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. The Fasting Cure BY UPTON SINCLAIR Author of " The Jungle," etc. LONDON WILLIAM HEINEMANN 1911 All Rights Reserved.
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 Preface .... 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- politan also tell me that they have never received so many letters about 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 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 referred 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 inconsistency, but to record a growth. In those days I believed something, be- cause other people told me; to-day I 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 fasting 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 recommend them, although, needless to say, I do not agree with everything that is 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
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