Chapter 4:A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING.: The Fasting Cure by Upton Sinclair from archive.org

A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING. 

Recently I published a request that 
those who had tried the fast as the 
result of my advocacy would write to 
advise me of the results. I stated that 
I desired to hear unfavourable results 
as well as favourable; that I wanted 
to get at the facts, and would tabulate 
the results exactly as they came. The 
questions asked were as follows : 

1. How many times have you 
fasted ? 

2. How many days on each occa- 
sion? 

3. From what complaints did you 
suffer ? 

4. Were these complaints ever 
diagnosed by regular physicians? If 

101 



THE FASTING CURE 

SO, give the names and addresses of 
these physicians. 

5. Do you consider that you were 
definitely benefited by the fasts? If 
so, in what way? 

6. For how long did the benefit 
continue ? 

7. Do you consider that you were 
completely cured ? 

8. Do you consider that you were 
definitely harmed? If so, in what 
way? 

9. Have you ever been examined by 
any regular physician since the cure? 
If so, give name and address. 

10. Are you willing that your 
name and address should be quoted 
for the benefit of others ? 

The total number of fasts taken was 
277, and the average number of days 
was 6. There were 90 of five days or 

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A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

over, 51 of ten days or over, and 6 of 
30 days or over. Out of the 109 per- 
sons who wrote to me, 100 reported 
benefit, and 17 no benefit. Of these 17 
about half give wrong breaking of the 
fast as the reason for the failure. In 
cases where the cure had not proved 
permanent, about half mentioned that 
the recurrence of the trouble was 
caused by wrong eating, and about 
half of the rest made this quite evi- 
dent by what they said. Also it is to 
be noted that in the cases of the 17 who 
got no benefit, nearly all were fasts of 
only three or four days. 

Following is the complete list of 
diseases benefited — 45 of the cases 
having been diagnosed by physicians : 
indigestion (usually associated with 
nervousness), 27; rheumatism, 5; colds, 
8; tuberculosis, 4; constipation, 14; 
poor circulation, 3; headaches, 5; 

103 



THE FASTING CURE 

anaemia, 3; scrofula, 1; bronchial 
trouble, 5 ; syphilis, 1 ; liver trouble, 5 
general debility, 5 ; chills and fever, 1 
blood poisoning, 1; ulcerated leg, 1 
neurasthenia, 6; locomotor ataxia, 1 
sciatica, 1; asthma, 2; excess of uric 
acid, 1 ; epilepsy, 1 ; pleurisy, 1 ; impac- 
tion of bowels, 1 ; eczema, 2 ; catarrh, 
6; appendicitis, 3; valvular disease of 
heart, 1 ; insomnia, 1 ; gas poisoning, 1 ; 
grippe, 1; cancer, 1. 

There follows a brief summary of 
some of the most interesting cases. A 
number of longer letters will be found 
in the Appendix. 

Mrs. Lulu Wallace Smith, 324 W. 
White Oak Ave., Monrovia, Cal. Age 
28. Fasted 30 days for appendicitis 
and peritonitis, diagnosed by four 
physicians. ** Yes, indeed, I have 
definitely been benefited by fasting. 

104 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

My stomach is not distressed after 
meals, I have regular evacuations of the 
intestines, which I had not had since 
I was seventeen. I feel perfectly 
healthy and look the same." 

William N . Syphilis, with ad- 
vanced ulcers in throat. Physicians 
declared the case hopeless. Complete 
disappearance of symptoms after four 
days' fast, but they gradually reap- 
peared, and longer fast intended. 

Dora Jordan, Connersville, Md. 
Indigestion, extreme nervousness, 
neuralgia in its worst form. Fasted 
thirty days ; did most of cooking for a 
family of five, was at no time tempted 
to eat. "I am no longer troubled 
with the old diseases, and weigh more 
than ever before. After my fast I felt 
as happy and care free as a little 
child." 

105 11 



THE FASTING CURB 

C. L. Clark, Greenville, Mich. 
Nervous, poor digestion. Fasted nine 
days. " I have been wonderfully 
benefited, and am a rabid convert. 
Alas, for the poor mortal who shows 
the faintest spark of interest in my 
fast — I hand him the whole works, 
lock, stock and barrel ! I feel a new 
power and new incentive in life. 
Whenever I see a sick person, I feel 
like telling him that for all he knows 
to the contrary, good health has been 
and may be only eight or ten days 
away and waiting for years for him 
to claim it." 

T. S. Jacks, Muskegon, Mich. 
Twenty days, followed by shorter fasts, 
for stomach trouble, diagnosed by Dr. 

M as cancer. " He advised me 

to be operated on. Since my fast, 
three years ago, I have had no trouble 

106 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

with my stomach. I am entirely 
cured, and am enjoying fine health." 

Gordon G. Ives, 147 Forsythe Bldg., 
Fresno, Cal. " Have fasted a good 
many times since 1899, to cure catarrh 
of stomach, constipation, deafness of 
four months' standing, neuralgia, etc. 
Duration, from one to sixteen days. 
Never failed in accomplishing a cure. 
Benefit continued until I had over- 
eaten for a long time. Complaints 
were never diagnosed by regular phy- 
sicians, as I got on to them in 1894. 
Use my name if it will help the truth.'* 

Mrs. Maria L. Scott, Boring, Ariz. 
Reports case of husband, who fasted 
seven days for constipation and deaf- 
ness; had been obliged to take enema 
daily for several months. Complete 
cure. 

107 



THE FA3TING CURE 

Mrs. A. Wears, De Funiak Springs, 
Fla. " Age forty-two, subject to 
severe colds and sore throat all my life, 
chronic catarrh of head and throat, in 
bed two winters with bronchitis and 
asthma. Did not take complete fast. 
My catarrh is much improved. I feel 
perfectly well and enjoy life so much 
more than I did before the fast." 

Mrs. Mae Bramble, Alba, Pa., R. F. 
D. 70. One fast of thirty days, 
another of three days ; nervous prostra- 
tion the first time, appendicitis the 
second time. '* The first complaint 
was diagnosed, the second was not; as 
I am a professional nurse, I under- 
stood the symptoms myself." Com- 
plete and permanent cure. ** I have 
never had a return of the nervous 
trouble, and am well of the other com- 
plaint. It is five years since the first 
fast." 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

M. E. Beard, Corning, Cal. Fasted 
nine days for scrofula. Had been 
diagnosed. Complete cure, permanent 
since 1908. Age forty-seven. " Five 
years ago I broke down. Physicians 
never could tell me what ailed me. I 
kept busy during my fast physically 
and mentally; worked over the cook 
stove and outdoors. Felt no weak- 
ness." 

Joseph L. Lewis, Hatfield, Ark. 
Fasted three days, and then four days. 
" During the last ten days have felt 
better than at any time during the last 
seven years.** 

Monroe Bornn, Port of Spain, Trini- 
dad. Fasted seven days on three occa- 
sions, for liver trouble. " I had been 
treated by three physicians. I con- 
sider that I was completely cured. I 

109 



THE FASTING OURK 

have been examined by regular physi- 
cians since the cure.** 

E. B. Bayne. White Plains, N.Y. 
Sends record of fasts taken by two 
people, Mr. and Mrs. A. Mr. A. 
fasted for rheumatism, which had 
caused kidney and bladder trouble of 
years' standing, and iritis; fasted five 
days and then four days and was com- 
pletely cured. Mrs. A. Neuralgia and 
catarrhal deafness. Completely cured. 
* ' Finds that exposure to draughts has 
no effect upon her whatever, hereto- 
fore she would catch cold upon the 
least exposure." 

Mrs. Charles H. Vosseller, Newark, 
N.J. " I don't agree with you or 
Bernarr Macfadden in not recom- 
mending fasting for tuberculosis. My 

case was diagnosed by Dr. B. G , 

uo 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

New Brunswick, N.J. I fasted nine- 
teen days and was completely cured; 
I received no harm, and have been 
examined since by a physician. 1 
weigh 114 lbs. now and before my fast 
weighed 100 lbs. I never felt better 
in my life than I do at present. Do 
not know that I have a pair of lungs." 

In connection with the above tabu- 
lation of results, it should be specified 
that it does not include any of the cases 
quoted elsewhere in the book; it in- 
cludes some of the letters given in the 
Appendix, but not all. Thus it will 
appear that there are many more than 
277 cases of fasting recorded in this 
volume. The reason that I did not 
summarize in the tabulation all the 
letters I have received is, that I wished 
to give only those which were sent to 
me in answer to my definite series of 

11! 



THE FASTING CURE 

questions, so that I might be sure of 
getting the unfavourable as well as 
the favourable reports. Recently a 
well-known physician who edits a 
magazine of health came out in 
vehement opposition to the fasting 
cure, maintaining that we hear only of 
the cases which are successful, and do 
not hear of the disastrous failures. In 
reply to this, I wrote to him suggest- 
ing that he publish my series of ques- 
tions in his magazine, thus giving his 
readers an opportunity to make me 
acquainted with the unsuccessful cases. 
This, however, the physician declined 
to do. 

Death during the Fast. 

There was much newspaper discus- 
sion of my fasting papers — most of it 
being sarcastic. The most biting com- 

U2 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

ment that I recall came from some- 
where out West, and ran about as fol- 
lows : " A Seattle man fasted forty 
days for stomach trouble. His stomach 
is troubling him no longer. He is 
dead." I set to work to find out about 
this case, and I give the facts on page 
231. I also saw a report from the 
London Daily Telegraph to the efifect 
that a man had died in South Africa 
as a result of trying my ** cure.*' How 
many thousands of people tried it and 
lived, I do not know; but horrified 
relatives and enterprising newspaper 
writers would see that the public was 
informed about any that died. 

As to the possibility or probability 
of death during a fast, I have one or 
two points to note : 

First, a good many sick people are 

dying all the time. It would be an 

argument for fasting if it saved any 
lie 



THE FASTING CURE 

of them. It is no argument against 
fasting that it fails to save them all. 
No one would think of bringing it up 
against his surgeon or his family phy- 
sician that he occasionally lost a 
patient. 

Second, people might die very fre- 
quently, without that being an argu- 
ment against the cure. It might sim- 
ply be a consequence of the desperately 
ill class of people who were trying it. 
A doctor who had a new method of 
healing, and was permitted to use it 
only upon those whom all other doctors 
had given up, would be considered suc- 
cessful if he effected even an occa- 
sional cure. I would wager that of 
the people who read my article and set 
out to fast, practically all had been 
suffering for many years, and had 
given the " regular " physicians un- 
limited opportunity to work on them. 

114 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

Third, it may be set down as abso- 
lutely certain that no one ever died of 
starvation while fasting. The essen- 
tial feature of the fast is that after the 
first two or three days all hunger 
ceases; and that any one could die of 
lack of food without feeline a desire 
for food, is absurd upon the face of it. 
Nature simply does not work that way. 
It reminds me of a young lady who 
once told me that she would not go to 
sleep with a mouse in the room, because 
she imagined the mouse might nibble 
off her ear without waking her ! 

As to the possibility that you might 
starve, during those first days while 
you are hungry — the answer is simply 
that you don't. It is perfectly true 
that men have died of starvation in 
three or four days; but the starvation 
existed in their minds — it was fright 
that killed them. That they did not 

115 



THE FASTING CURK 

truly starve is proven by my letters 
from several hundreds of people who 
have fasted over that time, and who 
are alive to tell of it. 

There are conditions in the human 
body which lead to death inevitably; 
and some of these conditions are be- 
yond the power of the fast to remedy. 
When a person so afflicted sets out to 
fast, and dies in spite of the fast, the 
papers of course declare that he died 
because of the fast. Dr. L. B. Haz- 
zard of Seattle has published a very 
useful little book, " Fasting for the 
Cure of Disease," in which she tells 
of two cases of " death from fasting," 
where the autopsy revealed conditions 
with which the fast had no connection, 
and which made death certain. 
Chances of that sort one has to take in 
life. You may have a blood vessel in 
such a state that when you run after a 

116 



A; SYMPOSIUM: ON FASTING 

street car the increased pressure will 
cause it to burst ; but you do not on that 
account declare that no man ought to 
exert himself violently. 

As an example of the part that men- 
tal disturbances may play in the fast, 
I will cite the case of a woman friend 
who started out to fast for a complica- 
tion of chronic ailments. She was 
rather stout, and did not mind it at 
all — was going cheerfully about her 
daily tasks; but her husband heard 
about it, and came home to tell her 
what a fool she was making of herself ; 
and in a few hours she was in a state 
of complete collapse. No doubt if 
there had been a physician in the 
neighbourhood, there would have been 
another tale of a " victim of a shallow 
and unscrupulous sensationalist." 
Fortunately, however, business called 
the husband away again, and the next 

117 



THE FASTING CURE 

day the woman was all right, and com- 
pleted.an eight-day fast with the best 
results. Bear this in mind, so that if 
you wake up some morning and find 
your temperature sub-normal and your 
pulse at forty, and your arms too weak 
to lift you, and if your friends get 
round you and tell you that you look 
like a mummy out of a sarcophagus of 
the seventeenth dynasty, and that I 
am a Socialist and an undesirable 
citizen — you may be able to smile at 
them good naturedly and tell them that 
you will never again eat until you are 
hungry. 

I have thought over the cases of 
failure of the fast, where I have been 
able to inquire into all the circum- 
stances, and I think I can make the 
statement that I do not know a case 
which might not be attributed either 
to the influence of nervous excitement, 

118 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

or to unwise breaking of the fast. In 
the last batch of letters was one with 
a printed account of the disastrous re- 
sults of a three weeks' fast taken by 
a woman. It is an example of about 
all the blunders that I can think of. 
She describes herself as occupying ' ' a 
responsible office position," which 
taxed her strength to the utmost; and 
she tried to do this work all the time 
she was fasting. She would get up 
and go to work when she was 
" scarcely able to drag one foot after 
another." On about the nineteenth 
day her mother arrived, and then I 
quote : ' ' She almost dropped at sight 
of me, for I had not given a hint as to 
my condition ; but despite my protests, 
she sent for the doctor at once. My I 
Didn't he scold, and tell me what was 
what ! Mother's heart was so^ torn 
with sorrow and pity that she hadn't 

119 



THE FASTING CURE 

the heart to reproach me for my three 
weeks' orgy of fasting. She thought 
I had paid dearly for my folly." I 
don't think it necessary to say any- 
thing more, except that I feel sorry for 
the victim, and that I am glad to know 
this happened two years ago, so that I 
am not to blame for the results. 

By way of contrast with this case I 
will quote the following letter, which 
will show the reader the kind of ex- 
perience that makes fasting enthu- 
siasts : *' My wife and I have each 
nearly reached our seventy-second 
year. I was born a physical wreck. 
A dozen years ago we began taking 
short fasts, from three to eleven days' 
duration, for all our ills of the flesh. 
But each of us had chronic troubles of 
forty years' standing, which seemed 
growing no better. And finally, two 
years ago, last July, my wife said she 

120 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

was going to take a ' conquest fast * if 
it killed her, for she was tired of living 
with her present ills. I thought it a 
good time to try a little conquest fast- 
ing on my own hook. I had no fear 
of the result. I knew that nature 
would tell me when I had fasted long 
enough. So we began an absolute fast 
from all food except distilled water 
and fresh air. We lived in fresh air 
night and day. We took copious 
enemas daily, and I took a cabinet 
sweat, followed by a cold plunge every 
other day. I knew that I must have 
many^ years of filth accumulation in 
my bowels. And the amount of 
putridity that came from my bowels 
the first twenty-five days of the fast 
was amazing. 

* * After fasting twenty-eight days 1 
began to be hungry, and broke my fast 
with a little grape juice, followed the 

121 I 



THE PASTING CURB 

next day with tomatoes, and later with 
vegetable soup. My wife began to be 
hungry after fasting thirty-one days, 
and broke her fast in a similar manner 
to myself. 

** It is now two years since we took 
the conquest fast, and my wife has no 
return of her former troubles. And I 
am enjoying all the mental and phy- 
sical pleasures which come from clean 
bowels. We think we have learned 
how to live that we will never need an- 
other fast. Soon after the fast I was 

examined by Dr. S , the leading 

surgeon of Los Angeles and Southern 
California, who pronounced me as 
being the most wonderful person he 
ever met regarding softness of arteries, 
and suppleness of body, for my age." 



122 



A SYMPOSimC ON I'AStlN<5 

Fasting and the Mind. 

The reader will observe that I dis- 
cuss this fasting question from a 
materialistic view-point. I am tell- 
ing what it does to the body; but be- 
sides this, of course, fasting is a reli- 
gious exercise. I heard the other day 
from a man who was taking a forty- 
day fast, as a means of increasing his 
" spiritual power." I am not saying 
that for you to smile at — he has excel- 
lent authority for the procedure. The 
point with me is that I find life so full 
of interest just now that I don't have 
much time to think about my " soul." 
I get so much pleasure out of a hand- 
ful of raisins, or a cold bath, or a 
game of tennis, that I fear it is inter- 
fering with my spiritual development. 
I have, however, a very dear friend 
who goes in for the things of the soul, 
and she tells me that when you are 

113 



THE FASTING CURE 

fasting, the higher faculties are in a 
sensitive condition, and that you can 
do many interesting things with your 
subliminal self. For instance, she had 
always considered herself a glutton; 
and so, during an eight-day fast, just 
before going to sleep and just after 
awakening, she would lie in a sort of 
trance and impress upon her mind the 
idea of restraint in eating. The re- 
sult, she declared, has been that she 
has never since then had an impulse to 
over-eat. 

There are many such curious things, 
about which you may read in the books 
of the yogis and the theosophists — 
who were fasting in previous incarna- 
tions when you and I were swinging 
about in the tree-tops by our tails. But 
I ought to report upon one fasting ex- 
periment which resulted disastrously 
for me. Earlier in this book I told 

124 



SYMPOSIUM N FASTING 

how I had been able to write the 
greater part of a play while fasting. 
Shortly afterwards I plunged into the 
writing of a new novel, and as usual 
I got so much interested in it that I 
wasn't hungry. I said that I would 
fast, and save the eating time, and the 
digesting time as well. So I would sit 
and work for sixteen hours or more a 
day, sometimes for six hours at a 
stretch without moving. After two or 
three days of this I would be hungry, 
and would eat something; but being 
too much excited to digest it, I would 
say, *' Hang eating, anyhow!" — and 
go on for another period of work. 1 
kept that up for some six weeks, and 1 
turned out an appalling lot of manu- 
script; but I found that I had taken 
off twenty-five pounds of flesh, and had 
got to such a point that I could not 
digest a little warm milk. I cite this 

125 



THB FABTIKA CURS 

in order that the reader may under- 
stand just why I take a gross and 
material view of fasting. My advice 
is to lie round in the sun and read 
story-books and take care of your body, 
and leave the soul-exercises and the 
nervous efforts until the fast is over. 
But all the same, I know that there 
will be great poetry written some day, 
when our poets have got on to the fast- 
ing trick — and when our poets care 
enough about their work to be willing 
to feed it with their own flesh. 

The great thing about the fast is 
that it sets you a new standard of 
health. You have been accustomed to 
worrying along somehow ; but now you 
discover your own possibilities, and 
thereafter you are not content until 
you have found some way to keep that 
virginal state of stomach which one 
possesses for a month or two after a 

126 



A SYMPOSIU^I ON FASTING 

successful fast. It must mean, of 
course, many changes in your life, if 
you really wish to keep it. It means 
the giving up of tobacco and alcohol, 
and a too sedentary life, and steam- 
heated rooms; above all else, it means 
giving up self-indulgent eating. 

A couple of years ago my wife and 
myself made the acquaintance of a 
young lady patient in a sanatorium, 
who was in a much run-down condi- 
tion, anaemic and nervous. We per- 
suaded her to take a fast of five or six 
days, and afterwards take the milk 
diet, as the result of which she went 
back to her home in Virginia with 
what she described as *' smiles and 
dimples and curves and bright eyes." 
She was so enthusiastic about the cure 
that she proceeded to apply it to all her 
family and her friends ; and some time 
afterwards she wrote my wife a most 

127 



THE FASTING CURE 

diverting account of her adventures. 
After some persuasion I secured her 
permission to quote her letter, having 
duly omitted all the names. It makes 
clear the thorny path which the fast- 
ing enthusiast has to travel in this 
world. 



I will try in a very limited space of 
time to tell you what keeps me a slave 

here at home. I got Mr. X down 

from to put papa and mamma on 

the fasting cure — papa had a bad case 
of grippe — mamma had indigestion. 
My oldest married brother is in dread- 
ful health, and his wife and baby are 
not well. I wore myself nearly out 
trying to get them well, and at the 
same time trying to pick up some 
threads of long neglected social duties. 
People were beginning to call me 
'* stuck-up " (horrid vulgar term), so 
unless I wanted to make enemies of the 
wives and daughters of papa's and 
brother's business friends, I had to go 
129 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

to a few parties and pay some long- 
neglected calls. I did it all, and then 

decided to have Mr. X come to 

help me. I got papa and mamma and 

M and her baby (!) on a fast — and 

then woe is me — I had to get them off 
again ! They had various and alarm- 
ing symptoms due to their ignorance 
of the methods, and the wild interest 
of the town medicine-men. The family 
doctor gave me a " straight talk ' ' and 
asked me if I was going to try to kill 
my father and mother. Papa would 
not give up his cigarette, and a 

" toddy " now and then. M 's 

baby lost four pounds while his mother 
was fasting. All the doctors' wives 
came to call, and beset me with ques- 
tions — and I had the d of a time. 

But I stood by my guns. When the 
overfed, self-indulgent family all got 
to vomiting at once, my hands were 
full, and I nearly had nervous prostra- 
tion before I got order out of the bed- 
lam I had stirred up. 

Well, they got over the fast and on 
to the milk. Then I had to tend to the 

129 



THE PASTING CUnB 

milk myself or they refused to drink it. 
Finally mamma got to feeling so well 
that she sat up, and planned big course 
dinners and invited people to eat them. 
She began to order new clothes for the 
kids, new furnishings for the iiouse, 
and started in to live her disorderly, 
ungodly ** Southern hospitality " life 
all over again. Our senator died and 
mamma got into politics in the new 

election ; and Cousin J got drunk, 

and I had to go with him to the Keeley 
Institute, etc., etc. Surely there is a 
heaven for saints like me. I did not 
fly the roost as I was tempted to do, 
but I answered midnight calls of the 
spoiled, nauseated ones, and fixed hot 
water bags, quelled riots among the 
meat-eating servants and hungry chil- 
dren — and swore I'd win! I did. 
Well, I got things going in fine order 
at last, with papa cured of his grippe 
and an old case of kidney trouble. 
Mamma is now comfortably eating 
boiled ham and stuffed peppers, and 
fruit cake and cherry pie, and green 
olives and what not at the same meal 

ISO 



jL SYilPOSIUM ON FASTING 

She is well, though. But of course she 
will get sick again. Papa, the only 
sane member of our family, is still 
holding on to the milk, taking four 
quarts of buttermilk a day, and he is 

flourishing, thank heaven ! M is 

still bilious, having broken her fast 
with hard-boiled eggs and pork chops. 
And I am still living, in spite of hav- 
ing been to Keeley, and incidentally 
having danced all night (with a low- 
neck, short-sleeved gown on !) at the 

Club ball, sat through several 

dinners and bridge parties into the 
'* wee sma* hours," and had two men 
propose to me with the prelude, ' ' You 
are the nicest, most refined, and most 
lovable girl in the world if you are a 
crank." Wasn't that a nice begin- 
ning for a proposal of marriage? 1 
accepted them both on condition that I 
be allowed to remain a crank. 

Well, the next chapter began with 
an old lover who had married another 
woman. He came to see me and said 
he had a tape- worm ! Ye gods — such 
romance ! His wife had stomach and 

131 



THE FASTING CURB 

intestinal trouble. I turned Mr. 

X over to them, and them over to 

Mr. X . The lady got along, but 

the poor man with a wild beast inside 
him got so sick after an eight-day fast 
that he wanted to have me mobbed, 
sent for two trained nurses and four 
doctors — this is no exaggeration — the 
doctors looked at me, and looks were 
as plain as words — ' ' You little devil ! 
You did it for pure meanness." For 
three days my poor friend had the 
doctors giving him hypodermics, and 
he never stopped vomiting until we 
were all nearly dead. Then he quieted 
down, got well, ate a beef -steak with a 
few dozen oysters and mushrooms, and 
took me riding in his new automobile. 
The grim humour in the whole thing is 
that if I had not gotten my roses and 
dimples and curves and bright eyes 
back by fasting, this man would never 
have taken me riding in his new auto- 
mobile. Take a tip from me — all the 
good nursing and friendly efforts in 
behalf of the health of my friends did 
not endear me to them one half as much 

132 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

as the plump, rosy smile I wore with 
my new silk gown. The first day our 
sick friend went out in his car — alas 
for the ways of human nature — mas- 
culine human nature, I mean — I told 
him so. And he agreed with me and 
ended by saying, *' Darn an ugly 
woman — I'll forgive a pretty one any- 
thing** 



Diet after the Fast. 

Many people write me, begging me 

to outline for them the ideal diet. I 
used to do that sort of thing, but I have 
stopped; having come to realize that 
we are still at the beginning of our 
diet experiments. I have done a good 
deal of experimenting myself, and 
have made some interesting dis- 
coveries. I have lived for a week on 
fruit only, and again on wheat only; 
I have lived for three weeks on nothing 

1.S3 



THE PASTING CURE 

but milk, and again on nothing but 
beef -steak. I have lived for a year on 
raw food, and for over three years I 
professed the religion of vege- 
tarianism. For the last two months 
I have lived on beef -steak, shredded 
wheat, raisins and fresh fruit; but by 
the time this book appears I may be 
trying sour milk and dates — somebody 
told me about that the other day, and 
it sounds good to me. Some of my 
correspondents object to my willing- 
ness to try new diets; they write me 
that they find it bewildering, and think 
it indicative of an unstable mind. 
They do not realize that I am exacting 
in my demands — I want a diet which 
will permit me to overwork with im- 
punity. I haven't found it yet, but I 
am on the way; and meantime I make 
my experiments with a light heart, for 
I always know that if anything goes 

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A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 1 

wrong, I can take a fast and start 
afresh. 

The general rules are mostly of a 
negative sort. There are many kinds 
of foods, some of them most generally 
favoured, of which one may say that 
they should never be used, and that 
those who use them can never be as 
well as they would be without them. 
Such foods are all that contain alcohol 
or vinegar ; all that contain cane sugar ; 
all that contain white flour in any one 
of its thousand alluring forms of 
bread, crackers, pie, cake, and pud- 
dings; and all foods that have been 
fried — by which I mean cooked with 
grease, whether that grease be lard, or 
butter, or eggs or milk. It is my con- 
viction that one should bar these 
things at the outset, and admit of no 
exceptions. I do not mean to say that 
healthy men and women cannot eat 

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THE PASTING CURB 

such things and be well ; but I say that 
they cannot be as well as they would 
be without them; and that every par 
tide of such food they eat rendei ' 
them more liable to all sorts of infec- 
tion, and sows in their systems the 
seeds of the particular chronic disease 
that is to lay them low sooner or later. 
There are a number of other things, 
which I do not rate as quite so bad, but 
which we bar in our family — simply 
because they are not so good. For in- 
stance, I am inclined to regard beans 
as being too difficult of digestion and 
too liable to fermentation to be eaten 
by any one who can get anything 
better. And I personally do not eat 
peanuts, because I have found that I 
do not digest them; and I do not use 
milk (except in the exclusive milk 
diet), because it is constipating, and I 
have a tendency in that direction. 

m 



A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

Almost everyone will discover idiosyn- 
crasies of that sort in his own system. 
One person cannot digest cheese, an- 
other cannot digest bananas, another 
cannot stand the taste of olive oil. 
You may read a glowing account of 
some diet system by which some other 
person has worked miracles, and you 
may try it, and persist in it for a long 
time, and finally come to realize that 
it was the worst diet you could possi- 
bly have been following. I have al- 
ways counted orange juice as the ideal 
food with which to break a fast ; yet a 
friend whom I was advising broke his 
fast with the juice of half an orange 
and had a violent cramp. He had 
been so confiding in my greater know- 
ledge that he had omitted to tell me 
that any sort of acid fruit had always 
made him ill. 

Such things as this are of course not 

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THE FASTING CURE 

natural; but a perfectly normal and 
well person is, under the artificial con- 
ditions of our bringing up, a very great 
rarity; and so we all have to regard 
ourselves as more or less diseased, and 
work towards the ideal of soundness. 
We must do this with intelligence — 
there is no short cut, no way to save 
one's self the trouble of thinking. 

I used to think there was. I would 
discover this or that wonderful new 
diet-wrinkle, and I would go round 
preaching it to all my friends, and 
making a general nuisance of myself. 
And some one would try it, and it 
would not work ; and often, to my own 
humiliation, I would discover that it 
was not working in my own case half 
so well as I had thought it was. 

By way of setting an ideal, let me 
give you the example of a young lady 
who for six or seven months has been 

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A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING 

living in our home, and giving us a 
chance to observe her dietetic habits. 
This young lady three years ago was an 
anaemic school teacher, threatened 
with consumption, and a victim of con- 
tinual colds and headaches; miserable 
and beaten, with an exopthalmic goitre 
which was slowly choking her to death. 
She fasted eight days, and achieved a 
perfect cure. She is to-day bright, 
alert and athletic; and she lives on 
about twelve hundred calories of food 
a day — one-half what I eat, and less 
than a third of the old-school dietetic 
standards. Occasionally she will eat 
nut butter, or sweet potato, or some 
whole wheat crackers with butter, or a 
dish of ice-cream; but at least ninety 
per cent, of her food has consisted of 
fresh fruit. Meal after meal, day 
after day, I have seen her eat one or 
two bananas and two or three peaches, 

139 



THE FASTING CURE 

or say, a slice of watermelon or canta- 
loupe; at some meals she will eat only 
the peaches, and then again she will 
eat nothing. A dollar a week would 
pay for all her food; and on this diet 
she laughs and talks, reads and thinks, 
walks and swims with my wife and 
myself — a kind of external dietetic 
conscience, which we would find it 
hard to get along without. And tell 
me, Dr. Woods Hutchinson, or other 
scoffer at the " food-faddists," don't 
you think that a case like this gives us 
some right to ask for patient investi- 
gation of our claims? Or will you 
stand by your pill boxes and your 
carving-knives and the rest of your 
paraphernalia, and compel us to cure 
all your patients in spite of you ? 



140