasting elimination of effects. As in all things, the causes that have produced the condition in the first place, will reproduce it
if they are not permanently removed. Fasting is not a substitute for achieving—and holding to a
correct way of life. 10827
The Fast and the Heart
It was formerly widely held by physicians that if one were to go without food for six days the heart
would collapse and death would result. The myth that fasting causes the heart to collapse persisted
in scientific circles, in 
spite of the great amount of evidence to the contrary, until after the famous
Cork hunger strike in 1920. Protesting their arrest following the Easter Rebellion of Irish patriots, Terence Mac Swiney,
Lord Mayor of Cork, Ireland, and his co-fasters went without food for periods ranging from over
seventy days to ninety-four days. They demonstrated by their long fasts the fallacy of the “heart
collapse” from the lack-of-food theory. Today we are foced to recognize the fact that instead of fasting weakening the heart, it results in
strengthening this wonderful organ. Stunt or exhibition fasters had also shown that man may safely abstain from food for extended
periods and their sensational proofs had received sufficient publicity, even scientific study, to
have dispelled the fallacy. Indeed, fasts by early 
Hygienists
 demonstrated the fallacy of this idea
of the early collapse of the heart, years before it was abandoned in the world of science. On this subject, Hereward Carrington, Ph.D., author of 
Vitality, Fasting
 and Nutrition says:
“That the heart is invariably strengthened and invigorated by fasting is true beyond a doubt. I take
the stand that fasting is the greatest of all strengtheners of weak hearts—being, in fact, its only
rational physiological care.” He attributed this improvement to the following three factors:
1. The added rest for fast provides for the heart. 2. The resulting improvement of the blood-stream. 3. The absence of the “stimulants” that patients in general and heart patients in particular are
accustomed to take. If we consider angina pectoris, a disease of the heart that grows out of constant stimulation with
tobacco, coffee, tea, wrong food combinations and excesses of carbohydrates, and observe the
effects of the fast in these patients, we are amazed at the speed with which the heart recovers from
its difficulties. Individuals who are inclined to overeat greatly, who have not learned their limitations regarding
quantity and who tend to overdo everything they undertake are likely to develop angina pectoris. Their mode of living places a heavy and constant strain upon the heart. Rest is its most urgent need. It is said authoritatively that during the past twenty years more than fifty drugs and surgical
treatments have been advocated for the relief of angina pectoris. At the same time angina has been
called a “self-limited disease,” and some authorities have held the position that their advice tried
during recovery might get the credit. How do we know that fasting is of genuine value in a case of angina? We do not claim that
fasting 
cures
 angina. We state only that it takes a load off the heart so that it may restore it own
normal condition in a more certain and speedy manner. “The ticker has certainly improved and slowed down; I can’t hear it any
 more,” this was a blind
Canadian discussing his condition with me after a few days of fasting, followed by a few days of
eating. Before beginning the fast he told me that for some time he had been able to hear the beat of
109his heart and that it was especially bothersome at night when he laid his head on the pillow. There was also rapid heart action, which troubled him considerably. Nothing brings about a
quieting down of a rapid heart and an excited system generally like rest with fasting. This takes a
heavy load off the heart and results in a speedy reduction of blood pressure. With a reduction of tension and a reduction of the number of repetitions of the heart’s pulsations,
this remarkable organ secures a real rest, something that nothing else can provide. With less work
to do, the heart repairs itself. The fast, as has been repeatedly emphasized in the preceding pages, is a period of physiological
rest. It does not do anything, it is merely a cessation of doing. The rest provides opportunity for the
body to do for itself, under conditions of rest, what it cannot do under conditions of full-speed
ahead. It can perform under abstinence what it cannot manage in a state of surfeit. So regular and
uniform is the improvement of the heart in the fast that it cannot be doubted that Carrington’s
statements are true. There are, of course, heart conditions that are beyond any possibility of
improvement and these will not be helped by the fast. In the hundreds of cases of heart disease that I have watched through fasts of various lengths, all
but a few have developed stronger and better hearts. Many of them, even so-called 
incurable
 ones,
have become entirely normal. Rapid hearts have slowed down, abnormally slow hearts have
speeded up, weak hearts have greatly improved in vigor, hearts that were irregular have become
regular in time and frequency, hearts that were missing pulsations (even as often as one pulsation
out of four) have resumed regular pulsation, and many other improvements in heart function have
been observed. (It should not be necessary to say that fasting does not enable the heart to grow a
new valve where one had been destroyed.) Since fasting relieves the heart of a great burden, improvement should not be surprising. The
heart is nourished from the body’s nutritive reserves just as certainly, and often more adequately,
than from raw materials arriving daily from the digestive tract. What more natural than that, given
the rest that fasting provides, it should be able to repair itself and renew its functional vigor? The rest provided for the heart is accounted for in two primary ways:
1. There is a marked lessening of the number of pulsations of the heart. A heart that is
pulsating eighty times a minute will fall to sixty or even fewer beats a minute. If the heart is
pulsating at a more rapid rate than eighty a minute, the fall in the pulse rate is even more dramatic. If we use the first figure of eighty pulsations a minute to work from and take the figure of sixty
beats a minute to represent the level to which the pulsations fall, we have a saving of twenty
pulsations a minute or twelve hundred pulsations an hour or 28,800 pulsations in twenty-four
hours. This represents a great reduction in the amount of work the heart does. Of course there are the usual fluctuations of the heart rate due to exertion and emotion. 2. Another restful factor is the fall of blood pressure. If the pressure is 160 mm. it will
speedily fall to 140, 130, even 115, where it will remain for the rest of the period of fasting. I saw
one case of a woman who had a systolic pressure of 295 mm. in which the pressure was reduced
in less than two weeks to 115 mm. This means that the heart is working against lessened
resistance. It beats with less force. Less forceful pulsations coupled with reduced number of
pulsations provide a rest for the tired and impaired heart. Under such conditions it repairs and
strengthens itself, and in a good number of cases that have been declared to be 
incurable
, the heart
has been fully restored. I call the foregoing sources of heart rest, 
primary
. There are other sources of rest for the heart
110that may be called 
secondary
. First among these is the reduction of weight. This is most marked in
fat individuals whose size is such that the heart has to labor to keep the blood circulating through
so much bulk. While the pressure often falls in these cases more rapidly than the flesh is lost, the
loss of pounds relieves the long-suffering heart of a burden. Every pound that is lost relieves the
heart of work it has been forced to do. Another factor to consider is that, in decompensation, the fall in the rate of pulsation is not as
immediate and rapid as in ordinary fasting cases. Decompensation is the inability of the heart to maintain adequate circulation.
Fasting_Can_Save_Your_Life_by_Herbert_M._Shelton.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        In those individuals in whom this development takes place, the foundation for
asthma is laid in the respiratory tract. That this explanation of the cause of asthma is valid is shown by the fact 
that elimination of
toxemia, restoration of normal nerve energy and correction of the mode of living results in a
permanent clearing up of symptoms and the individual no longer suffers with asthma. As no other
means of care results in a more rapid freeing of the body of its toxic load than physiological rest,
nothing brings relief from asthmatic paroxysms as certainly and as speedily as the fast. But relief is not all the sufferer wishes. He wants to get well and this is precisely what he
accomplishes if the fast is conducted long enough and his mode of eating and living after the fast
are made to conform to his genuine physiological needs. The length of the fast required to enable the asthmatic to breathe freely and easily will depend
on the severity of the condition. Usually within twenty-four to thirty-six hours the worst cases are
enabled to lie flat in their beds and to breathe easily and sleep. Breathing is not normal at this
stage, as the stethoscope quickly reveals. There will be rales in the lungs, as there will be mucus
in these structures. Indeed, the secretion of mucus will not cease for several days. I favor carrying the fast to the clearing up of all abnormal sounds in the lungs, if this is possible. In very thin and weak individuals this is not always to be recommended. In such instances, a fast as
long as it is safe must be followed by a period of light eating and then another fast is
recommended. In long-standing cases of this kind, several short fasts and periods of careful
feeding may be required before full recovery results. Some fasting advocates advise not taking nourishment until at least thirty-six hours after all
asthmatic symptoms have cleared up. But these experts also urge a return to the fast if eating is
followed by asthmatic sensations. The recurrence of symptoms so soon after eating is resumed is
certain evidence that the fast has not been carried far enough to permit full systematic readjustment. I do not favor playing with asthma in this manner. In the long run, where a more extended fast is
possible, it will prove more effective and the results will be far more satisfactory. 9122
Arthritis: Two Years or Twenty-eight. “Two years. ” exclaimed a patient, when told it would require a minimum of two years for him to
get well of his arthritis by fasting and other 
Hygienic
 methods. “I have taken twenty-eight years
already. What are two more years. ”
He had been a bacteriologist working in a laboratory and giving nothing more than the usual
attention to his health, when he developed the first signs of arthritis. He was in intimate daily
contact with physicians of the highest order and received the best care the profession had to offer
in this disease. But, as is generally known and is admitted by the profession, no cure for the
disease exists. Palliation—relieving symptoms without removing the cause of the disease—is all
that is provided, and this does not prevent the spread and intensification of the trouble. With the passage of the years, joint after joint became involved until, when the foregoing remark
was made to a 
Hygienist
 who had been consulted, the patient was a twisted and distorted man
walking with the aid of crutch and cane, in a much stooped position. He was unable to turn his
head from side to side, and in constant pain. He was told that there was a possibility that some of his joints were ankylosed—fused—and
that, if so, these joints would remain ankylosed. There is no way to un-fuse ankylosed joints. They
remain fixed, immovable. The good news was, in this case, however, that he could be freed of
pain. He could be restored to usefulness and he could enjoy life. This man underwent a lengthy fast—one of thirty-six days. There was great improvement. He
was freed of pain, witnessed the disappearance of swelling from some of his joints, its reduction
in others and the slow return of movement to joints that had long been stiff. Two years were not enough. It took four years to complete all the improvement possible in this
man. During this time he had a second long fast and several fasts of a few days each. His eating
between fasts was carefully supervised; he was given daily sun baths and after a certain 
amount of
initial improvement had been made, he was given daily exercise. Result: his spine is almost straight, the use of his arms and legs is normal, he can turn his head,
he walks in a nearly upright position, he does not use cane or crutch, he has no pain, he looks the
“picture of health,” and he works like a slave. He has remained in excellent health with no recurrence of pain or swelling for a period of seven
years, and feels so well that he has taken on a lot of political activities in addition to his regular
work, which is enough for one man. His was an extreme case and required a lengthy period for recovery. Let us consider for contrast
a milder case, of shorter duration with less joint inflammation and stiffness: Mrs. G. was forty-four
years old. She was the wife of a Canadian school principal. Her arthritis was of but a few months
standing, but it was painful and crippled her movements. Mrs. G’s physician could promise her
nothing but temporary relief which was aspirin or cortisone for the rest of her life. He told her
there would be a probable spreading and increase of pain. She journeyed to the States and
underwent a fast. The fast lasted only three weeks, but it freed her of all pain and inflammation and
restored normal movement to her joints. “I am going to advertise you all over Canada,” she said to the 
Hygienist
 who conducted her fast
and after-care. She kept her word, but the important thing in this connection is that, after the
92passage of over three years, she is still free of arthritis. She has had no recurrence of pain and
inflammation. Her enthusiasm for fasting in particular and 
Hygiene
 in general knows no bounds. These two cases may be taken as typical of hundreds of similar cases the writer has seen
recover during the past more than forty years. Not all of these recoveries have continued on for
years without recurrence; some of the individuals were foolish enough to return to their former
disease-producing mode of living, but they have been able to remedy the recurrences by returning
to good physical behavior, so that they have remained well. Keeping well requires that we give a reasonable amount of intelligent attention to the manner in
which we live. It takes no more time and effort to eat sensibly than it does to eat imprudently and
indiscriminately. One must breathe—it requires no more time to breathe pure air than it does to
breathe impure air. Indeed, in all the ways of living, not more time, often less time is required to
live rightly than wrongly. Why shall we go through life taking an antacid after each meal, when it is possible to eat in such
a way that we can at all times be comfortable after meals. Why shall we take aspirin for recurrent
headaches, when we can live in a manner to avoid headaches. Why take a daily laxative, when it
is easily possible to have normal bowel movements. The intelligent reader will have no difficulty
in answering these questions. Discomfort has meaning to the observing and reasoning individual. The intelligent man should
see in all discomforts and pains hints of warnings that he should slow down and eliminate some of
his indulgences. He should heed their warnings. Nature is a remarkable teacher and if we accept
her instructions and observe her warning signs, health and long life will be ours. Because of its very painful nature and its tendency to completely incapacitate the sufferer,
rheumatic arthritis is one of the most serious and most dreaded disease of man. Developing, as it
does in the joints, it soon, unless its causes are removed, makes an invalid or a semi-invalid of the
patient. The pain is so severe and so persistent that it rapidly destroys all peace of mind and
prevents rest and sleep. Although probably developing most frequently in cold, damp areas,
arthritis is found in all localities. Several varieties of arthritis are known, but listing then is of no practical importance. Were we
laboriously to draw a picture of each of the several varities in the forms of the disease, we would
be but filling up space and wearying the reader. All of these several variations are traceable to the
same underlying cause, and are remediable by eliminating this cause. Pain and swelling of the tissues surrounding the joints are prominent features of the early stages
of arthritis. As soon as inflammation develops, efforts are made to immobilize the joint. The
muscles and ligaments become tensed and contracted, the on-guard condition thus developed
seemingly increasing the pain. Involving as it does the joints, especially the surrounding tissues, arthritis presents a more
complicated problem than the more simple, transient pains and aches that may be called
rheumatism, such as lumbago, or so-called muscular rheumatism. Developing, as it frequently
does, in the cartilage that pads the ends of the bones of the joints, the arthritis may lead to
destruction of the cartilage and produce deformity. If the cause is not removed, the denuded ends of the bones will ultimately unite (ankylose) so
that the joint becomes fixed and immovable. When this bony union takes place the pain ceases, but
the joint is forever lost. Rheumatic arthritis is not built in a day. The vigorous and strong may practice enervating habits
for years before it evolves. Or such individuals may, after its first appearance, hold it in check for
93years before it becomes a serious crippling influence. We should know that arthritis represents an
end-point in a pathological process that has been years in its development. Before the development of the joint inflammation, there are aches and pains, with periods of not
feeling well, periods of not being able to sleep, of poor appetite, of indigestion, and of other
evidences that all is not well within. So long as we continue to close our eyes to the existence of
the many “minor” symptoms and refuse to recognize them as forerunners of the more complex
stages of disease, just so long will we refuse to make 
those changes in our way of life that are
essential to the prevention of arthritis. How often do people who are bothered with vague musuclar pains, a little stiffening of the
joints, a “touch of neuritis,” an “attack” of lumbago or of sciatica, mistake the significance of these
warning signs. They palliate these symptoms with drugs, massage, manipulations, hot baths, and
persist in the way of life that builds trouble. Suppressing symptoms does nothing to remove their causes and fails to check the further
development of a chronic state and the possible development of invalidism. Fundamentally and primarily the cause of arthritis is toxemia. This is the summing up of a
multitude of abuses of the body in eating, drinking, emoting, in sexual activity, and in other forms
of activity. Eating too much from childhood lays the foundation for the toxemia. No one knows just
how many subtle toxins are involved in the cause of arthritis. It may be said that hundreds or even
thousands may be involved in its production. Years will elapse before it becomes possible to isolate all the compounds amino acids alone
are capable of forming with one another and with other by-products of proteins and carbohydrates. It is safe to assume that no single poison is alone and independently responsible for the evolution
of any complex pathology. How can we hope, in our present state of ignorance, to isolate and analyze one particular toxic
substance that is the cause of cancer or of Bright’s disease or of insanity. Can it be asserted with
any degree of assurance that the toxins responsible for any one or all of the so-called degenerative
diseases differ in any essential. The character of the disease resulting from the toxic saturation is
determined by individual factors rather than by the character of the toxin. I describe the cause of arthritis as a perversion of nutrition in a toxemic subject. There seems to
be no doubt that the primary irritation leading to the abnormal changes in the joints is due to the
presence in the blood and lymph of an unstable toxic material accumulating for months and years in
one who is enervated. These sufferers are always heavy eaters, but are especially prone to overeat
on sweets and starches—bread, potatoes, cakes, pies and candy. Their joints are likely to be stiff and they find it difficult to get around in the morning when they
first arise. Stiffness wears off after a little use of the limbs, but the knee joints, ankle joints, elbow
joints, and other joints of the body are likely to complain bitterly when used. There may be no pain
and there are rarely any constitutional symptoms, so that the patient is likely to think that the
stiffness is entirely local. Wrong food combinations, excesses of starches and sugars, condiments, coffee, tea, liquors, and
tobacco are potent factors in laying the groundwork for the evolution of arthritis. Added to these
factors may be any form of 
enervating emotional unrest, sensual indulgence, and physical
overactivity. With all of this said, arthritis seems to develop only in those of the so-called gouty or
arthritic or rheumatic diathesis—or predisposition. Diathesis is only a word and will remain more
or less meaningless unless we understand the factors behind the predisposition. Rheumatic arthritis, as distinguished from traumatic and tubercular arthritis, represents an
94impaired state of nutrition in addition to the common toxemia. The calcium deposits and stone
formation that are part of the disease indicate that the nutritional perversion is similar to, if not
identical with, that which is back of the formation of gall stones, kidney stones, hardening of the
arteries, deposits of lime on the valves of the heart, deposits in the feet in gout, and the formation
of stones in other parts of the body. When enervation and toxemia have lowered resistance, anything that puts an added strain upon
the body may precipitate an arthritic crisis in one who is predisposed to the development of
arthritis. Acute illness, “infection,” a “focus on infection,” indigestion, an unusual meal, cold,
getting wet, anxiety and overindulgence of the emotions, may precipitate a crisis. So-called infections from abscessed teeth or abscesses elsewhere in the body should be
recognized for what they are—
secondary sources of trouble. Super-added to toxemia and
gastrointestinal putrefaction, they complicate the condition of the patient. They are never primary
causes. Yet, it sometimes happens that a patient is able to resist the other sources of troubles but not
these plus the secondary "infection,” so that, when the source of secondary "infection” is removed,
the symptoms temporarily clear up. This is heralded as a great victory for 
science. Recurrence too
frequently vitiates the victory. There have been so many kinds of treatment for arthritis that it would be needless to try to
enumerate all of them. It can only be said that none of them have proved satisfactory. Spas, springs,
water cures, mud, salt, soap baths, sulphur baths, hot baths, electro-therapy, packs, drugs,
nostrums, and serums have all had their day and have been found wanting. Some of them have
afforded temporary relief in many instances; none has been more than a palliative. To get well and remain well of rheumatism, lumbago, muscular rheumatism, inflammatory
rheumatism, gout, arthritis, no matter what form it may assume, the sufferer must discontinue all
enervating habits and learn his limitations and respect them. Every normal habit indulged to satiety
and every abnormal habit produces disease. Here is the origin of every so-called disease. The end
is chronic disease and premature death. Until we learn to recognize the fact that symptoms are the result of toxic saturation and learn the
source of the intoxication, we are left with nothing we can do for the sick except provide a brief
and questionable palliation. The man who can offer his patient nothing more than an 
anodyne
 or a
sedative
 can do much harm but he can do no good. To be truly effective the care of the arthritic case should be directed at the removal of the cause
of the disease. To give drugs, whether aspirin, cortisone or other of the drugs now in use for
arthritis, which are intended to do nothing more than provide the patient with brief periods of
relief from pain, is to remove no cause. Although most of these drugs are given to “relieve” the
pain, it is asserted that cortisone temporarily relieves some of the other symptoms, but it does not
go beyond palliation, while it does build a more difficult condition to remedy. The body has remarkable recuperative powers and it often succeeds in restoring health in spite
of the remedies. It can do a much better and more speedy job if the remedies and the causes that
have built the disease are removed. The body must be given an opportunity to eliminate its toxic
accumulation by means of a fast and then an opportunity to alter its blood chemistry by means of a
more or less radical change in the plan of eating. This done, the results will be surprising. We do not restore normal nutrition by removing the effects of impaired nutrition. The proposal
to cut into the arthritic joints and scrape away the deposits of lime is but a proposal to try another
means of spectacular palliation. Even if it could be successfully done, it would be but a short time
95until more deposits would take the place of those scraped away. The cutting and the scraping
would have to be done all over again. Nothing can more certainly or more rapidly alter the state of the nutrition of the body than a fast. No other means at our disposal brings about a more rapid change in the chemistry of the body,
especially of its fluids and secretions. Fasting relieves the pains of arthritis, for example, more
effectively than drugs and does it without risk or harm. The duration of the fast in arthritis will have to depend on individual circumstances and should
never be undertaken except under the personal supervision of one who is thoroughly familiar with
the techniques of fasting. It is customary to advise the arthritic to exercise the affected joints to prevent these from
becoming fixed. It is asserted that this stays the development of ankylosis or bony union. However
much truth there may be in this claim, the forced activity tends to aggravate the inflammation and
intensify the pain. I find it better to let the affected joint rest until fasting has enabled the body to
remove the deposits and infiltrations from the joint and to clear up the inflammation. In this way
the stiff joint spontaneously limbers up and may be used without pain. The vast majority of patients with arthritis whom I have been called upon to care for have been
in advanced stages of chronic disease. They have all had months to years of the usual forms of
treatment, including the removal of several “foci of infection,” and they have still suffered. Indeed,
their history shows that they have grown progressively worse under such forms of treatment. They
have been in pain. They were deformed. They were more or less helpless. Why. I repeat: the
primary cause of their suffering had been neglected. Recovery from chronic arthritis is a slow evolution out of a state of ill health and into a state of
biochemical dependability. It involves many factors—age, weight, extent of the disease, its
duration, degrees of joint destruction, the amount of ankylosis, previous habits of living and eating,
the amount of nerve energy in reserve, the character of complications that exist (such as heart
disease), the occupation, disposition and environment of the patient. All of these factors determine
the extent of recovery possible and the rapidity with which recovery can take place. Chief among the requirements of recovery is a willingness and determination to carry out all
instructions. Those who cheat and who balk at restrictions and rules are less likely to achieve the
return of good health. An absolute minimum of sugar and starches should be included in the diet. Self-control, self-denial, many restrictions, a dogged determination to get well, even if the
restrictions are sometimes irksome and the progress discouraging, help in recovery. 9623
Peptic Ulcer
When, on July 28, 1939, William J. Mayo, M. D. , the last of the two brothers who established the
famous Mayo clinic, died, the press carried the story that he died of a sub-acute perforating ulcer,
an abdominal ailment he had specialized in treating. Said one dispatch: “Stricken shortly after he
returned from a winter vacation in the southwest, Dr. Will underwent a stomach operation at the
clinic last April and never fully recovered. ”
It was but a few years after Dr. Mayo’s death when it was announced from this same clinic that
operation for ulcer is not good treatment. While operations are still being performed for ulcers,
they are not performed so frequently as formerly. It is no unusual thing for a specialist to die of the disease in which he specializes. That they
“take their own medicine” attests to their sincerity; that they cannot protect themselves reveals that
the knowledge they possess is not dependable. A man may be a leading surgeon and not know the
cause of the peptic ulcer, and endurated (hardened) pylorus, the fibroid tumor, the gallstone or
kidney stone that he cuts out. This is a very unsatisfactory situation; without a knowledge of cause,
the specialists is working in the dark. The symptoms of “diseases of the stomach" are many—and often not nearly so clear-cut as the
layman may imagine. It is true there are a few more or less “fixed symptoms” of stomach ulcer—pain, tenderness at
the pit of the stomach, vomiting and hemorrhage, but these may also be symptoms of cancer or they
may be present in less serious diseases of the stomach. For these reasons diagnosis of ulcer from
the symptoms alone is very difficult. X-ray and fluoroscopic examinations are made to confirm the
examiner's suspicions, but it is only in exceptionally pronounced cases that this means can prove
anything conclusively. The fact is that the X-ray often indicates ulcer where no ulcer exists and often fails to reveal an
ulcer where one does. Falsely called an “executive's disease,” peptic ulcer is said to kill 11,000 persons a year in this
country, through hemorrhage and complications. Thirteen million Americans are said to have
peptic ulcer. It may be open to serious doubt that there are that many executives in the nation. Abuses in eating, drinking, smoking, sex, the emotions, and in other facets of living are the most
likely causes. Tilden says that “the sexually enervated are slow to reproduce tissue. Ulcers refuse
to heal; infections slowly, but surely, take place; chronic diseases are uncontrollable. ” In the
sexually abused there is laid the groundwork for the evolution of many diseases. The prevailing concept is that peptic ulcer, that is, ulcer of the lower end of the esophagus, the
stomach and of the upper end of the duodenum, is due to the action of the gastric juice (the
hydrochloric acid and pepsin) of the stomach digesting and corroding the walls of these parts of
the digestive tube. As the food is carried below the duodenum, bile and other juices render the
content alkaline, so that there is no action of the pepsin and hydrochloric acid, hence no peptic
ulcers below the duodenum. This concept is far from being as certain as some believe. The membrane of the stomach is
chemically non-corrosive. For untold ages the lining of these organs has been in contact with the
digestive juices and this juice has been digesting the toughest protein foods that man has eaten and,
97normally, throughout all this time, the gastric juice has not digested the delicate lining of the
stomach, esophagus and duodenum. To say that suddenly the acid and pepsin of the stomach digests and corrodes the lining of these
organs and let the matter rest there is to fail to understand the cause of peptic ulcer. It is said that something happens to the internal chemistry of the body to cause the gastric juice to
digest the stomach; it is believed, by some, that emotional stresses may be the cause of this
chemistry change. Once the
 membrane collapses, so the theory runs, the stomach juice certainly
acts on the tissues and extends the ulcer, often eating through the wall of the stomach or duodenum
(perforation) with fatal results. It is significant in this connection that this digestion that is assumed to be certain is an
exceedingly slow process, often requiring years for its climax. Yet this self-digestion does not occur in the healthy stomach, no matter how much acid may be
secreted. Hydrochloric acid is a normal secretion of the glands of the stomach, a necessity in the
digestion of protein foods. To believe that it is disease-building is not rational. An excess of acid
secretion due to some evanescent cause may give rise to discomfort and distress, but there will be
no digestion of the lining membrane of the stomach. There may be a flow of the contents of the
stomach back into the gullet, resulting in the symptom commonly called “heart burn,” but this will
not result in any damage to the membrane. Long-continued suffering with heart burn (most often seen in those who overeat on sugars and
syrups and those who wrongly combine their foods, and who drink liquids with meals) may result
in sufficient irritation of the lining of the esophagus and stomach to cause inflammation, but up to
this point, at least, there will be no digestion of the walls of the gullet and stomach. The acids of
decomposition, resulting from overeating and imprudent eating, are the acids that complicate
gastric and duodenal ulcer. Experimentally, fresh tissue from other parts of the body, when sutured to the gastric wall, is not
digested and this suggests that the walls of the digestive tube are not digested by the gastric juice. But I think that an even stronger reason to doubt the role of the digestive juice in producing peptic
ulcer is the fact that ulcers develop in many other part of the body—the nose, sinuses, mouth,
tongue, throat, colon, bladder, womb, cervix, vagina, gall bladder and upon the surface of the
body, as in varicose ulcer— without the digestive action of the gastric secretion. There is in ulcers, in each of these other locations, a preliminary and persistent inflammation
with hardening and a subsequent breakdown of tissue. The evaluation of ulcer of the esophagus,
stomach and duodenum out of chronic irritation and inflammation and hardening seems to be as
certain as its evolution out of these pre-ulcer states in other locations. The history of cases of gastric and duodenal ulcer reveals that very early in life, the patient had
developed gastro-intestinal irritation and inflammation. The mode of living and eating that resulted
in the irritation continued, added to, intensified, and the recurring discomforts were palliated with
drugs, until the patient passes through the already indicated stages of pathological evolution—
irritation, inflammation, a gradual thickening of the mucous and sub-mucous tissues (hardening),
and, then, ulceration. The increasing hardening chokes arterial circulation, cutting off oxygen and the food supply, so
that the tissues break down, giving rise to an open sore or ulcer. Cancer may be the final ending in this evolution. It is one of the endings of a chain of symptoms
starting with irritation, and passing through inflammation, thickening and swelling (hardening or
induration), ulceration (ulcer formation), and fungation (cancer). 98The same chain of causes and effects may precede both endings or cancer may evolve out of the
ulcer. It should be understood that both of these diseases—ulcer and cancer—represent end-points
in a process of pathological evolution that had simple beginnings and became more complex as it
developed. This is the reason why the search for a specific cause for cancer has been so
disappointing. All of the cancer-producing (carcinogenic) agents so far discovered are causative in only a
certain percentage of cases—in those in whom the ground has already been prepared for cancer
development. Ulcer, like cancer, is an ending in a chain of symptoms that begins far back of the evolution of
the ulcer itself. Repeated stomach crises (gastritis) end in ulcer. The ulcer develops after scores of
gastric crises that have occurred frequently in infancy, childhood, youth, and maturity. Ulcer is
classed as an organic disease, which means that abnormal changes have taken place in the structure
of the wall of the organ affected. Organic changes follow in the wake of vascular (artery and vein) degeneration and hardening. Indurations (hardenings) wait upon circulatory changes, particularly asphyxiation of the tissues. Ulceration may be said to be an active degeneration from cell apoplexy; cancer is passive
degeneration from cell asphyxiation. The beginning of both these forms of disease is irritation. All
chronic forms of inflammation begin as irritation and are followed by ulceration and, if the
location favors stasis (stoppage of the blood flow), induration and cancer will follow. The major links in this chain of pathological evolution are enervation, intoxication, irritation,
inflammation, induration, ulceration and fungation. That last is cancer. Should cancer be the only
unknown element in this pathological composite. Concomitant with the gastric ulcer is a chronic state of excessive acidity of the stomach, a
condition known as 
gastric hyperacidity. The common belief is that the excess stomach acid is a
purely local condition. It is not recognized that this hyperacidity is symptomatic of the systemic condition of the
sufferer. This is the reason that treatment is only local; whereas, if it were recognized that the local
state is but a phase of a constitutional state, a more rational and more successful plan of care could
be instituted. If the gastric irritation and inflammation continue, and they will if toxemia is not eliminated and
its causes removed, the inflammation will extend to the gall duct and gall bladder and even into the
liver itself. Or it may extend up the pancreatic duct into the pancreas. As the patient’s mode of
living is not corrected and the systemic condition back of the irritation 
and inflammation is
increased and intensified, the disease spreads from membrane to membrane and new diseases
develop. Feeding the ulcer patient is a difficult problem. Not only is there a greatly impaired ability to
digest food, but there is the irritation of the ulcerated surface that is occasioned by so many
different foods. What a life one leads when reduced to the necessity of conforming to the requirements of a
capricious stomach. In peptic ulcer, due to the secretion of too much acid, it is customary to feed
small, frequent meals of bland foods. These are intended to use up the acid and to reduce, as much
as possible, the mechanical irritation of the ulcer. But feeding the patient every three to four hours, sometimes oftener, and even at night, means
that the patient is continually overeating. The very feeding program causes the excess secretion to
be continued and helps to perpetuate the same condition it is intended to palliate. Using food as a
99palliative is certainly not a correct dietary procedure. There are many different diets that are prescribed for ulcer patients and there are various plans
of treatment. Each has its own advocates, but the results of each plan of care and feeding are far
from satisfactory, for the reason that they ignore cause. Milk diets, cream diets, sippy diets, bland
diets, frequent small meals, and similar feeding programs are all intended to palliate symptoms. These diets cause less immediate irritation of the ulcerated surface, but they remove no cause,
hence health is not restored. This is not a valid plan of feeding and it defeats its own purpose by
adding to the systematic impairment that is back to the ulcer. Drugs are also used to palliate symptoms—drugs to relieve pain, tranquilizers for depression,
drugs to “coat the stomach. ” antacids to counteract the acidity. Other drugs employed in ulcer
cases are intended only to provide short periods of relief from symptoms. They remove no cause,
hence they restore no health. Even the latest method of freezing the glands of the stomach is but a
palliative measure. It makes a digestive cripple out of the patient, but removes none of the causes
of peptic ulcer. Operations for peptic ulcer continue to be performed. And they are still very unsatisfactory. The
wall of the stomach in gastric ulcer is pretty generally irritated and inflamed. In this broad field of
inflammation the ulcer develops at the most inflamed point. This means that the part in which the
greatest pathological change has occurred must ulcerate. Removing the ulcer does not remove the
field of inflammation. Another point of the inflamed surface breaks down and another ulcer results. This simply means that removal of an ulcer leaves the field open for the evolution of another
ulcer and recurrence is the rule. Recurrence is due to the fact that the cause of the ulcer is
untouched by the operation. Indeed, if the stomach is removed, and the cause untouched, trouble
will evolve elsewhere out of the same causes. Surgery does not and cannot restore 
health. It is a
means of palliating symptoms and rarely anything more. Anemia is a frequent aftermath of removal
of large sections of the stomach. Gastroenterostomy (formation of a connection or communication between the stomach and the
small intestine, thus by-passing the pylorus) is a serious and crippling operation frequently
performed where ulcer and thickening of the pylorus are suspected. It should be gratifying to know
that it is not a necessary operation—that the thickened pylorus, like a thickened nasal membrane,
can be thinned by the fast. Fear and anxiety, coupled with the insistence of the surgeon that an operation is urgently needed,
cause many patients to permit themselves to be rushed into an operation. The surgeon often paints
vivid and frightening pictures of the dangers of delay. The equally startling post-operative picture
is painted by one who has had the operation. There is the operation, perhaps the subsequent operation for the relief of adhesions, the not
infrequent gall bladder drainage or removal, a second or even a third operation on the stomach for
recurrent ulcer, and the disillusionment that accompanies the return of symptoms. The
disappointment and bitterness often shatter the patient’s faith in medicine, but, alas. It comes too
late. The constitutional condition behind and preceding the incidence of peptic ulcer is by far the
most vital factor involved in its evolution. The anemia frequently seen in ulcer patients is probably
less due to the slight loss of blood through the ulcer than to the failure of blood making consequent
upon the general nutritional impairment of the patient. As the nutritive impairment precedes the formation of the ulcer often by several years producing
in many instances the so-called “ulcer race” the original impairment is not to be blamed upon the
100ulcer. Everything in the condition of the patient, both those pathologies that precede the ulcer and
those that are concomitant with it or successive to it, point to an existing constitutional impairment
which forms the basis of the ulceration. This is one reason that purely local treatment of ulcers is
so uniformly unsatisfactory. Any sore (whether on the exterior of the body or on the inside skin—the membrane lining the
digestive tract) will heal more rapidly and readily if unhampered. It must not continaully be
irritated by handling, rubbing, wrinkling, contracting and expanding. The irritation resulting from these mechanical activities, breaks down the healing tissues and
causes bleeding. The sore will heal better if given rest. For this reason, the first step necessary to
insure healing of a peptic ulcer is to ensure complete rest for the ulcerated organ. Nothing provides
this local rest of the digestive organs more completely than the fast. Irritation of the raw surface of the ulcer resulting from the gastric acidity will also prevent
healing of the peptic ulcer. New tissue cannot form in the presence of such irritations. Since fasting
causes a cessation of a secretion of gastric juice, which otherwise bathes the ulcerated surface,
this source 
of irritation is removed by the fast. In most cases only about three days of fasting are
required to suspend the secretion of gastric juice. The small amount of juice secreted thereafter
will be very weakly acid. Thus the fast speedily removes three sources of local irritation—the mechanical irritation
brought on by particles of food in contact with the raw surface, mechanical irritation resulting from
contraction and expansion of the walls of the stomach and wrinkling of its surfaces in receiving
and handling foods, and chemical irritation caused by the acid gastric juice. With the removal of
these sources of irritation, healing can proceed at a satisfactory rate. But fasting has another and more profound effect in the restoration of health to the ulcer patient. “Since it is easy to demonstrate,” wrote George Weger, M.
Toxemia.
What is the primary cause of asthma?
The duration of the fast will depend on the severity of the condition, but it should be continued until all abnormal sounds in the lungs have cleared up.
What is the recommended duration of a fast for an individual with chronic arthritis?
Fasting is the recommended approach, as it provides rest and allows the body to remove its toxic load, which is the underlying cause of the condition.
What is the recommended approach to treating hay fever?
Toxemia, which is the result of a chronic state of enervation and poor nutrition.
What is the primary cause of high blood pressure?
The recommended approach is to eliminate the underlying causes of the condition by correcting the patient's mode of living and eating, and then implementing a fast to allow the body to restore its normal functioning.
What is the recommended approach to treating peptic ulcer?