Preface: The Fasting Cure by Upton Sinclair from archive.org

THE FASTING CURE 



A SELECTION FROM 

MR. HEINEMANN'S MEDICAL 

AND SCIENTIFIC BOOKS. 



THE SIMPLE LIFE SERIES. 

Each volume cr. 8vo. cloth. Price 2s. 6d. net. 
1. WHY WORRY ? 

By GEORGE LINCOLN WALTON. M.D. 
a. THOSE NERVES. 

By GEORGE LINCOLN WALTON. M.D. 
3. SELF HELP FOR NERVOUS WOMEN. 

Familiar Talks on Economy in Nervous 
Expenditure. By JOHN K. MITCHELL. M.D. 
4 SCIENTIFIC NUTRITION SIMPLIFIED. 

A Condensed Statement and Explanation for 
Everybody of the Observations of Chittenden, 
Fletcher, and others. By GOODWIN 
BROWN. A.M.. with a Supplementary 
Chapter by J. Sven, M.D. 

By RUSSELL ~H. CHITTENDEN. Ph.D, 
LL.D.. Sc.D. 

PHYSIOLOGICAL ECONOMY IN NUTRI- 
TION : with special reference to the Mineral 
Protcid requirements ut the Healthy Man. Illus- 
trated. 14s. net. 

THE NUTRITION OF MAN- Illustrated. 
14s. net. 

By ELIE METCHNIKOFF. 
THE PROLONGATION OF LIFE : Optimustic 
Studies. Edited by P. Chalmers Mitchell. 
D.Sc, F.R.S. 12s. 6d. net. 
THE NATURE OF MAN : Studirs in Optimis. 
TIC Philosophy. Edited by P. Chai.mbrs 
MiTCHKLL. D.Sc. F.R.S. Illustrated. 6s. net. 

By OTTO WEININGER. 
SEX AND CHARACTER. 10s. net. 

By G. T. WRENCH. 
THE GRAMMAR OF LIFE. 6s. net. 

By LUTHER H. GULICK. 
THE EFFICIENT LIFE. 3s. 6d. net. 

By S. SQUIRE SPRIGGE, M.A. M.D.. Cantab. 
MEDICINE AND THE PUBLIC. 6s.net. 



The Fasting Cure 



BY 



UPTON SINCLAIR 

Author of " The Jungle," etc. 




LONDON 

WILLIAM HEINEMANN 

1911 



All Rights Rfservfd. 



TO 

BEBNARR MACFADDEN 

IN CORDIAL APPRECIATION OF HIS 
PERSONALITY AND TEACHINGS 



Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 

in 2007 with funding from 

IVIicrosoft Corporation 



http://www.arcliive.org/details/fastingcureOOsinciala 



CONTENTS 



Prefacb .... 

Perfect Health 

A Letter to the Neiv York Time$ 

Some Notes on Fasting 

Fasting and the Doctors 

The Humors of Fasting 

A Symposium on Fasting 
Death during the Fast 
Fasting and the Mind . 
Diet after the Fast 

The Use of Meat 

Appendix 

Some Letters from Fasters 
The Fruit and Nut Diet 
The Rader Case . 
Horace Fletcher's Fast 



PREFACE 

IN the Cosmopolitan Magazine for 
May, 1910, and in the Contemporary 
Review (London) for April, 1910, I 
published an article dealing with my 
experiences in fasting. I have written 
a great many magazine articles, but 
never one which attracted so much 
attention as this. The first day the 
magazine was on the news-stands, I 
received a telegram from a man in 
Washington who had begun to fast 
and wanted some advice; and there- 
after I received ten or twenty letters 
a day from people who had questions 
to ask or experiences to narrate. At 
the date of writing a year has 
passed, and the flood has not yet 
stopped. The editors of the Cosmo- 
folitan also tell me that they have 
never received so many letters about 



PREFACE 



an article in their experience. Still 
more significant was the number of 
reports which began to appear in the 
news columns of papers all over the 
country, telling of people who were 
fasting. From various sources I have 
received about fifty such clippings, and 
few but reported benefit to the faster. 
As a consequence of this interest, I 
was asked by the Cosmopolitan to write 
another article, which appeared in the 
issue of February, 1911. The present 
volume is made up from these two 
articles, with the addition of some 
notes and comments, and some portions 
of articles contributed to the Physical 
Culture magazine, of the editorial staff 
of which I am a member. It was my 
intention at first to work this matter 
into a connected whole, but upon re- 
reading the articles I decided that it 
would be better to publish them as they 



PREFACE 

stood. The journalistic style has its 
advantages; and repetitions may per- 
haps be pardoned in the case of a topic 
which is so new to almost everyone. 

There is one other matter to be re- 
ferred to. Several years ago I pub- 
lished a book entitled ** Good Health," 
written in collaboration with a friend. 
I could not express my own views fully 
in that book, and on certain points 
where I differed with my collaborator, 
I have come since to differ still more. 
The book contains a great deal of use- 
ful information; but later experience 
has convinced me that its views on the 
all-important subject of diet are 
erroneous. My present opinions I 
have given in this book. I am not 
saying this to apologize for an incon- 
sistency, but to record a growth. In 
those days I believed something, be- 
cause other people told me; to-day I 



PREFACE 

know something else, because I have 
tried it upon myself. 

My object in publishing this book is 
two-fold : first, to have something to 
which I can refer people, so that I will 
not have to answer half a dozen ' ' fast- 
ing letters " every day for the rest of 
my life; and second, in the hope of 
attracting sufficient attention to the 
subject to interest some scientific men 
in making a real investigation of it. 
To-day we know certain facts about 
what is called "autointoxication"; 
we know them because Metchnikoff, 
Pawlow and others have made a 
thorough-going inquiry into the sub- 
ject. I believe that the subject of 
fasting is one of just as great import- 
ance. I have stated facts in this book 
about myself ; and I have quoted many 
letters which are genuine and beyond 
dispute. The cures which they record 



PREFACE 

are altogether without precedent, I 
think. The reader will find in the 
course of the book (page 102), a tabula- 
tion of the results of 277 cases of fast 
ing. In this number of desperate 
cases, there were only about half a 
dozen definite and unexplained 
failures reported. Surely it cannot be 
that medical men and scientists will 
continue for much longer to close their 
eyes to facts of such vital significance 
as this. 

I do not pretend to be the discoverer 
of the fasting cure. The subject was 
discussed by Dr. E. H. Dewey in books 
which were published thirty or forty 
years ago. For the reader who cares 
to investigate further, I mention the 
following books, which I have read 
with interest and profit. I recom- 
mend them, although, needless to say, 
I do not agree with everything that is 



PREFACE 

in them : ** Fasting for the Cure of 
Disease," by Dr. L. B. Hazzard; 
•• Perfect Health," by C. C. Haskell; 
*' Fasting, Hydrotherapy and Exer- 
cise," by Bernarr Macfadden; '* Fast- 
ing, Vitality and Nutrition," by 
Hereward Carrington. Also I will 
add that Mr. C. C. Haskell, of Nor- 
wich, Conn., conducts a correspond- 
ence-school dealing with the subject 
of fasting, and that fasting patients 
are taken charge of at Bernarr Mac- 
fadden's Healthatorium, 42d Street 
and Grand Boulevard, Chicago, 111, 
and by Dr. Linda B. Hazzard, of 
Seattle, Washington. 



THE FASTING CURE