Overfeeding with loss of weight is a familiar pattern; every day we meet underweight people
who are eating valiantly to gain weight and they complain that the more they eat the more they lose. They try first one weight-gaining diet and then another but remain thin or grow thinner. The overfed
organism is often undernourished to a degree that reveals itself in rapid emaciation. Food and nutrition are not synonymous. One is not nourished in 
proportion to the amount of food
ingested, but in proportion to how much one digests and assimilates. When digestion and
assimilation are impaired, overeating in an effort to put on weight defeats its purpose. Emaciation
is due to impairment of health, rarely to lack of food. The emaciation is commonly proportionate to
the extent of the impairment of health. What such patients need is not more food but a properly
functioning de-toxified system able to digest and assimilate food. Given this they have no difficulty
in gaining weight. Because fasting results in a rejuvenation of assimilation, it commonly enables chronically
underweight patients to gain weight where everything else fails. Naturally they lose weight during
the fast, but they regain more after the fast is broken than they lose during the fast. This is in
harmony with both experience and experiment in the animal kingdom. Experimental fasts have demonstrated that after a fast less food is required to maintain physical
energies, physiological activities, nitrogen balance, and weight, because fasting produces a more
efficient physiological machine. This is the reason that the emaciated person, who remains thin on
the various “weight gaining” diets, commonly finds that after a fast he will gain weight on much
less food than he has been in the habit of taking. From long observation farmers report the following. If a pig smaller than other members of the
litter because of insufficient milk is taken from the litter and fed adequately, it grows more rapidly
than the others in the litter, catching up with and even passing them in size. Osborn, Mendel and Thomson, three standard authorities in dietetics and biochemistry, in a
series of classical experiments, confirmed these observations under test conditions. They found
that the growth which is resumed after an arrest by insufficient food, proceeds at a more rapid pace
than usual, attaining, for a time, a magnitude which they ascribe to an excess of compensation. A similar phenomenon is observed to occur after a fast by the emaciated. The period of
physiological rest provided by the fast, results in better digestion, better assimilation and a better
and more economical use of food. It has been shown that fasting results in an intense nitrogen
hunger and, at the same time, a greatly increased capacity to utilize nitrogen. This provides for the
production of a better type of tissue than the fatty tissues which result from overeating on starches,
sugars and fats. Reduced to simplest terms, this means that the body calls for and utilizes proteins more readily
and thus puts on a very different type of flesh from that which results from stuffing on sugars,
starches and fats. Where this latter type of eating often results in a gain of weight it is nothing more
significant than the laying on of pounds of useless fat. Protein-built tissue, on the other hand, is
69good, sound and useful tissue and provides for a 
much better appearance of body. It is important in
gaining weight to gain it properly and healthfully. There is a wealth of evidence to show that metabolism is accelerated by fasting, a fact which
can only mean a more efficient turn-over of nutritive materials. Metabolism is the term applied to
the overall process by which foods are transformed into flesh and by which the used up substances
are disassimilated. It is especially the building up phase of metabolism (called anabolism) that is
accelerated by the fast. The fact is undeniable that after a fast the tissues are more receptive to
food elements and readily assimilate and utilize vitamins, minerals and proteins, even in
individuals who failed to do so before. In well-fed, indeed over-fed America, we meet few emaciated individuals who are underweight
from eating too little food. Their lack of weight is most often due to failure to digest and assimilate
the food they eat. Such individuals need not more food, but added capacity to digest and assimilate
their food. Added capacity can be acquired only by remedying the functional and organic
impairments that are responsible for the crippled states of their nutrition. It is rarely possible to do this so long as the patient continues to eat his regular daily ration of
what he considers “good nourishing food.” The curious fact is that many of these patients will gain
weight if they eat much less than they are in the habit of taking. They are especially helped by a fast
of proper duration. Subjects with poor nutrition commonly have a poor appetite. It is usual to assume that their
nutrition is poor because they do not eat enough; whereas, the opposite is true; reduced eating is
the result of poor nutrition. When the food is not used, the body cuts off demand—hunger ceases. Nature is wiser than we are in these matters. Not more food, but more capacity to use food, is what
is needed. Fasting sharpens appetite. Not only do these patients have keener relish for food and a stronger
demand for food, following a fast, but they have better digestion and increased capacity to
assimilate their food. They also gain weight, and in many instances they gain it rapidly. I have seen
amazing gains of this kind and have seen individuals long underweight gain so much that they had
to reverse the field and begin to reduce. Exceptions to this experience are seen almost wholly, in those long, skinny individuals who
suffer with what is commonly referred to as nervous exhaustion or nervous collapse. Such people
are benefited by the fast but they rarely gain rapidly after the fast. The profound depression of the
nervous system in these patients, and the consequent depression of their functions, require an
extended period of careful control not alone of their eating, but of their total way of life, to restore
functioning power to the point where they are able to put on solid weight. How long should the underweight individual fast to secure improvement 
in his nutritional
processes? There is no absolute undeviating answer. Each case is different as the condition of
each patient is different. In some cases a fast of ten days to two weeks will prove adequate. In
others much longer fasts may be called for. A short fast is rarely enough to secure the correction of
the defects of the nutritional processes needed to enable the chronically underweight person to gain
weight. Here, as elsewhere, the fast should be taken under competent supervision and the judgment
of the supervisor respected. Since most cases of underweight with which we deal in this country are due, not to insufficient
food, but to incapacity to digest and assimilate food, it is essential that all causes of impaired
nutrition be discovered and removed. Fasting should not be expected to result in a great
improvement of the body’s ability to digest and assimilate the food eaten, if the patient continues
70with practices that perpetuate the impairment. Rest, in order that nerve energy may be recuperated,
is also vital. Following the fast, it is not wise to overeat on foods that are commonly thought to constitute a
weight gaining diet. On the contrary, the requirements of good nutrition are best met with a diet
consisting of at least sixty percent fresh leafy vegetables and fresh fruits. Canned vegetables and
fruits are not to be considered as food with which to follow up a fast. The protein and
carbohydrate content of the diet may make up the other forty percent, with emphasis on the better
class proteins. In addition to a greatly improved diet, every other healthful factor that enables us to build and
maintain high level health should be made an integral part of the daily life of the individual. Daily
exercise, an abundance of fresh air, sunbaths where these are at all possible, an abundance of rest
and sleep, emotional poise and freedom from all devitalizing habits will greatly assist in building
weight and in producing the kind of tissue that is desirable. It will be noted that this advice is similar to that given to the overweight individual who has
fasted and is desirous of building wholesome flesh. The fact is that a normal life builds a normal
condition. Normal weight has its basis in good health and in first class habits of life. The genuine
needs of both types of patients are the same. 7116
Should Children Fast? I am often asked about fasting for infants and young children. Is it safe? Should it be attempted? The answer is that children often know instinctively when to fast—and for how long. Let me cite the case of an anxious mother who consulted me about her young son who appeared
to be, so far as he was able to carry it out, on a permanent fast. "My child simply won’t eat,” the mother told me. “I have to force him. I make him come to the
dining table. I make him eat. Unless I force him, he won’t touch his food.”
“Why not leave him alone until he gets hungry?” I suggested. “He never gets hungry. He would starve to death.”
Many mothers face this problem with their children. Few subjects are more talked about—with
more misinformation—than the feeding of children. We hear about loss of appetite,
undernourishment, and underweight in children, and the fact that a child may be suffering from
eating too much is rarely guessed. Yet in forty years I have never seen a child “starve to death”
because it refused to eat. I have watched hundreds of them go without food until they become
hungry, and I have never seen one that was not soon raising old Ned for food. In the case above, I persuaded the mother to give her boy a chance to get hungry to see if he
would not do the same. “Wait,” I told her. “When he is hungry he will tell you.”
He did. When the food vanished, when he was not forced to swallow more than his body
demanded or required, he soon began to want to eat normally. In a few days we had a happy mother and a less unruly boy. She reported: “Dick is now the first
one to the table and we no longer have to force him to swallow every mouthful.”
Leave the child alone when he refuses food. It is certain that he will become hungry within a
reasonable time and will demand food. Abstinence from food is the surest and best 
appetizer
available. It is better than coercion, which tends to create resistance. It is better than tempting them
with dainty dishes and flavored and sweetened dishes to appeal to jaded appetites. It is better than
feeding vitamins or giving tonics. Let the child go without food until a natural demand for food is made in the form of hunger and it
will be content with plain fare. There will be no need to tempt it with special dishes. No chocolate
will have to be added to its milk, ice cream will not have to be substituted for wholesome food,
tidbits and palate ticklers will no longer be found necessary. Why should a child, any more than an
adult, be forced to eat? If there is no physiological demand for food, why should it be forced upon
the child? With the majority of well-meaning adults, when they undertake to coax a child to eat, the food
with which they tempt the child is usually unsuitable. It is commonly the worst possible selection
that is responsible for the loss of desire for food. It is ruinous to the character of the child to bribe
it by offering money, a toy, a trip to the movies, or to hold out other inducements to it to eat when
there is no natural demand for food. Such means of inducing a child to eat lead inevitably to
overeating. Overeating results in temporary loss of desire for food. Candy or cookies between meals
72destroys the desire to eat. Mothers who permit children to eat between meals should not be
surprised if they are not hungry when meal time arrives. Children often develop “poor appetites”
because of the unsuitable character of their diet. McCarrison who made original study in the field
of dietetics—and later reported on the Hunzas—says: “It seems to me that ‘loss of appetite’ is one
of the most fundamental signs of vitamin deprivation. It is a protective sign: the first signal of
impending disaster.”
After a brief period of abstinence it should be understood that when the amount of food taken is
reduced, the vitamin needs of the body are correspondingly reduced—the diet of the child should
be changed. Give them more fruits and vegetables (fresh and uncooked) and less cereal, bread,
potatoes, cookies, pies and candies. Eliminate all soft drinks. Mothers will no longer have to
worry about vitamins for their children if they supply them with the natural sources of vitamins. I quote McCarrison again: “There are no more important ingredients of a properly constituted
diet than fruits and vegetables, for they contain vitamins of every class, recognized and
unrecognized.”
Why feed your child a baked apple, when the uncooked apple is more nutritious and far more
tasty? Why give it candy made of white sugar, synthetic colors and flavors, wood glue, and other
unwholesome substances, as long as there are dates, figs, bananas and other sweet fruits, which are
more tasty and more wholesome? There is more vitamin value in a stalk of celery or a head of
bibb lettuce than in all the vitamin pills in the drug store. An orange or a peach will provide
wholesome nutriment for your child. A dish of ice cream is about as unwholesome as anything he
can take. Soft drinks are poisonous and unfit to swallow. More care in feeding 
the child will give
it better health and save parents much anxiety and expense. Children’s diseases are parents’
mistakes. Children lack desire for food when they are ill. Enervated children, with gastritis, enlarged
tonsils and adenoids, constipation, diarrhea, feverishness, will express no demand for food. They
should be permitted to skip a meal or several meals, as circumstances warrant, and no effort
should be made to force them or coax them to eat. Any unusual excitement of children, even a trip or a picnic, may use up so much nerve energy
that indigestion is produced. Symptoms of indigestion may range all the way from irritability,
restlessness, tossing during sleep, bad breath, “growing pains,” white lines around the mouth, to
fever, gastric pains, nausea, vomiting and great discomfort evidenced by extreme restlessness. When such symptoms are present no food should be given. If children with indigestion are fed and
treated in the customary manner, the state of the stomach and intestinal tract is likely to become
putrescent, laying the ground work for possible serious disease. Infants become enervated from being handled too much, from being carried about, from having
their rest broken, from being subjected to noise—too much commotion in the house—by being
nursed and trundled too much, by being played with and excited too much, by being subjected to
too much heat and cold, by being fed too much, by being drugged for symptoms and inoculated for
disease prevention. In dealing with the child, of course, competent 
Hygienic
 guidance should be sought and
followed. When a baby is enervated, the digestive function falters; indigestion with fermentation
and putrefaction of food results. The putrescence thus evolved irritates the lining membrane of the
stomach and intestine. The membrane of the stomach, bowel or air passage becomes a site of
supplementary or compensatory excretion, the eliminating process being named, according to its
location, as a cold, bronchitis, gastritis, diarrhea, etc. There may be a slight feverish condition
73accompanied by a “sick stomach” or a slight cough. The baby is restless and uneasy, sleepless,
fretful. The restlessness is likely to be interpreted as hunger and the child may be fed. If the food is discontinued at once the slight indigestion quickly ends. The restlessness and
fretfulness subside. If it is fed and handled—many parents walk the floor with sick infants—the
irritableness, fretfulness and feverishness increase. If this program is continued, vomiting and
diarrhea may ensue and the symptom-complex may be named enteritis, cholera infantum, colitis or
dysentery. If the lungs are selected as fontanels through which to excrete the excess toxin, the
symptom-complex may be named pneumonia. If eruptions appear on the skin, the disease will be
named as hives, measles, scarlet fever, or smallpox. “In childhood,” wrote Dr. Oswald, “chronic dyspepsia is in nearly all cases the effect of
chronic medication. Indigestion is not an hereditary 
complaint. A dietetic sin 
per excessum,
 a
quantitative surfeit with sweet meats and pastry, may derange the digestive process for a few hours
or so but the trouble passes by with the holidays. Lock up the short-cakes, administer a glass of
cold water, and, my life for yours, that on Monday morning the little glutton will be ready to climb
the steepest hill in the country. But stuff him with liver pills, drench him with cough syrup, and
paregoric, and in a month or two he will not be able to satisfy the cravings of the inner boy without
‘assisting nature’ with a patent stimulant.”
Babies and young children are prone to develop spasms as a consequence of severe indigestion. Each paroxysm scares the wits out of the parents, although it is usual for the youngster to be as
well as ever the following day. As soon as the child recovers from the acute indigestion the
spasms cease. The child with indigestion should not be fed. Sometimes an older child, suffering with a mild feverish condition and inflammation of the
digestive tract, will imagine that he is hungry and will demand food. This demand should not be
acceded to. Feeding will only serve to increase its discomfort and retard his recovery. Hunger
here is not genuine but most always only in the mind. Gastritis is inflammation of the stomach. It may be immediately occasioned by over-feeding or
eating freely of candy. When a baby becomes enervated from too much excitement, too much
handling, overclothing, cold or in any other way, resulting in inhibition of excretion, a channel of
compensatory or supplementary elimination is established through which to expel the accumulated
toxin. The mucous membranes of the body are favorite channels through which fontannels—
openings for use in discharge of excretions—are established for elimination purposes. If, as a
consequence of local irritation, from overeating or candy eating, for example, the lining of the
stomach is requisitioned to do vicarious duty, the baby has gastritis or indigestion. If the lining of
the intestine or colon is chosen for supplementary services, a diarrhea will develop. Perhaps a week or longer before the beginning of a fever, the observant mother may notice white
specks in the bowel movements of her baby. These mean that the milk is not being well digested,
perhaps due to overfeeding. The white specks may vary from small, white milk-curds throughout
the stool to an amount of milk curd that makes up two-thirds to three-fourths of the stool. If the
stool is gray and the consistency of putty, it is composed largely of undigested milk curd. If the
stool is sour, this indicates fermentation. If the condition is corrected at this stage, nothing further
will develop; but if not immediately corrected, inflammation of the stomach, small intestine and
large intestine will develop. If the indigestion is confined to the stomach, the child will be restless, irritable and feverish. At
first there will be vomiting of food stuff. This is soon followed by vomiting of water and mucus,
which may be slightly tinged with yellow. If food is withheld and water given in small doses, this
74crisis will end in a day to three or four days. The baby is likely to be thirsty and mothers are prone
to mistake this for hunger, and to feed. The food will be vomited, even water is frequently ejected. Water, when given, should be warm and taken in small amounts. It is important for mothers to
know that it is not a kindness on their part to feed a sick child. Food should always be withheld in
stomach and intestinal diseases. In short, while always acting under proper 
Hygienic
 direction with your child, do all that you
can to let the natural tools of rest and peace and quiet restore the child if there is upset or illness—
or even if it is only a question of how much he wants to eat. For there are ways in which the instinctive wisdom of the infant or child in such matters may be
far greater than we could possibly guess. 75Fasting to Help You Get Well
In this section of the book we will examine more closely the uses of fasting for health. In general
we will seek to give the reader a grasp of the nature of certain malfunctions and the way in which
the fast can be of value. Again we stress the fact that fasting in itself has no force but rather it
enables the body’s organs and recuperative forces to turn their full energies upon the problem to be
corrected. This is the great secret power within. 7617
Fasting in Acute Disease
“My baby is dying,” a mother said over the telephone to a 
Hygienist. It was the winter of 1927. The
Hygienist
 was located in New York City, the mother called him
from Nyack, N. Y. “How do you know the baby is dying?”
The mother’s reply was not heartening: “He has pneumonia. Five physicians have just held a
consultation. It is their verdict my baby will die. There is nothing more that science can do.”
“Let’s fool them,” said the 
Hygienist. “We could try to save her, you know—”
Over the phone the 
Hygienist
 then advised: “The first thing I want you to do is go to the table at
the bedside of your baby and sweep all the boxes and bottles of drugs that are there into the waste
basket. Next, open the window and let some fresh air into the room. Keep your baby warm, but
give it some fresh air. Give the baby as much water as it wants, but no food and no more drugs.”
Twenty years later this baby, grown to splendid young womanhood, was married and wedding
pictures of her and her husband are prized possessions of the 
Hygienist
 who took over after the
physicians had declared the baby would die. It is not unusual to see patients recover after it has been declared that every thing had been done
that science could do. This is so because the very things that science does are so often the causes
of death. Drugs to suppress the cough and anodynes to stop the pain in the chest in pneumonia are
frequent causes of death. Feeding in pneumonia is also dangerous. When in both pneumonia and
pleurisy the patient is fed, not only is the toxemic supersaturation kept up, but the feeding prevents
resolution, that is, it prevents the inflamed lung or pleura from returning to normal. This may result
in abscess formation. In the acute forms of disease—fevers and inflammations—the desire for food is absent,
indicating that no food should be taken. There is an absence of the digestive juices, perhaps the
walls of the digestive system are pouring out mucus profusely, as in acute gastritis or in typhoid
fever, just 
as do the lining membranes of the nose and throat in a cold; the normal muscular
movements of the digestive tract are suspended, and there is absence of power to digest food. Inflammation, pain and fever each suspend the digestive secretions and the movements of the
stomach. When the sufferer with acute disease is fed his pains and discomforts are increased, his
temperature rises and his chances of recovery are reduced. In acute disease the digestive system is
as little fit to digest food as the limbs are for locomotion. Both require rest. What good does it do
for a man to take food, even the finest food, if he is unable to digest and assimilate it? Restless,
suffering with nausea, not only with no desire for food, but actually loathing it, and not retaining it
when swallowed, food certainly should not be taken. Forced feeding under such conditions is not
nourishing, but depleting. Fasting is the only rational plan of care of a sick person presenting such
symptoms. A man is prostrated; everything tastes bitter to him, every little noise is agonizing and his mind
wanders. His tongue is coated with a yellow-brown coat, the region over his stomach and bowels
is sensitive, he vomits at short intervals, his temperature is above normal. 77Should he be fed? Or could he be fed without adding to his discomfort and without danger? Loss of desire for food is one of the first symptoms of acute disease. Go over the whole list—
smallpox, typhoid fever, typhus fever, pneumonia, diphtheria, measles, cholera, and you realize
that one of the first developments in these crises is the suspension of all desire for food. Wisely,
nature cuts off all demand for food when it cannot be used. Fasting is a means of getting through
such crises. The fast is a temporary expedient by means of which the body achieves some of its urgently
needed work, an expedient employed by the living organism to help it over many of the
emergencies of life. It is almost correct to say that fasting and surgery are all that are of value in
disease. But we can say this only if we recognize that the regular or ordinary elements of nature’s
great plan of 
Hygiene
 are as essential in illness as in health, except that their use must be modified
to conform to the crippled powers of the organism. Instead of fasting being a 
cure,
 it is an essential and integral part of the healing process. When
the digestive system is prostrated and all desire for food is cut off, as it is in acute disease, we
have an expedient that is as much a part of the remedial process, the process of restoration, as the
concomitant prostration of the body as a whole that sends the sick person to bed. To be extremely
precise, the fasting process is an actual part of the 
remedial process
 that we call disease. Including surgery among the useful expedients in disease does not imply approval to all surgery
performed today. Skillfully done, as much of it is, it is performed all too often for purely
commercial motives rather than only 
when there is a legitimate reason for it. The fact will
someday be known that fasting will obviate the supposed need for much of the surgery that is
performed today. In stressing the fact that much surgery is without valid reason I am stating no
more than has been repeatedly stated by leading members of the surgical profession itself. On the plane of instinct this lack of desire for food is duly respected. The sick dog hides. He
will not eat. He refuses a wet compress on his brow. He does not feel sorry for himself and does
not seek for sympathy. He refuses to permit his friends to hold his paws. All he wants is to be left alone. He wants no food and he takes none. Rest, quiet, warmth, air
and, sometimes, a little water, are all he wants. He will not take juices or diluted milk, if offered
these, nor will he take the juice of flesh. Vitamins, if proffered, will be rejected. Resting in
seclusion, preferably in a dark place, while awaiting the completion of the reparative work done
by his own self-healing power—he recovers. There is order in the processes of nature; the haphazard nowhere reigns supreme. There must be,
thus, some profound reason for the suspension of digestive processes and the simultaneous
suspension of the desire for food in states of acute illness. The sick man’s dislike of food would
seem to be as significant as his dislike of noise, motion, light, close air and cold. Yet, while these
latter dislikes are commonly respected, we are inclined to disregard the first and attempt to feed in
spite of the most obstinate repugnance to food. If the patient is chilly, we warm him; if noise disturbs him, we seek to protect him from this; if
light disturbs him, we lower the shades; if the air is close, we open the windows; we respect his
desire to lie quietly and not move about. But we urge him to eat. There is a story told of Pope Leo XIII, that, in his last illness in his ninety-third year, he said to
his physicians: “Gentlemen, you require me to eat more than I ate in health.”
This practice was all too common and is still responsible for much unnecessary suffering and
death. Going without food in acute disease not only relieves pain, but rests the heart and relieves
the kidneys. The ancients well understood the value of abstinence in acute disease and an
78understanding of its value was carried down even into late times. Fasting in fevers was commonly
employed by Neapolitan physicians over a hundred and fifty years ago. They frequently permitted
their fever patients to go for as many as forty days without food. It should not be thought, however, that fasting should be instituted only in states of serious
illness, that one should continue to eat so long as any digestive power remains. On the contrary,
missing a few meals at the beginning of the trouble is often enough to prevent the development of
serious trouble. If functional impairment is only slight, as indicated by a coated tongue, headache,
a general malaise, and similar “insignificant”
 symptoms, a short fast will enable the body to
eliminate the systemic toxemia before more formidable trouble evolves. If, when the first symptoms appear, the patient were put to bed, strict repose enjoined, no good
given, many cases of acute disease would be light and of short duration. The patient should be kept
warm and given all the water demanded by thirst. The room should be light and airy, and visitors
should be excluded. Rest is the important thing. When the acute sufferer fasts his discomforts are less severe, his pains are less intense, his fever
does not rise so high, complications are rare, loss of weight is often less than in the patient who
does not fast, and the duration of the disease shortened. Less weight loss is almost, if not entirely
due to the fact that the duration of the disease is shortened. Typhoid fever, as an example, lasts in
the average case from eight to twelve days instead of the usual twenty-one days. The courses of
measles, scarlet fever and pneumonia are correspondingly shortened. Again we reiterate: Fasting is not a 
cure. But, conducted properly, the physiological rest it provides the body’s organs can often help the
recovery forces of nature carry out the healing work. 7918
Fasting in Chronic Disease
“I have lost my appetite.”
“Nothing tastes good to me any more. I eat only as a matter of routine.”
“I suffer with distress after every meal.”
These are some of the complaints of patients who suffer with some chronic form of disease,
such as colitis, chronic gastritis, hay fever, asthma, arthritis, nervousness, stomach ulcer or cancer. These people eat, only because they honestly think that they must eat—regularly, every day,
three times a day—to stay alive. Some of them are overweight, but great numbers of them are thin
and remain so, although they may be overeating. Another class of chronic sufferers are, as they put it, “always hungry.” 
They eat at all hours of
the day and night. They habitually overeat, whipping up their jaded sense of taste with condiments,
strong flavors, and in other ways. Often they suffer after each meal but they don’t cut down on their
intake. Then there are those among this class who suffer almost as much when they do not eat as
when they do. “Hunger” here, as we have seen in other cases, is not hunger at all, in a true sense, but a morbid
sensation or set of sensations mistaken for hunger. It may be a “gnawing” in the stomach, pain in
the stomach or some other symptom of gastric irritation. This is the reason the sensation cannot be
satisfied. The fact that eating palliates the discomfort for a few moments, does not prove that food
was actually needed, any more than the need for a cup of coffee is proven when it temporarily
relieves a coffee addict’s headache. The surest, simplest way for those who are “always hungry”
to overcome their supposed hunger is to fast. Man tends to abstain from food when under great emotional distress. Rejection of food is
frequent among the insane. Although it is the present practice to use force to feed mentally ill
patients, it is doubtful if such enforced feeding is proper. Man instinctively fasts under certain
conditions, as do the lower animals, and the rejection of food by the mentally ill is probably an
instinctive act that will, if not interrupted, prove very beneficial. Indeed, my experience with such
patients has convinced me that this is true. The most important feature about fasting in chronic disease is the marked acceleration of
elimination that it occasions, thus speedily freeing the body of its accumulated toxic load. The
disappearance of symptoms, sometimes of years standing, when one fasts, is often dramatic. Fasting provides opportunity for the body to do for itself what it is unable to do under conditions
of surfeit. Surfeit makes impossible the cleaning of the fluids and tissues in a physiological
housecleaning. A properly conducted fast will enable the chronically ill body to excrete the toxic load that is
responsible for the trouble, after which a corrected mode of living enables the individual to evolve
into a vigorous state of health. It should not be thought that eating must be continued so long as the body does not vigorously
rebel against food. When there is functional impairment, symptoms of impairment, sluggishness
and unease, then is the time to institute what may be described as a 
preventive fast. A fast at this
point need not be long. Improvement often is swift—preventing an evolution of serious sickness. When we observe the eyes become brighter, the skin fairer, and the breath sweeter while fasting,
80or when we see a poor complexion clear up, or other symptoms fade and vigor return—we can be
certain that the fast has enabled the body to carry out a preventive housecleaning. It is a mistake to expect one fast, even a long one, to be sufficient to 
enable the body to free
itself of the whole of its accumulated debris. A lifetime of piling up toxins cannot be corrected in
the span of a few weeks. In such diseases as paralysis agitans, arthritis, a large tumor, and other
conditions that require so much time to build, three or more fasts are often needed to obtain all the
improvement possible in a particular case. Sinusitis is inflammation of the nasal sinuses. It would have been called a catarrhal condition by
our fathers and mothers, but the tendency today is to discontinue the use of a general term like
catarrh and to use so-called specific terms. Sinusitis may be either acute or chronic. Most people
have some inflammation in one of more parts of the mucous membranes of the body—that is to say,
they have one or more “catarrhs.”
Names of 
catarrhal inflammations
 vary with the different locations, but it is all the same
disease with the same general cause. The practice of classifying each local inflammation by a
different name and giving each an individuality, confuses both the patient and the physician. This
keeps alive the delusion that there are many 
diseases. Replying to the charge that fasting lowers resistance to disease, Dr. Weger says: “I have seen
many cases of infection of different kinds recover completely on a fast. Take for example an
advanced case of sinusitis after five or six painful operations—frontal, ethmoidal, and antrum—
with surgical drainage and irrigations two or three times a week, continued over a period of two to
five years, with no relief or amelioration of symptoms. After almost unendurable suffering, such
patients are as a rule, thin, and physically and mentally depressed. When they make complete
recoveries after a prolonged fast, as the great majority of them do, is this not sufficient proof that
fasting somehow or other raises the power of the organism to overcome infection, rather than
fasting renders them more susceptible? What is true of sinusitis is equally true of other infections
—even those so situated anatomically that they cannot be surgically drained, and must therefore be
absorbed.”
What is here said of recovery from sinusitis is equally true of recovery from other
inflammations in the respiratory, digestive, genitourinary tracts and other regions of the body that
are lined with mucous membrane. Thus otitis, conjunctivitis, gastritis, duodenitis, ileitis, colitis, metritis—all have been known to
clear up during the course of a lengthy fast. Only in comparatively rare instances are two fasts
required. Hay fever and asthma, both belonging to this same group of “diseases,” are remedied by
the forces of the organism during a fast. Extensive experience with fasting in a wide variety of diseases, running over a period of more
than a hundred and thirty years and involving the work of hundreds of men and women caring for
many thousands of patients, has demonstrated that when the load is lifted from the digestive organs
by fasting, all of the energy of the body is transferred to the organs 
of excretion, permitting full use
of these organs in freeing the body of an accumulated load of toxin. What the body can do for itself in the way of restoring normal function and full vigor when the
toxic load is lifted has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Speaking of pernicious anemia, Tilden says: “A fast of two weeks, without anything at all
except water, will improve anemia condition by increasing the blood-corpuscles sometimes by
five hundred thousand in that length of time.” There is poisoning from the digestive tract in all of
these cases and it seems most likely that this befoulment of the blood with sepsis from this source
81is the cause of the failure of the blood-making organs. A similar septic befoulment seems to exist in cancer, causing anemia in this condition. It should
be emphasized strongly that no person suffering with anemia should undertake a fast, except under
competent supervision. There is an equal need for experienced supervision of the diabetic who fasts. The diabetic may
safely and profitably fast, particularly if he carries considerable weight. If insulin has been taken
over an extended period of time, fasting is rarely recommended. The sufferer with Bright’s disease may also fast with great benefit. In both these conditions and
all similar “diseases,” more important than the fast is the correction of the total way of life. It is
imperative that these patients be taught how to eat and that they learn their individual limitations
and to respect these. They may evolve into good health—continually improved health—if all
enervating habits are discontinued and the patient learns the laws of proper eating. 8219
The Case of the Common Cold
Millions of dollars have been spent in trying to discover what germ or set of germs produces the
common cold. All the efforts so far have led on to greater confusion, greater claims and greater
expenditures on remedies and the quest for vaccines to prevent colds. Harold Deihs, M.D., at the University of Minnesota, tested, on many thousands of students,
virtually every cold remedy ever devised and kept exact records. None of them proved to be a
genuine remedy. Some authorities insist that the cold is caused by a whole panoply of cold microbes—a sort of
“germ cocktail.” Other common cold experts propound the concept that the cold is produced by a
virus or a whole series of viruses. Nearly a hundred viruses have been identified which may play
some role in the causation of the cold. As all work now seems to be concentrated on finding a
vaccine that will 
immunize
 one against these viruses, it is obvious that a number of vaccines will
have to be perfected. It would be so much better to learn to live in a manner to avoid colds. The
normal body produces its own protection. It needs no outside crutch. It has been said that the cold is common, not because it is simple, but because it is so complex. This may have reference to the confusion in which the etiology of the cold has been enshrouded. Dr. Tilden said that a cold is the proximal symptom of a complex whose distal symptom is cancer
or tuberculosis or some other fatal 
degenerative disease. Between the first cold of infancy and death from cancer in middle life, there are intermediate
complexes and symptoms galore—colds, coughs, sore throats, constipation, diarrhea, headaches,
fatigue, grouchiness, apprehension, restlessness, sleeplessness, bad breath, coated tongue, and
many other symptoms and so-called acute diseases, all of which are but crises in toxemia. The
non-toxemic individual cannot be made to develop symptoms of a cold. In humorous verse, but with underlying truth, the 
rationale
 of the causes of cold was presented
in these stanzas in a poem published in the 
American Journal of Clinical Medicine
 in 1928:
A cold is not a cold to me—
It’s Nature’s way to tell
That I’ve been dining recently
Not wisely, but too well. A snuffy nose has come to mean
That I’ve enjoyed erstwhile
Some breaded porkchops, nested deep
In sweet spuds, southern style…. Or else, perchance, a wondrous steak,
With onions crisp and brown,
Has made my liver make of me
A menace to the town. 83Or, it might be a chunk of cheese,
Or mince pie hot and sweet,
So, a cold is not a cold to me—
It’s just too much to eat. Hygienists
 can fully endorse the thoughts expressed in these lines. Not only may one avoid
colds by learning to eat within limitations and by conserving energy in every way, but one may
hasten the termination of the cold by fasting. Stuffing the patient who has a cold is a sure way of
prolonging it and of causing it to “run into pneumonia” or something else. Few people realize the
importance of stopping all food until all symptoms have subsided. In an article on the common cold, published in American newspapers on Dec. 20, 1962, Dr.
Walter C. Alvarez, professor of medicine and editor of 
American Medicine,
 and newspaper
columnist, declared: “In the great British cold research laboratory at Salisbury, it was found that
sitting or standing in wet clothes in a draft does not produce a cold.”
Such experiments are but wasteful repetitions of experiments that were conducted in this country
in the last century by 
Hygienists,
 and, while they confirm the conclusions arrived at by the
Hygienists,
 they add nothing new to our knowledge of the cause of colds. Alvarez says that he
himself has no fear of getting chilled in winter. Alvarez thinks that colds are “contagious.” He says that what he does fear is to get into a taxi
cab with a man who has a sniffy cold. He thinks that he “catches cold” or what it catches him under
such circumstances. As such an experience never causes me to have a cold, I wonder why he so
readily develops a cold when thus “exposed.” He discounts the idea that being in good condition
will enable one to avoid colds, but his reasons for objecting to this idea are rather shaky. In his youth he used to have four severe colds a year—at a time when he was an athlete, a track
man, a swimmer and an instructor in a gymnasium—although he would take a cold bath every
morning and run three or four miles every evening. Unfortunately for his position, his activities do not necessarily prove that he was in genuinely
good condition. Athletes are notorious for their frequent colds. Alvarez has accepted the common
faulty conception of what constitutes good condition. A plethoric and toxemic individual may pass
for being in good condition. He says: “We are told to eat well and get plenty of sleep.” He neither
approves nor disapproves of this advice. I would point out that what is commonly meant by “eating
well” is overeating and eating plentifully of staple foods. This is a sure way to build colds, not to
prevent them. I do not dismiss exposure to cold, however, as a contributing factor in the production of a cold
any more than I am willing to dismiss becoming overheated as a contributing factor in the same
complex of factors that collectively constitute cause. Prolonged exposure to cold enervates and
this checks elimination. Those who are already enervated and toxemic, when exposed to cold, have their elimination
further checked and this is frequently enough to 
precipitate a crisis, in this case a cold. It should be
realized that when one is already enervated and toxemic any added enervating influence will place
enough additional check upon elimination that a crisis is sure to develop. What happens is that the added check upon elimination causes the toxic accumulation to rise
above the point of established toleration and the body rebels. A channel of supplementary
elimination is established through which to get rid of the excess. Copavin,
 the drug considered the best by Alvarez, was the only one that Diehs thought “worked
84well." This drug, which contains codeine, was said to “block out” about 85% of colds, but it was
“effective” only if taken early. It does not 
cure
 the cold later. The fact is that the many “block outs”
attributed to this drug would have occurred had the drug not been given. Colds last anywhere from
a few hours to two or three weeks. Almost anything can be made to appear to 
cure
 the cold for the
reason that recovery is spontaneous and occurs if nothing is done. Copavin
 results in constipation
and troubles many nervous patients. It does not remove the cause of the cold. What should we do when the first symptom of a cold arises? All food should be discontinued at
once. Instead of large quantities of water, as commonly advised, only as much water as thirst
demands should be taken. Indeed, it seems that the less water taken the more rapid the recovery. The fast should not be less than twenty-four hours, it may be three or four days in duration,
depending on the severity of the symptoms. Following the fast, eating should be light for the first few days: orange or a grapefruit—no sugar
—for breakfast, a vegetable salad at noon, and fresh fruit in season in the evening, for the first one
to two days, after which the eating should be sparse until all symptoms have subsided. While fasting, the best place for the patient is in bed. He should be warm and comfortable and
should have fresh air in the room both day and night. A daily lukewarm bath may be taken, but no
heroic bathing is advisable. If it is not possible to quit work and go to bed, one should obtain as
much rest as circumstances permit and get to bed early at night. If these simple suggestions are carried out, no cold will evolve into pneumonia. Prolonging a
cold by eating and by suppressing its symptoms with drugs, may end in death. Fasting does not 
cure
 a cold. One may get well of a cold if one eats heartily, drinks heavily, gets
little sleep, works hard and is chilled by day. People have been doing this throughout history. All
that we claim for the foregoing fasting program is that it greatly lessens the discomforts of the cold,
shortens its duration and leaves the patient in much better condition when the cold has ended. 8520
Multiple Sclerosis
Widespread fund-raising campaigns to fight the crippling effects of this disease, and to perform
research into its cause and treatment, have made multiple sclerosis familiar to the public. Yet there
may be some basic causes already known in terms of diet and activities of the individual and even
possible avenues of recovery in the fast. I recall a case of an optometrist whose condition became so bad that he had to give up his work
and turn his office over to someone else. For a few years he had been under the care of several of
the best neurologists of the East and, as they had warned him at the outset, had grown
progressively worse. They had frankly told him that they had no 
cure
 for multiple sclerosis. They were telling him the truth, yet after seven weeks in a 
Hygienic
 institution, he walked out
under his own power, returned home and resumed his professional activities. He was not a well man at the end of seven weeks. It is too much to expect a full recovery in such
a short time. But he had made such great improvement that he felt justified in returning home and
getting back to work. This is often a wrong position to take, especially with a condition like
multiple sclerosis, but it is a mistake that the sick frequently make. Many patients seem to be satisfied to stop their efforts in recovering health when they have been
freed of their most annoying symptoms. They are often unwilling to go on to full health, and are
convinced they can take care of themselves. After having made a certain amount of initial
improvement they expect to take charge and they feel they can carry on, from that point, as well as
their professional adviser. In a few cases it works out; generally they fail. In cases watched and
controlled, results of fasting can be established. Sclerosis means induration or hardening. It has special reference to hardening of a part due to
inflammation. In the nervous system the term denotes an overgrowth of connective tissue
(hyperplasia of connective tissue) in the nerve tissue. Multiple sclerosis—also called disseminated sclerosis and sometimes 
known as Charcot’s
disease—is characterized by hardening (sclerosis) occurring in sporadic patches through the brain
and spinal cord or both. These hardened patches range from the size of a pin head to that of a pea
and are scattered irregularly through the brain and cord. At autopsy, it is found that the insulating sheath of the nerves is broken down and the nerve cells
and fibers have fused together. I have emphasized that this is what is found at autopsy for the
reason that the trouble does not start as a sclerosis (hardening), but as an inflammation. A man dies after suffering with multiple sclerosis for fifteen or twenty years and an autopsy is
performed. His brain and nervous system are subjected to the closest scrutiny and certain
pathological changes are found. But this is the end-point. What was the condition of his nerves five
years, ten years or fifteen years prior to death? It is reasonable to think that if the condition of the
nerves was the same five years or ten years prior to death that they are found to be in at death, he
would have died five to ten years earlier. The disease is said to be “incurable.” It may last for years before the patient dies. The end-
point, as found at death, is certainly irreversible, but can we be sure that the earlier stages of the
disease are irreversible? The very progress of the disease would seem to negate such an
assumption. In the inflammatory stage of the disease it would certainly seem to be remediable. 86Indeed, spontaneous remissions are known that may last for weeks or even years. Once the
hardening has occurred, there would seem to be no possibility that the disease could intermit, or
that recovery could be effected. A fatty insulating material called the myelin sheath, which surrounds the nerves, is lost and this
is said to cause abnormal nerve behavior. Some of the nerves work energetically, some work very
weakly and others fail to work at all. No two cases are alike because in no two cases are the same parts of the brain and nervous
system affected. The development of the hardening does not progress at the same rate in each case,
and does not take place at the same rate at all points in the body of the same patient. For the reason
that no two cases are identical, no description of the disease will fit any particular case. Among the leading symptoms of the disease are weakness, strong jerky movements,
incoordination of the extremities that is often more marked in the arms than in the legs, and
amemomania, which is a form of insanity with agreeable hallucinations. Also other abnormal
mental exaltations, scanning speech and an involuntary rapid movement of the eyes, called
nyastagmus are evident. The tremor is jerky, is increased by voluntary efforts to restrain it, and is
entirely absent during complete rest and sleep, returning when movements are resumed. The nature of the symptoms in each case will depend on the locations 
and severity of the
changes in the nervous tissues. A sudden loss of vision in one eye or a period of double vision may
be an early symptom. The eye symptoms usually clear up in a short time and they may not recur for
months or years. The patient may develop peculiar feelings, with tingling and numbness in various
parts of the limbs and body. Weakness in the legs and difficulty in walking may later develop. There may be trembling,
jerking of the legs, difficulty in talking, a hand may become clumsy or useless. Tremor of the hand
may develop when the individual attempts to pick up something. Trouble with the rectum and the
urinary bladder may also develop. These symptoms may remain mild for a number of years or they may clear up and not recur for
long periods. It is this remission of symptoms that indicates that in the early stages of the disease
the developments are not irreversible. About half of these patients are still able to work after
twenty-five years, a fact which indicates the slowness of the development of the disease. This
certainly provides ample time for something constructive to be done. Many cases are so mild and the symptoms so evanescent that they are not diagnosed as sclerosis
for years. The tendency of the symptoms to cease for periods of time is said to be one of the basic
characteristics of the disease, the other being the scattered character of the symptomatic
developments, as the hardening is scattered. I have previously pointed out that no two cases are alike in their symptoms or in their
development, each patient lending his own individuality to the disease; but this is no more true of
multiple sclerosis than of any other disease. No germ or virus has been found upon which to lay the blame for the development of the disease
and it is freely confessed that “the cause is unknown.” It is, however, thought to be “probably of
infectious origin.”
No treatment has proved satisfactory. This is true in so many diseases that it is almost the rule. How can there be satisfactory treatment of a disease the cause of which is unrecognized? Standard
works on the disease say: “The cause of the disease is entirely unknown … there is no specific or
really effective treatment … always a long-standing disease, total recovery from it is very
doubtful.”
87Certainly we cannot expect total recovery if the cause is unrecognized. The failure to recognize
the general impairing influences in the life and environment of the patient as the true cause of
functional and organic deterioration blinds us to the causes of disease. The search for specific causes has about reached its end. The time has arrived when we must
find in wrong living habits the cause of the failures of the organism and the evolution of its
diseases. When these are recognized and removed, there is a possibility of recovery in thousands
of individuals who are now regarded as hopelessly 
incurable. I have never had opportunity to care for a case of multiple sclerosis in the early stages, hence I
can only suggest that if these cases were given 
Hygienic
 care at the outset of their trouble, the
percentage of recoveries would be high. All of the cases I have had the privilege of caring for
have been in advanced stages and I do not consider these favorable cases. The fact that I have been able to return some of these, even in helpless conditions, to a state of
usefulness speaks volumes for the efficiency of the 
Hygienic
 program in restoring normal tissue
and functional condition. Let us review the general picture of the fasting experience, as applied to a multiple sclerosis
case. The first fast brings about remarkable improvement in the general health of the individual
with considerable increase in his control and use of his limbs, often enabling the bed-ridden
patient to get up and walk about. He manages to hold this improvement and not infrequently to add
to it, while eating a carefully planned diet and taking regular exercise and sun baths following the
fast. A second fast adds to his control and use of his limbs. I have employed as many as three fasts in
these cases. Each fast has resulted in increased control of the limbs and has made it possible for
them to be used with greater ease. I continue the rest in bed following the fast, adding a period or two of daily light exercise of a
type that requires increasing skill in their performance. The purpose of the exercise in these cases
is not so much that of increasing the size and strength of the muscles as to increase the individual’s
skill in their use. Heavier exercise may come later if desired. I am convinced that daily sunbathing in these cases is especially helpful in furthering the
evolution of nerve health. The diet is one of fresh fruits and vegetables with only moderate
quantities of fats, sugars, starches and proteins. I prefer the vegetable proteins—nuts and
sunflower seeds are good in these cases. The important thing for us to remember is that the sclerosis does not belong to the initial stages
of the disease. In these early stages recovery is most likely to take place, providing only that all
impairing influences are removed from the life of the individual and his blood and flesh are freed
of their toxic load. It is in the initial stage that full recovery is or should be possible, not in the advanced stages
when irreversible changes in the nerve structures have taken place. The ancient adage: “A stitch in
time”—in this case, action in time, can make the difference. 8821
Asthma
A young soprano whose voice and hard work had won her the high honor of being a member of the
Metropolitan Opera found herself in a heartbreaking situation: She had developed a serious
asthmatic condition and could no longer sing. Her physician told her frankly, “I can give you temporary respite. We have no cure for asthma.”
The desperate singer consulted a specialist who reiterated what the family physician had told
her. There was no 
cure. At that moment this singer faced the prospect of the wreckage of her career, in spite of her
talent, training, work and dreams. She gave up singing. She retired to her farm in New Jersey. Medicine had written off her chances. Then she heard of 
Natural Hygiene
—the concept of the importance of the body's own healing
capacity. Uncertain—but willing in her predicament to try any possible avenue of help, she
consulted a 
Hygienist. After examining her and hearing her story, he told her, “You can be helped. I believe you can
free yourself of this asthmatic condition if you will do what I tell you—not by medicine or medical
treatment at all.”
“What then?” she demanded. “Simply fast.”
She did not understand. He explained at length to her the processes of fasting as we have been
discussing them and their techniques in this book. The young singer grasped at this idea that was entirely new and startling to her. The fast did the job. In a matter not of months but of weeks the asthma cleared, within a few months she was back at
the Metropolitan. A career that might otherwise have been smashed on the rocks of asthmatic
suffering was able to return to its triumphant course. In both the United States and Canada today are thousands of men and women of all ages who
have recovered without any attention being given to the things to which they were told they were
allergic. Indeed, as I have so often stressed, once they have been restored to full health, they can take a
bath in pollens of all kinds without any ill effects. I have seen long lists of the foods and other
substances to which patients have been shown by the scratch test to be 
allergic. An asthmatic undergoing a fast was in my office one morning when a cat walked into the room. The asthmatic looked startled—then laughed. “Before coming here,” he told me, “I would have had
an attack of asthma if a cat walked into a room where I happened to be.” He picked up the cat, held
it in his arms, and proceeded to stroke its back. “It feels good to be able to breathe again.”
He had been sent from New England to Arizona, where five years of the “climate 
cure”
 had
done him no appreciable good. Asthmatics suffer year after year, often becoming worse with the
passage of time, when all of them could get well in four to eight weeks and remain well for the
remainder of their lives. Standard text books name several varieties of asthma—including cardiac, renal and bronchial,
89and describe many complications. As we regard all varieties of asthma and all so-called
complications as symptoms rising out of the same general cause, and requiring the same general
corrections of the mode of living, we may ignore, for the present, these differentiations. The
symptom-complexes that are named different disease require special attention only in so far as it is
needful to know where possible, if organic change is so great as to make recovery impossible. We must not forget the unity of disease and the unity of cause that binds all the so-called
diseases together. The different so-called diseases get their names from the tissues and organs
involved in the pathological process. The symptoms are characteristic of the organs and tissues
and not of the poisoning. Renal asthma is seen in advanced kidney disease and cardiac asthma is seen in severe heart
disease. In both instances the difficult breathing is due to an accumulation of fluid in the lungs and
to other changes in the lungs. Recovery from these types of asthma depends upon recovery from the
heart or kidney disease. As asthma in these diseases is a development in the late stages, recovery
is not always possible. Bronchial asthma, which is defined as recurrent paroxysms of difficult breathing (dyspnea) and
coughing, is a catarrhal condition involving the mucous membrane of the lower respiratory
passages. The asthma is more or less spasmodic and is always accompanied by catarrhal
affections in other parts of the body. There is a catarrh of the nose and throat, commonly sinusitis,
often gastritis or colitis and metritis or cystitis. Indeed, the catarrh exists for some time before
asthmatic symptoms appear. Asthma is found everywhere, in all classes of peple. It is found in both warm and cold
countries, in wet and dry climates, in high and low altitudes, among the rich and in the poor, the
high and the low, the short 
and thin, the fat and the lean, the light and the dark. Men, women and
children develop the disease and it is seen at times in pampered animals. In those very climates to
which asthmatics are sometimes sent to seek a 
cure
, people native to the community and the
climate often develop asthma. Two people practice bad habits for years, one of them being about as indulgent as the other, and
one of them develops asthma, the other develops arthritis. Why does one pay for his bad habits in
one way and the other in another? We are in the habit of saying that this is due to diathesis or
predisposition, but these are words that explain little. Why is one so disposed and the other differently disposed? Why does one man develop kidney
disease and another man develop gallstones? Why do two men equally exposed to the rigors of a
blizzard not both develop pneumonia? Why does one have pneumonia and the other only a cold? Why does one man have bronchial catarrh for years and never develop asthmatic symptoms, and
another have the same catarrh and also the asthmatic symptoms? It is now customary to say that one
is allergic and the other is not, but this is another word that explains nothing. The asthmatic is a neurotic; by this, I mean that he is predisposed to develop nervous diseases. But what is the predisposition? The answer, I believe firmly, lies primarily in constitutional
weaknesses, growing, in many instances, out of heredity, in other cases out of larval deficiencies,
resulting from faulty nutrition in the parents and grandparents. Other factors that may be involved in producing what is called predisposition are habit and
environmental stresses. Tobacco stresses the heart and lungs overeating stresses the liver and
kidneys; too much physical activity stresses the heart and joints; fear stresses the heart and nervous
system. These are but samples of stresses to organs and systems that are part of the conventional
ways of life. Such stresses weaken and impair organs and functions and lay the groundwork for
90local pathological evolutions. Cold and heat and dryness and wetness and other environmental factors may place enough stress
upon the body to do harm. Sudden extremes of such factors may precipitate a crisis. We trace asthma, as we do all other so-called diseases, to a blood and flesh condition which we
denominate toxemia. It is caused by a mode of living that expends nerve energy excessively, brings
on a state of nerve fatigue which we call enervation, so that the functions of life are carried on at a
low physiological level. Consequently, elimination of waste is checked so that it tends to
accumulate in the blood, lymph and tissues. The presence of more than a physiological amount of waste in the body—at all times there is
waste being carried by the blood and lymph away from the cells for excretion—results in irritation
and inflammation.
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:

        Overfeeding with loss of weight is a familiar pattern; every day we meet underweight people
who are eating valiantly to gain weight and they complain that the more they eat the more they lose. They try first one weight-gaining diet and then another but remain thin or grow thinner. The overfed
organism is often undernourished to a degree that reveals itself in rapid emaciation. Food and nutrition are not synonymous. One is not nourished in 
proportion to the amount of food
ingested, but in proportion to how much one digests and assimilates. When digestion and
assimilation are impaired, overeating in an effort to put on weight defeats its purpose. Emaciation
is due to impairment of health, rarely to lack of food. The emaciation is commonly proportionate to
the extent of the impairment of health. What such patients need is not more food but a properly
functioning de-toxified system able to digest and assimilate food. Given this they have no difficulty
in gaining weight. Because fasting results in a rejuvenation of assimilation, it commonly enables chronically
underweight patients to gain weight where everything else fails. Naturally they lose weight during
the fast, but they regain more after the fast is broken than they lose during the fast. This is in
harmony with both experience and experiment in the animal kingdom. Experimental fasts have demonstrated that after a fast less food is required to maintain physical
energies, physiological activities, nitrogen balance, and weight, because fasting produces a more
efficient physiological machine. This is the reason that the emaciated person, who remains thin on
the various “weight gaining” diets, commonly finds that after a fast he will gain weight on much
less food than he has been in the habit of taking. From long observation farmers report the following. If a pig smaller than other members of the
litter because of insufficient milk is taken from the litter and fed adequately, it grows more rapidly
than the others in the litter, catching up with and even passing them in size. Osborn, Mendel and Thomson, three standard authorities in dietetics and biochemistry, in a
series of classical experiments, confirmed these observations under test conditions. They found
that the growth which is resumed after an arrest by insufficient food, proceeds at a more rapid pace
than usual, attaining, for a time, a magnitude which they ascribe to an excess of compensation. A similar phenomenon is observed to occur after a fast by the emaciated. The period of
physiological rest provided by the fast, results in better digestion, better assimilation and a better
and more economical use of food. It has been shown that fasting results in an intense nitrogen
hunger and, at the same time, a greatly increased capacity to utilize nitrogen. This provides for the
production of a better type of tissue than the fatty tissues which result from overeating on starches,
sugars and fats. Reduced to simplest terms, this means that the body calls for and utilizes proteins more readily
and thus puts on a very different type of flesh from that which results from stuffing on sugars,
starches and fats. Where this latter type of eating often results in a gain of weight it is nothing more
significant than the laying on of pounds of useless fat. Protein-built tissue, on the other hand, is
69good, sound and useful tissue and provides for a 
much better appearance of body. It is important in
gaining weight to gain it properly and healthfully. There is a wealth of evidence to show that metabolism is accelerated by fasting, a fact which
can only mean a more efficient turn-over of nutritive materials. Metabolism is the term applied to
the overall process by which foods are transformed into flesh and by which the used up substances
are disassimilated. It is especially the building up phase of metabolism (called anabolism) that is
accelerated by the fast. The fact is undeniable that after a fast the tissues are more receptive to
food elements and readily assimilate and utilize vitamins, minerals and proteins, even in
individuals who failed to do so before. In well-fed, indeed over-fed America, we meet few emaciated individuals who are underweight
from eating too little food. Their lack of weight is most often due to failure to digest and assimilate
the food they eat. Such individuals need not more food, but added capacity to digest and assimilate
their food. Added capacity can be acquired only by remedying the functional and organic
impairments that are responsible for the crippled states of their nutrition. It is rarely possible to do this so long as the patient continues to eat his regular daily ration of
what he considers “good nourishing food. ” The curious fact is that many of these patients will gain
weight if they eat much less than they are in the habit of taking. They are especially helped by a fast
of proper duration. Subjects with poor nutrition commonly have a poor appetite. It is usual to assume that their
nutrition is poor because they do not eat enough; whereas, the opposite is true; reduced eating is
the result of poor nutrition. When the food is not used, the body cuts off demand—hunger ceases. Nature is wiser than we are in these matters. Not more food, but more capacity to use food, is what
is needed. Fasting sharpens appetite. Not only do these patients have keener relish for food and a stronger
demand for food, following a fast, but they have better digestion and increased capacity to
assimilate their food. They also gain weight, and in many instances they gain it rapidly. I have seen
amazing gains of this kind and have seen individuals long underweight gain so much that they had
to reverse the field and begin to reduce. Exceptions to this experience are seen almost wholly, in those long, skinny individuals who
suffer with what is commonly referred to as nervous exhaustion or nervous collapse. Such people
are benefited by the fast but they rarely gain rapidly after the fast. The profound depression of the
nervous system in these patients, and the consequent depression of their functions, require an
extended period of careful control not alone of their eating, but of their total way of life, to restore
functioning power to the point where they are able to put on solid weight. How long should the underweight individual fast to secure improvement 
in his nutritional
processes. There is no absolute undeviating answer. Each case is different as the condition of
each patient is different. In some cases a fast of ten days to two weeks will prove adequate. In
others much longer fasts may be called for. A short fast is rarely enough to secure the correction of
the defects of the nutritional processes needed to enable the chronically underweight person to gain
weight. Here, as elsewhere, the fast should be taken under competent supervision and the judgment
of the supervisor respected. Since most cases of underweight with which we deal in this country are due, not to insufficient
food, but to incapacity to digest and assimilate food, it is essential that all causes of impaired
nutrition be discovered and removed. Fasting should not be expected to result in a great
improvement of the body’s ability to digest and assimilate the food eaten, if the patient continues
70with practices that perpetuate the impairment. Rest, in order that nerve energy may be recuperated,
is also vital. Following the fast, it is not wise to overeat on foods that are commonly thought to constitute a
weight gaining diet. On the contrary, the requirements of good nutrition are best met with a diet
consisting of at least sixty percent fresh leafy vegetables and fresh fruits. Canned vegetables and
fruits are not to be considered as food with which to follow up a fast. The protein and
carbohydrate content of the diet may make up the other forty percent, with emphasis on the better
class proteins. In addition to a greatly improved diet, every other healthful factor that enables us to build and
maintain high level health should be made an integral part of the daily life of the individual. Daily
exercise, an abundance of fresh air, sunbaths where these are at all possible, an abundance of rest
and sleep, emotional poise and freedom from all devitalizing habits will greatly assist in building
weight and in producing the kind of tissue that is desirable. It will be noted that this advice is similar to that given to the overweight individual who has
fasted and is desirous of building wholesome flesh. The fact is that a normal life builds a normal
condition. Normal weight has its basis in good health and in first class habits of life. The genuine
needs of both types of patients are the same. 7116
Should Children Fast. I am often asked about fasting for infants and young children. Is it safe. Should it be attempted. The answer is that children often know instinctively when to fast—and for how long. Let me cite the case of an anxious mother who consulted me about her young son who appeared
to be, so far as he was able to carry it out, on a permanent fast. "My child simply won’t eat,” the mother told me. “I have to force him. I make him come to the
dining table. I make him eat. Unless I force him, he won’t touch his food. ”
“Why not leave him alone until he gets hungry. ” I suggested. “He never gets hungry. He would starve to death. ”
Many mothers face this problem with their children. Few subjects are more talked about—with
more misinformation—than the feeding of children. We hear about loss of appetite,
undernourishment, and underweight in children, and the fact that a child may be suffering from
eating too much is rarely guessed. Yet in forty years I have never seen a child “starve to death”
because it refused to eat. I have watched hundreds of them go without food until they become
hungry, and I have never seen one that was not soon raising old Ned for food. In the case above, I persuaded the mother to give her boy a chance to get hungry to see if he
would not do the same. “Wait,” I told her. “When he is hungry he will tell you. ”
He did. When the food vanished, when he was not forced to swallow more than his body
demanded or required, he soon began to want to eat normally. In a few days we had a happy mother and a less unruly boy. She reported: “Dick is now the first
one to the table and we no longer have to force him to swallow every mouthful. ”
Leave the child alone when he refuses food. It is certain that he will become hungry within a
reasonable time and will demand food. Abstinence from food is the surest and best 
appetizer
available. It is better than coercion, which tends to create resistance. It is better than tempting them
with dainty dishes and flavored and sweetened dishes to appeal to jaded appetites. It is better than
feeding vitamins or giving tonics. Let the child go without food until a natural demand for food is made in the form of hunger and it
will be content with plain fare. There will be no need to tempt it with special dishes. No chocolate
will have to be added to its milk, ice cream will not have to be substituted for wholesome food,
tidbits and palate ticklers will no longer be found necessary. Why should a child, any more than an
adult, be forced to eat. If there is no physiological demand for food, why should it be forced upon
the child. With the majority of well-meaning adults, when they undertake to coax a child to eat, the food
with which they tempt the child is usually unsuitable. It is commonly the worst possible selection
that is responsible for the loss of desire for food. It is ruinous to the character of the child to bribe
it by offering money, a toy, a trip to the movies, or to hold out other inducements to it to eat when
there is no natural demand for food. Such means of inducing a child to eat lead inevitably to
overeating. Overeating results in temporary loss of desire for food. Candy or cookies between meals
72destroys the desire to eat. Mothers who permit children to eat between meals should not be
surprised if they are not hungry when meal time arrives. Children often develop “poor appetites”
because of the unsuitable character of their diet. McCarrison who made original study in the field
of dietetics—and later reported on the Hunzas—says: “It seems to me that ‘loss of appetite’ is one
of the most fundamental signs of vitamin deprivation. It is a protective sign: the first signal of
impending disaster. ”
After a brief period of abstinence it should be understood that when the amount of food taken is
reduced, the vitamin needs of the body are correspondingly reduced—the diet of the child should
be changed. Give them more fruits and vegetables (fresh and uncooked) and less cereal, bread,
potatoes, cookies, pies and candies. Eliminate all soft drinks. Mothers will no longer have to
worry about vitamins for their children if they supply them with the natural sources of vitamins. I quote McCarrison again: “There are no more important ingredients of a properly constituted
diet than fruits and vegetables, for they contain vitamins of every class, recognized and
unrecognized. ”
Why feed your child a baked apple, when the uncooked apple is more nutritious and far more
tasty. Why give it candy made of white sugar, synthetic colors and flavors, wood glue, and other
unwholesome substances, as long as there are dates, figs, bananas and other sweet fruits, which are
more tasty and more wholesome. There is more vitamin value in a stalk of celery or a head of
bibb lettuce than in all the vitamin pills in the drug store. An orange or a peach will provide
wholesome nutriment for your child. A dish of ice cream is about as unwholesome as anything he
can take. Soft drinks are poisonous and unfit to swallow. More care in feeding 
the child will give
it better health and save parents much anxiety and expense. Children’s diseases are parents’
mistakes. Children lack desire for food when they are ill. Enervated children, with gastritis, enlarged
tonsils and adenoids, constipation, diarrhea, feverishness, will express no demand for food. They
should be permitted to skip a meal or several meals, as circumstances warrant, and no effort
should be made to force them or coax them to eat. Any unusual excitement of children, even a trip or a picnic, may use up so much nerve energy
that indigestion is produced. Symptoms of indigestion may range all the way from irritability,
restlessness, tossing during sleep, bad breath, “growing pains,” white lines around the mouth, to
fever, gastric pains, nausea, vomiting and great discomfort evidenced by extreme restlessness. When such symptoms are present no food should be given. If children with indigestion are fed and
treated in the customary manner, the state of the stomach and intestinal tract is likely to become
putrescent, laying the ground work for possible serious disease. Infants become enervated from being handled too much, from being carried about, from having
their rest broken, from being subjected to noise—too much commotion in the house—by being
nursed and trundled too much, by being played with and excited too much, by being subjected to
too much heat and cold, by being fed too much, by being drugged for symptoms and inoculated for
disease prevention. In dealing with the child, of course, competent 
Hygienic
 guidance should be sought and
followed. When a baby is enervated, the digestive function falters; indigestion with fermentation
and putrefaction of food results. The putrescence thus evolved irritates the lining membrane of the
stomach and intestine. The membrane of the stomach, bowel or air passage becomes a site of
supplementary or compensatory excretion, the eliminating process being named, according to its
location, as a cold, bronchitis, gastritis, diarrhea, etc. There may be a slight feverish condition
73accompanied by a “sick stomach” or a slight cough. The baby is restless and uneasy, sleepless,
fretful. The restlessness is likely to be interpreted as hunger and the child may be fed. If the food is discontinued at once the slight indigestion quickly ends. The restlessness and
fretfulness subside. If it is fed and handled—many parents walk the floor with sick infants—the
irritableness, fretfulness and feverishness increase. If this program is continued, vomiting and
diarrhea may ensue and the symptom-complex may be named enteritis, cholera infantum, colitis or
dysentery. If the lungs are selected as fontanels through which to excrete the excess toxin, the
symptom-complex may be named pneumonia. If eruptions appear on the skin, the disease will be
named as hives, measles, scarlet fever, or smallpox. “In childhood,” wrote Dr. Oswald, “chronic dyspepsia is in nearly all cases the effect of
chronic medication. Indigestion is not an hereditary 
complaint. A dietetic sin 
per excessum,
 a
quantitative surfeit with sweet meats and pastry, may derange the digestive process for a few hours
or so but the trouble passes by with the holidays. Lock up the short-cakes, administer a glass of
cold water, and, my life for yours, that on Monday morning the little glutton will be ready to climb
the steepest hill in the country. But stuff him with liver pills, drench him with cough syrup, and
paregoric, and in a month or two he will not be able to satisfy the cravings of the inner boy without
‘assisting nature’ with a patent stimulant. ”
Babies and young children are prone to develop spasms as a consequence of severe indigestion. Each paroxysm scares the wits out of the parents, although it is usual for the youngster to be as
well as ever the following day. As soon as the child recovers from the acute indigestion the
spasms cease. The child with indigestion should not be fed. Sometimes an older child, suffering with a mild feverish condition and inflammation of the
digestive tract, will imagine that he is hungry and will demand food. This demand should not be
acceded to. Feeding will only serve to increase its discomfort and retard his recovery. Hunger
here is not genuine but most always only in the mind. Gastritis is inflammation of the stomach. It may be immediately occasioned by over-feeding or
eating freely of candy. When a baby becomes enervated from too much excitement, too much
handling, overclothing, cold or in any other way, resulting in inhibition of excretion, a channel of
compensatory or supplementary elimination is established through which to expel the accumulated
toxin. The mucous membranes of the body are favorite channels through which fontannels—
openings for use in discharge of excretions—are established for elimination purposes. If, as a
consequence of local irritation, from overeating or candy eating, for example, the lining of the
stomach is requisitioned to do vicarious duty, the baby has gastritis or indigestion. If the lining of
the intestine or colon is chosen for supplementary services, a diarrhea will develop. Perhaps a week or longer before the beginning of a fever, the observant mother may notice white
specks in the bowel movements of her baby. These mean that the milk is not being well digested,
perhaps due to overfeeding. The white specks may vary from small, white milk-curds throughout
the stool to an amount of milk curd that makes up two-thirds to three-fourths of the stool. If the
stool is gray and the consistency of putty, it is composed largely of undigested milk curd. If the
stool is sour, this indicates fermentation. If the condition is corrected at this stage, nothing further
will develop; but if not immediately corrected, inflammation of the stomach, small intestine and
large intestine will develop. If the indigestion is confined to the stomach, the child will be restless, irritable and feverish. At
first there will be vomiting of food stuff. This is soon followed by vomiting of water and mucus,
which may be slightly tinged with yellow. If food is withheld and water given in small doses, this
74crisis will end in a day to three or four days. The baby is likely to be thirsty and mothers are prone
to mistake this for hunger, and to feed. The food will be vomited, even water is frequently ejected. Water, when given, should be warm and taken in small amounts. It is important for mothers to
know that it is not a kindness on their part to feed a sick child. Food should always be withheld in
stomach and intestinal diseases. In short, while always acting under proper 
Hygienic
 direction with your child, do all that you
can to let the natural tools of rest and peace and quiet restore the child if there is upset or illness—
or even if it is only a question of how much he wants to eat. For there are ways in which the instinctive wisdom of the infant or child in such matters may be
far greater than we could possibly guess. 75Fasting to Help You Get Well
In this section of the book we will examine more closely the uses of fasting for health. In general
we will seek to give the reader a grasp of the nature of certain malfunctions and the way in which
the fast can be of value. Again we stress the fact that fasting in itself has no force but rather it
enables the body’s organs and recuperative forces to turn their full energies upon the problem to be
corrected. This is the great secret power within. 7617
Fasting in Acute Disease
“My baby is dying,” a mother said over the telephone to a 
Hygienist. It was the winter of 1927. The
Hygienist
 was located in New York City, the mother called him
from Nyack, N. Y. “How do you know the baby is dying. ”
The mother’s reply was not heartening: “He has pneumonia. Five physicians have just held a
consultation. It is their verdict my baby will die. There is nothing more that science can do. ”
“Let’s fool them,” said the 
Hygienist. “We could try to save her, you know—”
Over the phone the 
Hygienist
 then advised: “The first thing I want you to do is go to the table at
the bedside of your baby and sweep all the boxes and bottles of drugs that are there into the waste
basket. Next, open the window and let some fresh air into the room. Keep your baby warm, but
give it some fresh air. Give the baby as much water as it wants, but no food and no more drugs. ”
Twenty years later this baby, grown to splendid young womanhood, was married and wedding
pictures of her and her husband are prized possessions of the 
Hygienist
 who took over after the
physicians had declared the baby would die. It is not unusual to see patients recover after it has been declared that every thing had been done
that science could do. This is so because the very things that science does are so often the causes
of death. Drugs to suppress the cough and anodynes to stop the pain in the chest in pneumonia are
frequent causes of death. Feeding in pneumonia is also dangerous. When in both pneumonia and
pleurisy the patient is fed, not only is the toxemic supersaturation kept up, but the feeding prevents
resolution, that is, it prevents the inflamed lung or pleura from returning to normal. This may result
in abscess formation. In the acute forms of disease—fevers and inflammations—the desire for food is absent,
indicating that no food should be taken. There is an absence of the digestive juices, perhaps the
walls of the digestive system are pouring out mucus profusely, as in acute gastritis or in typhoid
fever, just 
as do the lining membranes of the nose and throat in a cold; the normal muscular
movements of the digestive tract are suspended, and there is absence of power to digest food. Inflammation, pain and fever each suspend the digestive secretions and the movements of the
stomach. When the sufferer with acute disease is fed his pains and discomforts are increased, his
temperature rises and his chances of recovery are reduced. In acute disease the digestive system is
as little fit to digest food as the limbs are for locomotion. Both require rest. What good does it do
for a man to take food, even the finest food, if he is unable to digest and assimilate it. Restless,
suffering with nausea, not only with no desire for food, but actually loathing it, and not retaining it
when swallowed, food certainly should not be taken. Forced feeding under such conditions is not
nourishing, but depleting. Fasting is the only rational plan of care of a sick person presenting such
symptoms. A man is prostrated; everything tastes bitter to him, every little noise is agonizing and his mind
wanders. His tongue is coated with a yellow-brown coat, the region over his stomach and bowels
is sensitive, he vomits at short intervals, his temperature is above normal. 77Should he be fed. Or could he be fed without adding to his discomfort and without danger. Loss of desire for food is one of the first symptoms of acute disease. Go over the whole list—
smallpox, typhoid fever, typhus fever, pneumonia, diphtheria, measles, cholera, and you realize
that one of the first developments in these crises is the suspension of all desire for food. Wisely,
nature cuts off all demand for food when it cannot be used. Fasting is a means of getting through
such crises. The fast is a temporary expedient by means of which the body achieves some of its urgently
needed work, an expedient employed by the living organism to help it over many of the
emergencies of life. It is almost correct to say that fasting and surgery are all that are of value in
disease. But we can say this only if we recognize that the regular or ordinary elements of nature’s
great plan of 
Hygiene
 are as essential in illness as in health, except that their use must be modified
to conform to the crippled powers of the organism. Instead of fasting being a 
cure,
 it is an essential and integral part of the healing process. When
the digestive system is prostrated and all desire for food is cut off, as it is in acute disease, we
have an expedient that is as much a part of the remedial process, the process of restoration, as the
concomitant prostration of the body as a whole that sends the sick person to bed. To be extremely
precise, the fasting process is an actual part of the 
remedial process
 that we call disease. Including surgery among the useful expedients in disease does not imply approval to all surgery
performed today. Skillfully done, as much of it is, it is performed all too often for purely
commercial motives rather than only 
when there is a legitimate reason for it. The fact will
someday be known that fasting will obviate the supposed need for much of the surgery that is
performed today. In stressing the fact that much surgery is without valid reason I am stating no
more than has been repeatedly stated by leading members of the surgical profession itself. On the plane of instinct this lack of desire for food is duly respected. The sick dog hides. He
will not eat. He refuses a wet compress on his brow. He does not feel sorry for himself and does
not seek for sympathy. He refuses to permit his friends to hold his paws. All he wants is to be left alone. He wants no food and he takes none. Rest, quiet, warmth, air
and, sometimes, a little water, are all he wants. He will not take juices or diluted milk, if offered
these, nor will he take the juice of flesh. Vitamins, if proffered, will be rejected. Resting in
seclusion, preferably in a dark place, while awaiting the completion of the reparative work done
by his own self-healing power—he recovers. There is order in the processes of nature; the haphazard nowhere reigns supreme. There must be,
thus, some profound reason for the suspension of digestive processes and the simultaneous
suspension of the desire for food in states of acute illness. The sick man’s dislike of food would
seem to be as significant as his dislike of noise, motion, light, close air and cold. Yet, while these
latter dislikes are commonly respected, we are inclined to disregard the first and attempt to feed in
spite of the most obstinate repugnance to food. If the patient is chilly, we warm him; if noise disturbs him, we seek to protect him from this; if
light disturbs him, we lower the shades; if the air is close, we open the windows; we respect his
desire to lie quietly and not move about. But we urge him to eat. There is a story told of Pope Leo XIII, that, in his last illness in his ninety-third year, he said to
his physicians: “Gentlemen, you require me to eat more than I ate in health. ”
This practice was all too common and is still responsible for much unnecessary suffering and
death. Going without food in acute disease not only relieves pain, but rests the heart and relieves
the kidneys. The ancients well understood the value of abstinence in acute disease and an
78understanding of its value was carried down even into late times. Fasting in fevers was commonly
employed by Neapolitan physicians over a hundred and fifty years ago. They frequently permitted
their fever patients to go for as many as forty days without food. It should not be thought, however, that fasting should be instituted only in states of serious
illness, that one should continue to eat so long as any digestive power remains. On the contrary,
missing a few meals at the beginning of the trouble is often enough to prevent the development of
serious trouble. If functional impairment is only slight, as indicated by a coated tongue, headache,
a general malaise, and similar “insignificant”
 symptoms, a short fast will enable the body to
eliminate the systemic toxemia before more formidable trouble evolves. If, when the first symptoms appear, the patient were put to bed, strict repose enjoined, no good
given, many cases of acute disease would be light and of short duration. The patient should be kept
warm and given all the water demanded by thirst. The room should be light and airy, and visitors
should be excluded. Rest is the important thing. When the acute sufferer fasts his discomforts are less severe, his pains are less intense, his fever
does not rise so high, complications are rare, loss of weight is often less than in the patient who
does not fast, and the duration of the disease shortened. Less weight loss is almost, if not entirely
due to the fact that the duration of the disease is shortened. Typhoid fever, as an example, lasts in
the average case from eight to twelve days instead of the usual twenty-one days. The courses of
measles, scarlet fever and pneumonia are correspondingly shortened. Again we reiterate: Fasting is not a 
cure. But, conducted properly, the physiological rest it provides the body’s organs can often help the
recovery forces of nature carry out the healing work. 7918
Fasting in Chronic Disease
“I have lost my appetite. ”
“Nothing tastes good to me any more. I eat only as a matter of routine. ”
“I suffer with distress after every meal. ”
These are some of the complaints of patients who suffer with some chronic form of disease,
such as colitis, chronic gastritis, hay fever, asthma, arthritis, nervousness, stomach ulcer or cancer. These people eat, only because they honestly think that they must eat—regularly, every day,
three times a day—to stay alive. Some of them are overweight, but great numbers of them are thin
and remain so, although they may be overeating. Another class of chronic sufferers are, as they put it, “always hungry. ” 
They eat at all hours of
the day and night. They habitually overeat, whipping up their jaded sense of taste with condiments,
strong flavors, and in other ways. Often they suffer after each meal but they don’t cut down on their
intake. Then there are those among this class who suffer almost as much when they do not eat as
when they do. “Hunger” here, as we have seen in other cases, is not hunger at all, in a true sense, but a morbid
sensation or set of sensations mistaken for hunger. It may be a “gnawing” in the stomach, pain in
the stomach or some other symptom of gastric irritation. This is the reason the sensation cannot be
satisfied. The fact that eating palliates the discomfort for a few moments, does not prove that food
was actually needed, any more than the need for a cup of coffee is proven when it temporarily
relieves a coffee addict’s headache. The surest, simplest way for those who are “always hungry”
to overcome their supposed hunger is to fast. Man tends to abstain from food when under great emotional distress. Rejection of food is
frequent among the insane. Although it is the present practice to use force to feed mentally ill
patients, it is doubtful if such enforced feeding is proper. Man instinctively fasts under certain
conditions, as do the lower animals, and the rejection of food by the mentally ill is probably an
instinctive act that will, if not interrupted, prove very beneficial. Indeed, my experience with such
patients has convinced me that this is true. The most important feature about fasting in chronic disease is the marked acceleration of
elimination that it occasions, thus speedily freeing the body of its accumulated toxic load. The
disappearance of symptoms, sometimes of years standing, when one fasts, is often dramatic. Fasting provides opportunity for the body to do for itself what it is unable to do under conditions
of surfeit. Surfeit makes impossible the cleaning of the fluids and tissues in a physiological
housecleaning. A properly conducted fast will enable the chronically ill body to excrete the toxic load that is
responsible for the trouble, after which a corrected mode of living enables the individual to evolve
into a vigorous state of health. It should not be thought that eating must be continued so long as the body does not vigorously
rebel against food. When there is functional impairment, symptoms of impairment, sluggishness
and unease, then is the time to institute what may be described as a 
preventive fast. A fast at this
point need not be long. Improvement often is swift—preventing an evolution of serious sickness. When we observe the eyes become brighter, the skin fairer, and the breath sweeter while fasting,
80or when we see a poor complexion clear up, or other symptoms fade and vigor return—we can be
certain that the fast has enabled the body to carry out a preventive housecleaning. It is a mistake to expect one fast, even a long one, to be sufficient to 
enable the body to free
itself of the whole of its accumulated debris. A lifetime of piling up toxins cannot be corrected in
the span of a few weeks. In such diseases as paralysis agitans, arthritis, a large tumor, and other
conditions that require so much time to build, three or more fasts are often needed to obtain all the
improvement possible in a particular case. Sinusitis is inflammation of the nasal sinuses. It would have been called a catarrhal condition by
our fathers and mothers, but the tendency today is to discontinue the use of a general term like
catarrh and to use so-called specific terms. Sinusitis may be either acute or chronic. Most people
have some inflammation in one of more parts of the mucous membranes of the body—that is to say,
they have one or more “catarrhs. ”
Names of 
catarrhal inflammations
 vary with the different locations, but it is all the same
disease with the same general cause. The practice of classifying each local inflammation by a
different name and giving each an individuality, confuses both the patient and the physician. This
keeps alive the delusion that there are many 
diseases. Replying to the charge that fasting lowers resistance to disease, Dr. Weger says: “I have seen
many cases of infection of different kinds recover completely on a fast. Take for example an
advanced case of sinusitis after five or six painful operations—frontal, ethmoidal, and antrum—
with surgical drainage and irrigations two or three times a week, continued over a period of two to
five years, with no relief or amelioration of symptoms. After almost unendurable suffering, such
patients are as a rule, thin, and physically and mentally depressed. When they make complete
recoveries after a prolonged fast, as the great majority of them do, is this not sufficient proof that
fasting somehow or other raises the power of the organism to overcome infection, rather than
fasting renders them more susceptible. What is true of sinusitis is equally true of other infections
—even those so situated anatomically that they cannot be surgically drained, and must therefore be
absorbed. ”
What is here said of recovery from sinusitis is equally true of recovery from other
inflammations in the respiratory, digestive, genitourinary tracts and other regions of the body that
are lined with mucous membrane. Thus otitis, conjunctivitis, gastritis, duodenitis, ileitis, colitis, metritis—all have been known to
clear up during the course of a lengthy fast. Only in comparatively rare instances are two fasts
required. Hay fever and asthma, both belonging to this same group of “diseases,” are remedied by
the forces of the organism during a fast. Extensive experience with fasting in a wide variety of diseases, running over a period of more
than a hundred and thirty years and involving the work of hundreds of men and women caring for
many thousands of patients, has demonstrated that when the load is lifted from the digestive organs
by fasting, all of the energy of the body is transferred to the organs 
of excretion, permitting full use
of these organs in freeing the body of an accumulated load of toxin. What the body can do for itself in the way of restoring normal function and full vigor when the
toxic load is lifted has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Speaking of pernicious anemia, Tilden says: “A fast of two weeks, without anything at all
except water, will improve anemia condition by increasing the blood-corpuscles sometimes by
five hundred thousand in that length of time. ” There is poisoning from the digestive tract in all of
these cases and it seems most likely that this befoulment of the blood with sepsis from this source
81is the cause of the failure of the blood-making organs. A similar septic befoulment seems to exist in cancer, causing anemia in this condition. It should
be emphasized strongly that no person suffering with anemia should undertake a fast, except under
competent supervision. There is an equal need for experienced supervision of the diabetic who fasts. The diabetic may
safely and profitably fast, particularly if he carries considerable weight. If insulin has been taken
over an extended period of time, fasting is rarely recommended. The sufferer with Bright’s disease may also fast with great benefit. In both these conditions and
all similar “diseases,” more important than the fast is the correction of the total way of life. It is
imperative that these patients be taught how to eat and that they learn their individual limitations
and to respect these. They may evolve into good health—continually improved health—if all
enervating habits are discontinued and the patient learns the laws of proper eating. 8219
The Case of the Common Cold
Millions of dollars have been spent in trying to discover what germ or set of germs produces the
common cold. All the efforts so far have led on to greater confusion, greater claims and greater
expenditures on remedies and the quest for vaccines to prevent colds. Harold Deihs, M. D. , at the University of Minnesota, tested, on many thousands of students,
virtually every cold remedy ever devised and kept exact records. None of them proved to be a
genuine remedy. Some authorities insist that the cold is caused by a whole panoply of cold microbes—a sort of
“germ cocktail. ” Other common cold experts propound the concept that the cold is produced by a
virus or a whole series of viruses. Nearly a hundred viruses have been identified which may play
some role in the causation of the cold. As all work now seems to be concentrated on finding a
vaccine that will 
immunize
 one against these viruses, it is obvious that a number of vaccines will
have to be perfected. It would be so much better to learn to live in a manner to avoid colds. The
normal body produces its own protection. It needs no outside crutch. It has been said that the cold is common, not because it is simple, but because it is so complex. This may have reference to the confusion in which the etiology of the cold has been enshrouded. Dr. Tilden said that a cold is the proximal symptom of a complex whose distal symptom is cancer
or tuberculosis or some other fatal 
degenerative disease. Between the first cold of infancy and death from cancer in middle life, there are intermediate
complexes and symptoms galore—colds, coughs, sore throats, constipation, diarrhea, headaches,
fatigue, grouchiness, apprehension, restlessness, sleeplessness, bad breath, coated tongue, and
many other symptoms and so-called acute diseases, all of which are but crises in toxemia. The
non-toxemic individual cannot be made to develop symptoms of a cold. In humorous verse, but with underlying truth, the 
rationale
 of the causes of cold was presented
in these stanzas in a poem published in the 
American Journal of Clinical Medicine
 in 1928:
A cold is not a cold to me—
It’s Nature’s way to tell
That I’ve been dining recently
Not wisely, but too well. A snuffy nose has come to mean
That I’ve enjoyed erstwhile
Some breaded porkchops, nested deep
In sweet spuds, southern style…. Or else, perchance, a wondrous steak,
With onions crisp and brown,
Has made my liver make of me
A menace to the town. 83Or, it might be a chunk of cheese,
Or mince pie hot and sweet,
So, a cold is not a cold to me—
It’s just too much to eat. Hygienists
 can fully endorse the thoughts expressed in these lines. Not only may one avoid
colds by learning to eat within limitations and by conserving energy in every way, but one may
hasten the termination of the cold by fasting. Stuffing the patient who has a cold is a sure way of
prolonging it and of causing it to “run into pneumonia” or something else. Few people realize the
importance of stopping all food until all symptoms have subsided. In an article on the common cold, published in American newspapers on Dec. 20, 1962, Dr. Walter C. Alvarez, professor of medicine and editor of 
American Medicine,
 and newspaper
columnist, declared: “In the great British cold research laboratory at Salisbury, it was found that
sitting or standing in wet clothes in a draft does not produce a cold. ”
Such experiments are but wasteful repetitions of experiments that were conducted in this country
in the last century by 
Hygienists,
 and, while they confirm the conclusions arrived at by the
Hygienists,
 they add nothing new to our knowledge of the cause of colds. Alvarez says that he
himself has no fear of getting chilled in winter. Alvarez thinks that colds are “contagious. ” He says that what he does fear is to get into a taxi
cab with a man who has a sniffy cold. He thinks that he “catches cold” or what it catches him under
such circumstances. As such an experience never causes me to have a cold, I wonder why he so
readily develops a cold when thus “exposed. ” He discounts the idea that being in good condition
will enable one to avoid colds, but his reasons for objecting to this idea are rather shaky. In his youth he used to have four severe colds a year—at a time when he was an athlete, a track
man, a swimmer and an instructor in a gymnasium—although he would take a cold bath every
morning and run three or four miles every evening. Unfortunately for his position, his activities do not necessarily prove that he was in genuinely
good condition. Athletes are notorious for their frequent colds. Alvarez has accepted the common
faulty conception of what constitutes good condition. A plethoric and toxemic individual may pass
for being in good condition. He says: “We are told to eat well and get plenty of sleep. ” He neither
approves nor disapproves of this advice. I would point out that what is commonly meant by “eating
well” is overeating and eating plentifully of staple foods. This is a sure way to build colds, not to
prevent them. I do not dismiss exposure to cold, however, as a contributing factor in the production of a cold
any more than I am willing to dismiss becoming overheated as a contributing factor in the same
complex of factors that collectively constitute cause. Prolonged exposure to cold enervates and
this checks elimination. Those who are already enervated and toxemic, when exposed to cold, have their elimination
further checked and this is frequently enough to 
precipitate a crisis, in this case a cold. It should be
realized that when one is already enervated and toxemic any added enervating influence will place
enough additional check upon elimination that a crisis is sure to develop. What happens is that the added check upon elimination causes the toxic accumulation to rise
above the point of established toleration and the body rebels. A channel of supplementary
elimination is established through which to get rid of the excess. Copavin,
 the drug considered the best by Alvarez, was the only one that Diehs thought “worked
84well. " This drug, which contains codeine, was said to “block out” about 85% of colds, but it was
“effective” only if taken early. It does not 
cure
 the cold later. The fact is that the many “block outs”
attributed to this drug would have occurred had the drug not been given. Colds last anywhere from
a few hours to two or three weeks. Almost anything can be made to appear to 
cure
 the cold for the
reason that recovery is spontaneous and occurs if nothing is done. Copavin
 results in constipation
and troubles many nervous patients. It does not remove the cause of the cold. What should we do when the first symptom of a cold arises. All food should be discontinued at
once. Instead of large quantities of water, as commonly advised, only as much water as thirst
demands should be taken. Indeed, it seems that the less water taken the more rapid the recovery. The fast should not be less than twenty-four hours, it may be three or four days in duration,
depending on the severity of the symptoms. Following the fast, eating should be light for the first few days: orange or a grapefruit—no sugar
—for breakfast, a vegetable salad at noon, and fresh fruit in season in the evening, for the first one
to two days, after which the eating should be sparse until all symptoms have subsided. While fasting, the best place for the patient is in bed. He should be warm and comfortable and
should have fresh air in the room both day and night. A daily lukewarm bath may be taken, but no
heroic bathing is advisable. If it is not possible to quit work and go to bed, one should obtain as
much rest as circumstances permit and get to bed early at night. If these simple suggestions are carried out, no cold will evolve into pneumonia. Prolonging a
cold by eating and by suppressing its symptoms with drugs, may end in death. Fasting does not 
cure
 a cold. One may get well of a cold if one eats heartily, drinks heavily, gets
little sleep, works hard and is chilled by day. People have been doing this throughout history. All
that we claim for the foregoing fasting program is that it greatly lessens the discomforts of the cold,
shortens its duration and leaves the patient in much better condition when the cold has ended. 8520
Multiple Sclerosis
Widespread fund-raising campaigns to fight the crippling effects of this disease, and to perform
research into its cause and treatment, have made multiple sclerosis familiar to the public. Yet there
may be some basic causes already known in terms of diet and activities of the individual and even
possible avenues of recovery in the fast. I recall a case of an optometrist whose condition became so bad that he had to give up his work
and turn his office over to someone else. For a few years he had been under the care of several of
the best neurologists of the East and, as they had warned him at the outset, had grown
progressively worse. They had frankly told him that they had no 
cure
 for multiple sclerosis. They were telling him the truth, yet after seven weeks in a 
Hygienic
 institution, he walked out
under his own power, returned home and resumed his professional activities. He was not a well man at the end of seven weeks. It is too much to expect a full recovery in such
a short time. But he had made such great improvement that he felt justified in returning home and
getting back to work. This is often a wrong position to take, especially with a condition like
multiple sclerosis, but it is a mistake that the sick frequently make. Many patients seem to be satisfied to stop their efforts in recovering health when they have been
freed of their most annoying symptoms. They are often unwilling to go on to full health, and are
convinced they can take care of themselves. After having made a certain amount of initial
improvement they expect to take charge and they feel they can carry on, from that point, as well as
their professional adviser. In a few cases it works out; generally they fail. In cases watched and
controlled, results of fasting can be established. Sclerosis means induration or hardening. It has special reference to hardening of a part due to
inflammation. In the nervous system the term denotes an overgrowth of connective tissue
(hyperplasia of connective tissue) in the nerve tissue. Multiple sclerosis—also called disseminated sclerosis and sometimes 
known as Charcot’s
disease—is characterized by hardening (sclerosis) occurring in sporadic patches through the brain
and spinal cord or both. These hardened patches range from the size of a pin head to that of a pea
and are scattered irregularly through the brain and cord. At autopsy, it is found that the insulating sheath of the nerves is broken down and the nerve cells
and fibers have fused together. I have emphasized that this is what is found at autopsy for the
reason that the trouble does not start as a sclerosis (hardening), but as an inflammation. A man dies after suffering with multiple sclerosis for fifteen or twenty years and an autopsy is
performed. His brain and nervous system are subjected to the closest scrutiny and certain
pathological changes are found. But this is the end-point. What was the condition of his nerves five
years, ten years or fifteen years prior to death. It is reasonable to think that if the condition of the
nerves was the same five years or ten years prior to death that they are found to be in at death, he
would have died five to ten years earlier. The disease is said to be “incurable. ” It may last for years before the patient dies. The end-
point, as found at death, is certainly irreversible, but can we be sure that the earlier stages of the
disease are irreversible. The very progress of the disease would seem to negate such an
assumption. In the inflammatory stage of the disease it would certainly seem to be remediable. 86Indeed, spontaneous remissions are known that may last for weeks or even years. Once the
hardening has occurred, there would seem to be no possibility that the disease could intermit, or
that recovery could be effected. A fatty insulating material called the myelin sheath, which surrounds the nerves, is lost and this
is said to cause abnormal nerve behavior. Some of the nerves work energetically, some work very
weakly and others fail to work at all. No two cases are alike because in no two cases are the same parts of the brain and nervous
system affected. The development of the hardening does not progress at the same rate in each case,
and does not take place at the same rate at all points in the body of the same patient. For the reason
that no two cases are identical, no description of the disease will fit any particular case. Among the leading symptoms of the disease are weakness, strong jerky movements,
incoordination of the extremities that is often more marked in the arms than in the legs, and
amemomania, which is a form of insanity with agreeable hallucinations. Also other abnormal
mental exaltations, scanning speech and an involuntary rapid movement of the eyes, called
nyastagmus are evident. The tremor is jerky, is increased by voluntary efforts to restrain it, and is
entirely absent during complete rest and sleep, returning when movements are resumed. The nature of the symptoms in each case will depend on the locations 
and severity of the
changes in the nervous tissues. A sudden loss of vision in one eye or a period of double vision may
be an early symptom. The eye symptoms usually clear up in a short time and they may not recur for
months or years. The patient may develop peculiar feelings, with tingling and numbness in various
parts of the limbs and body. Weakness in the legs and difficulty in walking may later develop. There may be trembling,
jerking of the legs, difficulty in talking, a hand may become clumsy or useless. Tremor of the hand
may develop when the individual attempts to pick up something. Trouble with the rectum and the
urinary bladder may also develop. These symptoms may remain mild for a number of years or they may clear up and not recur for
long periods. It is this remission of symptoms that indicates that in the early stages of the disease
the developments are not irreversible. About half of these patients are still able to work after
twenty-five years, a fact which indicates the slowness of the development of the disease. This
certainly provides ample time for something constructive to be done. Many cases are so mild and the symptoms so evanescent that they are not diagnosed as sclerosis
for years. The tendency of the symptoms to cease for periods of time is said to be one of the basic
characteristics of the disease, the other being the scattered character of the symptomatic
developments, as the hardening is scattered. I have previously pointed out that no two cases are alike in their symptoms or in their
development, each patient lending his own individuality to the disease; but this is no more true of
multiple sclerosis than of any other disease. No germ or virus has been found upon which to lay the blame for the development of the disease
and it is freely confessed that “the cause is unknown. ” It is, however, thought to be “probably of
infectious origin. ”
No treatment has proved satisfactory. This is true in so many diseases that it is almost the rule. How can there be satisfactory treatment of a disease the cause of which is unrecognized. Standard
works on the disease say: “The cause of the disease is entirely unknown … there is no specific or
really effective treatment … always a long-standing disease, total recovery from it is very
doubtful. ”
87Certainly we cannot expect total recovery if the cause is unrecognized. The failure to recognize
the general impairing influences in the life and environment of the patient as the true cause of
functional and organic deterioration blinds us to the causes of disease. The search for specific causes has about reached its end. The time has arrived when we must
find in wrong living habits the cause of the failures of the organism and the evolution of its
diseases. When these are recognized and removed, there is a possibility of recovery in thousands
of individuals who are now regarded as hopelessly 
incurable. I have never had opportunity to care for a case of multiple sclerosis in the early stages, hence I
can only suggest that if these cases were given 
Hygienic
 care at the outset of their trouble, the
percentage of recoveries would be high. All of the cases I have had the privilege of caring for
have been in advanced stages and I do not consider these favorable cases. The fact that I have been able to return some of these, even in helpless conditions, to a state of
usefulness speaks volumes for the efficiency of the 
Hygienic
 program in restoring normal tissue
and functional condition. Let us review the general picture of the fasting experience, as applied to a multiple sclerosis
case. The first fast brings about remarkable improvement in the general health of the individual
with considerable increase in his control and use of his limbs, often enabling the bed-ridden
patient to get up and walk about. He manages to hold this improvement and not infrequently to add
to it, while eating a carefully planned diet and taking regular exercise and sun baths following the
fast. A second fast adds to his control and use of his limbs. I have employed as many as three fasts in
these cases. Each fast has resulted in increased control of the limbs and has made it possible for
them to be used with greater ease. I continue the rest in bed following the fast, adding a period or two of daily light exercise of a
type that requires increasing skill in their performance. The purpose of the exercise in these cases
is not so much that of increasing the size and strength of the muscles as to increase the individual’s
skill in their use. Heavier exercise may come later if desired. I am convinced that daily sunbathing in these cases is especially helpful in furthering the
evolution of nerve health. The diet is one of fresh fruits and vegetables with only moderate
quantities of fats, sugars, starches and proteins. I prefer the vegetable proteins—nuts and
sunflower seeds are good in these cases. The important thing for us to remember is that the sclerosis does not belong to the initial stages
of the disease. In these early stages recovery is most likely to take place, providing only that all
impairing influences are removed from the life of the individual and his blood and flesh are freed
of their toxic load. It is in the initial stage that full recovery is or should be possible, not in the advanced stages
when irreversible changes in the nerve structures have taken place. The ancient adage: “A stitch in
time”—in this case, action in time, can make the difference. 8821
Asthma
A young soprano whose voice and hard work had won her the high honor of being a member of the
Metropolitan Opera found herself in a heartbreaking situation: She had developed a serious
asthmatic condition and could no longer sing. Her physician told her frankly, “I can give you temporary respite. We have no cure for asthma. ”
The desperate singer consulted a specialist who reiterated what the family physician had told
her. There was no 
cure. At that moment this singer faced the prospect of the wreckage of her career, in spite of her
talent, training, work and dreams. She gave up singing. She retired to her farm in New Jersey. Medicine had written off her chances. Then she heard of 
Natural Hygiene
—the concept of the importance of the body's own healing
capacity. Uncertain—but willing in her predicament to try any possible avenue of help, she
consulted a 
Hygienist. After examining her and hearing her story, he told her, “You can be helped. I believe you can
free yourself of this asthmatic condition if you will do what I tell you—not by medicine or medical
treatment at all. ”
“What then. ” she demanded. “Simply fast. ”
She did not understand. He explained at length to her the processes of fasting as we have been
discussing them and their techniques in this book. The young singer grasped at this idea that was entirely new and startling to her. The fast did the job. In a matter not of months but of weeks the asthma cleared, within a few months she was back at
the Metropolitan. A career that might otherwise have been smashed on the rocks of asthmatic
suffering was able to return to its triumphant course. In both the United States and Canada today are thousands of men and women of all ages who
have recovered without any attention being given to the things to which they were told they were
allergic. Indeed, as I have so often stressed, once they have been restored to full health, they can take a
bath in pollens of all kinds without any ill effects. I have seen long lists of the foods and other
substances to which patients have been shown by the scratch test to be 
allergic. An asthmatic undergoing a fast was in my office one morning when a cat walked into the room. The asthmatic looked startled—then laughed. “Before coming here,” he told me, “I would have had
an attack of asthma if a cat walked into a room where I happened to be. ” He picked up the cat, held
it in his arms, and proceeded to stroke its back. “It feels good to be able to breathe again. ”
He had been sent from New England to Arizona, where five years of the “climate 
cure”
 had
done him no appreciable good. Asthmatics suffer year after year, often becoming worse with the
passage of time, when all of them could get well in four to eight weeks and remain well for the
remainder of their lives. Standard text books name several varieties of asthma—including cardiac, renal and bronchial,
89and describe many complications. As we regard all varieties of asthma and all so-called
complications as symptoms rising out of the same general cause, and requiring the same general
corrections of the mode of living, we may ignore, for the present, these differentiations. The
symptom-complexes that are named different disease require special attention only in so far as it is
needful to know where possible, if organic change is so great as to make recovery impossible. We must not forget the unity of disease and the unity of cause that binds all the so-called
diseases together. The different so-called diseases get their names from the tissues and organs
involved in the pathological process. The symptoms are characteristic of the organs and tissues
and not of the poisoning. Renal asthma is seen in advanced kidney disease and cardiac asthma is seen in severe heart
disease. In both instances the difficult breathing is due to an accumulation of fluid in the lungs and
to other changes in the lungs. Recovery from these types of asthma depends upon recovery from the
heart or kidney disease. As asthma in these diseases is a development in the late stages, recovery
is not always possible. Bronchial asthma, which is defined as recurrent paroxysms of difficult breathing (dyspnea) and
coughing, is a catarrhal condition involving the mucous membrane of the lower respiratory
passages. The asthma is more or less spasmodic and is always accompanied by catarrhal
affections in other parts of the body. There is a catarrh of the nose and throat, commonly sinusitis,
often gastritis or colitis and metritis or cystitis. Indeed, the catarrh exists for some time before
asthmatic symptoms appear. Asthma is found everywhere, in all classes of peple. It is found in both warm and cold
countries, in wet and dry climates, in high and low altitudes, among the rich and in the poor, the
high and the low, the short 
and thin, the fat and the lean, the light and the dark. Men, women and
children develop the disease and it is seen at times in pampered animals. In those very climates to
which asthmatics are sometimes sent to seek a 
cure
, people native to the community and the
climate often develop asthma. Two people practice bad habits for years, one of them being about as indulgent as the other, and
one of them develops asthma, the other develops arthritis. Why does one pay for his bad habits in
one way and the other in another. We are in the habit of saying that this is due to diathesis or
predisposition, but these are words that explain little. Why is one so disposed and the other differently disposed. Why does one man develop kidney
disease and another man develop gallstones. Why do two men equally exposed to the rigors of a
blizzard not both develop pneumonia. Why does one have pneumonia and the other only a cold. Why does one man have bronchial catarrh for years and never develop asthmatic symptoms, and
another have the same catarrh and also the asthmatic symptoms. It is now customary to say that one
is allergic and the other is not, but this is another word that explains nothing. The asthmatic is a neurotic; by this, I mean that he is predisposed to develop nervous diseases. But what is the predisposition. The answer, I believe firmly, lies primarily in constitutional
weaknesses, growing, in many instances, out of heredity, in other cases out of larval deficiencies,
resulting from faulty nutrition in the parents and grandparents. Other factors that may be involved in producing what is called predisposition are habit and
environmental stresses. Tobacco stresses the heart and lungs overeating stresses the liver and
kidneys; too much physical activity stresses the heart and joints; fear stresses the heart and nervous
system. These are but samples of stresses to organs and systems that are part of the conventional
ways of life. Such stresses weaken and impair organs and functions and lay the groundwork for
90local pathological evolutions. Cold and heat and dryness and wetness and other environmental factors may place enough stress
upon the body to do harm. Sudden extremes of such factors may precipitate a crisis. We trace asthma, as we do all other so-called diseases, to a blood and flesh condition which we
denominate toxemia. It is caused by a mode of living that expends nerve energy excessively, brings
on a state of nerve fatigue which we call enervation, so that the functions of life are carried on at a
low physiological level. Consequently, elimination of waste is checked so that it tends to
accumulate in the blood, lymph and tissues. The presence of more than a physiological amount of waste in the body—at all times there is
waste being carried by the blood and lymph away from the cells for excretion—results in irritation
and inflammation. Section summary: 

Please summarize the author(s)' argument/thesis statement/main ideas/conclusions drawn based solely using quotes and paraphrasing key phrases

**Main Ideas**

* **Rebuttable thesis**: Contrary to popular belief, losing weight despite consuming excessive calories is typically attributed to inadequate nutrient absorption/digesestion & utilization rather than scarcity of nutrients intake (**"One [person] loses interest in food. though starvation. ”

(**". though starving,")
          *   ***Improve Digestion***: Regular consumption doesn't guarantee healthy gut functioning;
    optimal hydration levels ensure appropriate detoxification pathways (*'Eliminating toxicity. ')
            •     Correct dietary patterns aren't achieved overnight - gradual adjustment helps achieve sustainable success;

•         Key takeaway message : Donâts confuse âlosing intensions for realizations"
          



Section Summary:

Key Findings:


–      Losing Weight Despite Consuming Excessive Calories Typically Due to Impaired Nutrient Absorption/Degradation Rather Than Scarcety Of Intactieutrients Consumption. # Main Idea #4


## Conclusion


91Summary Statement: Based Soleiy Using Quotes And Parahrasging Keu Phrases).
The primary reason is not lack of food, but rather the inability to digest and assimilate food.
What is the primary reason for overeating in individuals who are underweight?
The duration of fasting varies from case to case and should be determined by a competent supervisor.
What is the recommended duration of fasting in a patient with multiple sclerosis?
The primary cause is not a germ or virus, but rather a toxic load in the body, which can be eliminated through fasting.
What is the primary cause of multiple sclerosis?
All food should be discontinued, and only as much water as needed to quench thirst should be given.
What is the recommended approach to treating a patient with a cold?
Fasting is recommended, as it allows the body to eliminate toxins and recover its natural ability to digest and assimilate food, which is essential for recovery.
What is the recommended approach to treating a patient with asthma?