Title : Chapter 7,8,9: The Fruit and Nut Diet.: The Rader Case: Horace Fletcher's Fast: The Fasting Cure by Upton Sinclair from archive.org
link : Chapter 7,8,9: The Fruit and Nut Diet.: The Rader Case: Horace Fletcher's Fast: The Fasting Cure by Upton Sinclair from archive.org
Chapter 7,8,9: The Fruit and Nut Diet.: The Rader Case: Horace Fletcher's Fast: The Fasting Cure by Upton Sinclair from archive.org
appendix
The Fruit and Nut Diet.
From early childhood until January
9, 1910, or about twenty years in all, I
had been a sufferer from asthma, and
chronic catarrh in addition. As a
child I was sick a great deal of the
time, having regular attacks every few
weeks, of such little troubles as bilious
fevers, chills and la grippe, with pneu-
monia, typhoid, measles, whooping
cough and the like sprinkled in at
times. I have taken gallons of castor
oil, and pounds of calomel and quinine,
I think. I don't believe I ever had
more than one cold, but I was never
really free of that.
The first attack of asthma came
shortly after the disappearance of a
severe case of eczema, and from that
time on throughout the entire twenty
years, I did not pass a single moder-
ately cold night without having at least
223
THE FASTING CURE
one, and more often, two and three
spasms of asthma during the night.
These were relieved temporarily, only
after sitting up in bed and inhaling,
for several minutes, the smoke from a
green powder which I burned for that
purpose. Frequently attacks would
last continually for three and four
days or a week, during which time I
was not able to draw a single free
breath, and would suffer so intensely
that on many occasions I felt as if I
was breathing my last. I mention all
this for fear some Salisbury followers
may doubt that mine was a real
genuine case of asthma. In that case,
I think I can get satisfactory evidence
from our family physician and others
who were with me a great deal during
that time.
As I grew older, and about the time
I went to work for myself, I began to
224
APPENDIX
be interested in physical culture
methods, and noticed a great improve-
ment by exercising and cutting down
my diet, and afterwards adopting the
two-meal-a-day plan. However, there
was one thing which is strongly em-
phasized in these methods that did not
work with me at the time, but seemed
to make the asthma worse; and that
was the fresh air idea. I always had
better results, and the attacks were less
frequent and not so severe, when I
closed the windows and doors, and
filled the room with the smoke and
fumes of the remedy I used. That was
due mostly to the narcotic effect of the
remedy when breathing the smoke and
fumes continually. I mention this for
fear some one may suggest that the
ultimate permanent relief was brought
about simply by breathing fresh air
continually when I did begin to open
the windows.
225
THE FASTING CURE
During all this time, I ate meat witli
each meal, or twice daily.
I began to notice that nuts and
especially pecans, of which I am par-
ticularly fond, and which are quite
plentiful in that part of the country
in which I live, seemed to have a
decidedly bad effect on my asthma, and
a greater part of the time I would not
touch them on this account. At that
time, however, I had the impression
that generally prevails among a large
majority of people, that nuts or fruits
were only good for eating between
meals, or as a dessert at the end of a
meal, and in addition to the regular
food that was eaten ; and that was the
way I had eaten them.
Mr. Upton Sinclair's first article in
the Physical Culture magazine on the
fruit and nut diet was the first hint I
ever had that fruit and nuts eaten
APPENDIX
alone as a diet had any real substantial
food value. From this time on I began
experimenting with short fasts of one
meal or one day, and also began substi-
tuting fruit for some meals, and at the
same time cut down my meat eating
from twice daily to two or three times
a week. I noticed a great improve-
ment in both asthma and catarrh, al
though I continued having attacks of
asthma almost every night, as this was
during the winter and most of the
nights were quite cold.
After the appearance of his second
article, I determined to try this diet
out in my own case, hoping to lessen
the attacks of asthma at least, never
dreaming of the real surprise that was
in store for me. I fasted the last two
days of December, 1909, and started in
January 1st, eating mostly acid fruits,
such as lemons, oranges, grape fruit.
227
THE FAfsTING CURE
etc. (This in order to relieve the con-
stipation that I was then, and had
been troubled with more or less for the
past two or three years.) As a result
of the fast, and of what might be
termed a partial fast for a few days
after, I lost several pounds in weight,
which I did not regain until after I
had been eating other fruits for several
days, such as dates, figs, bananas and
apples, also all kinds of nuts, includ-
ing the much dreaded pecan, which
seemed to cause so much trouble before.
On the night of January 8th, 1910,
I had my last attack of asthma, and
have had none since. By that time my
bowels were perfectly free, and ail
traces of constipation gone. The night
of the 9th I spent in peaceful, dream-
less sleep, my head perfectly clear of
any cold or catarrh, enabling me to
breath freely through my nose during
APPENDIX
sleep, which had never been possible
before this. Although the tempera-
ture outside was a little above zero,
and stood close around there during
the greater part of January and
February where I was, two windows in
my room were wide open all of the
time, and I slept between them; also
there was no stove or other heating ap-
pliances in the room to warm me on
retiring and arising.
I stuck rigidly to the fruit and nuts,
living on them alone until the weather
began to grow warmer. I then grew
so confident, that I gradually lapsed
into a general raw-food diet, and later
on, to a partly raw and partly cooked
diet, but no meat at all, save at times,
when it was necessary in order to avoid
unpleasant controversies and explana-
tions among people who knew nothing
on the subject, and were therefore
229
THE FASTING CURE
sceptical, and often inclined to ridi-
cule me.
With the return to cooked foods,
came a return of constipation, and
with it, traces of the old cold or
catarrh. This is one thing I noticed
in particular ; that when my bowels
were moving freely, then and only then
was I free of catarrh or cold. I am
situated at present where I am away
from the influences of kind-and-well-
meaning friends and members of my
own family, so am living on a raw-food
diet entirely, doing heavy gymnasium
work every day, also quite a bit of
study and other brain work besides,
which in all keeps me quite busy most
of the day. I am enjoying the best of
health in every particular all the while.
H. Mitchell Godsey.
230
appendix
The Rader Case.
Mr. L. F. Rader of Olalla, Wash.,
died at 12.15 p.m., May 11, 1910, at
123J Broadway North, in the forty-
seventh year of his age. Mr. Rader's
physical history is one of intermittent
suffering. As the result of an acci-
dent in childhood in which he was in-
ternally injured, his youth and early
manhood were filled with a succession
of most acute attacks of painful ill-
ness. About fifteen years ago he
deserted the orthodox means of treat-
ment and turned to what is now known
as the natural or drugless method, with
the consequence that he experienced
the first relief he had ever known.
Three years ago he lay ill for three
months, and after again submitting to
medical treatment he turned to the
fast and to me. In fourteen days he
was up and about, and in a month he
231
THE FASTING CURE
was able to attend to his ordinary busi-
ness. Since then he had no return of
acute symptoms until March 31 of this
year, when, after unwonted physical
exercise and a heavy meal, he was
seized wdth severe pains in the intes-
tines, which compelled him to take to
his bed. His stomach rejected food,
and within a week the taking of water
brought nausea. I was then called to
diagnose the case and to direct treat-
ment. I made the statement at that
time to Mrs. Rader that there
seemed but little chance for his re-
covery, but tried the administration of
fruit juices and light broths.
The point was soon reached, how-
ever, when Mr. Rader refused any sus-
tenance, since it resulted only in nau-
sea and excruciating pain. In the
meanwhile the patient came to Seattle,
and went to the Hotel Outlook with
232
APPENDIX
every symptom showing the relief that
is the logical sequence of removing
food temporarily from a system strug-
gling to right abnormal conditions.
Things progressed smoothly until
meddlesome outsiders interfered and
caused the city health oflBcials to take
cognizance of the fact that a man was
" starving " in the hotel. Without
warrant Mr. Rader's rooms were
entered, and he was confronted by Drs.
Bourns and Davidson, who en-
deavoured to persuade him to return to
orthodoxy and to the care of the ortho-
dox physicians. Mr. Rader's indig-
nant repudiation is of record, as is
also the result of the attempt to de-
clare him insane.
In connection with the latter, after
his removal to a quiet, comfortable
room in the upper part of the city, an
order of the court, obtained in some
233 Q
THE FASTING CURE
manner by the health officials, sent the
humane officers to the rescue, and the
house was watched and guarded while
the faithful nurses prevented forcible
entry attempted by these servants of
the people. The latter even went so
far as to raise ladders to the window
of Mr. Rader's room, and with display
of weapons tried to force the catches
in the vain effort to serve the writ
which was their excuse. To prevent
their seeing the patient and to save
him as much as possible from the noisy
disturbance, I carried him to the bath
and locked the door. I then climbed
from one window to another across a
court into the next flat in order to call
the attorney for the humane society,
who took the needful steps that
eventually recalled the writ. In the
meanwhile Mr. Rader had suffered
mentally to such an extent that his life
m
APPENDIX
was despaired of for many hours, and
he never fully recovered from the ner-
vous shock, which undoubtedly has-
tened his end. Until the coming of
these officers he was able to walk from
his room to the bath, but afterwards he
continually begged to be protected
from outsiders and to be permitted to
die, if need be, in peace.
When the death of a patient under
my care occurs I am most anxious that
no stone should be left unturned to ex-
hibit the cause. In this, my seventh
death in four years' practice in Seattle,
I find my diagnosis and prognosis com-
pletely corroborated. I was assisted
in the autopsy by two old-line physi-
cians and by the deputy coroner. The
results of the post-mortem examina-
tion were as follows :
Mr. Rader's viscera showed the most
abnormal characteristics it has been
3»
THK FASTING CURE
my fortune to observe in years of post-
mortem work. The lungs were adher-
ent at every point to the pleural cavity
as well as to the diaphragm in places.
The heart in fair condition. Stomach
dilated and prolapsed. Gall bladder
in three distinct pouches, any one of
which was the size of the normal sac,
and two of these sections were filled
with 126 gall stones of one grain to
half an ounce in weight; the largest
was 3 inches in circumference one way
and 4 inches the other way. The small
intestines collapsed to the pelvis and
midway intussuscepted so that a sec-
tion of two measured yards occupied
but five inches in length; portions of
these were of infantile development.
The transverse colon lay anterior to the
descending colon throughout its ex-
tent, while the ascending and descend-
ing colon showed infantile size and
APPENDIX
cartilaginous structure. The sigmoid
bend and rectum were of diameter not
larger than the adult thumb and in ad-
vanced cartilaginous state. The kid-
neys fair ; the liver enlarged and badly
congested.
The conditions exhibited were such
that the wonder in any mind practised
in the care of the human body lies in
the thought that nature was able to
preserve under these handicaps this
man's life until the forty-seventh year.
To me this is proof positive that
" man does not live by bread alone.'*
The facts given may easily be veri-
fied. Mr. Rader fasted because he had
to fast. He could not take food in
any sort or in any manner, and his
death occurred because of organic
disease beyond repair. He was never
without water and fruit juices; vege-
table broths and prepared foods were
237
THE FA3TINQ' CURE
given whenever the occasion seemed to
present itself, but always with painful
consequences. During the month of
April he was virtually fasting, al-
though food was supplied as men-
tioned. It is not at all remarkable in
my work to have patients abstain from
food for thirty, forty, and fifty days,
although by far the greater number do
not require this length of time.
Criticized as I have been for my
methods, and realizing that the com-
bined efforts of the old schools are
aimed at what it eventually means,
perhaps a definition may not prove
amiss :
Starvation consists in denying food,
either by accident or design, to a sys-
tem clamouring for sustenance.
Fasting consists in intentional ab-
stinence from food by a system non-
desirous of sustenance until it is
238
APPENDIX
rested, cleansed, and ready for the task
of digestion. Food is then supplied.
The conduct of the health and
huinane oiGBcers in the Rader case is
not the first instance of their methods
of procedure that it has been my fate
to experience. In the latter part of
January, 1908, I had under my care
Mrs. D. D. Whedon, a young married
woman in a critical state of health,
mother of one child and about to be-
come the mother of another. Officious
neighbours complained to the authori-
ties that the child was being subjected
to the fasting method and was slowly
starving. Without warrant these
creatures of authority entered the
apartments of Mrs. Whedon, subjected
her to a bodily examination against
her will and protests, took her child
from her by force, and when her hus-
band attempted to regain possession of
230
THE FASTING CURE
his daughter, they arrested him for re-
sisting an ojfficer and had him placed
in the city jail. I also was charged at
this time with practising medicine
without a licence, an accusation that
was quashed on appeal to the superior
court.
I rather court an investigation of
my work and its results, successful and
unsuccessful. Thus far the methods
pursued by those antagonistic have
been the very ones that have succeeded
in informing the world at large that
the work is here, that it progresses,
else why the furor ? It is here to stay
and to do what the truth eventually
always does — prevail.
The autopsies in each of the several
deaths that have occurred in my prac-
tice in the city of Seattle have exhi-
bited organic disease, the origin of
which lay in the early years of life. In
240
APPENDIX
all of these bodies arrested develop-
ment of one or other of the vital organs
was in evidence, and in the majority
the injured intestines showed cartila-
ginous structure and deformation that
must have required either violent shock
or continued functional disturbance to
produce. In view of the fact that
these instances cover subjects who had
endeavoured to follow orthodox
methods until orthodoxy proved un-
availing, and who then turned to the
fast and its accompaniments, I feel
perfectly confident in declaring that
early drug treatment is responsible for
later and fatal disease. Nature had
endowed each of these patients with
strong vitality; each of them had suf-
fered from severe functional disorder
in infancy; each had been drug-
drenched.
Broadly speaking, there is no drug
241
THE FASTING CURB
that is not a poison, stimulating or
paralyzing in result, and in infancy
the latter is doubly apparent and ap-
palling. It needs but the parallelism
between the effect of an application of
a glass of brandy upon an infant and
an adult to emphasize this statement.
Consider then the consequences of re-
peated dosings for fevers, colic, colds,
and the varied category of infantile
disease, and conceive the results upon
tender, growing, human bodies. Not
one of us but has these sacred relics of
the days of powdered dried toads and
desiccated cow manure to blame for
organs arrested in development or
functionally ruined.
The principle embodied in the intel-
ligent application of fasting for the
cure of disease is not to be crushed by
vilification. The knowledge of it,
thanks to strenuous attacks by the
242
APPENDIX
medical profession, has been distri-
buted gratis throughout the English-
speaking world; and my own part in
the work of propaganda has been made
more than easy by opposition dis-
played. I believe that I have a cause
to defend, a truth to uphold, a prin-
ciple for which, if need be, I shall die
fighting.
Linda Burfield Hazzard.
Seattle, Wash., May 16, 1910.
Horace Fletcher's Fast.
Dec. 11, 1910.
Mr. Horace Fletcher,
Care Editor of Good Health,
Battle Creek,, Mich.
My dear Mr. Fletcher, — It must
have been a year and a half ago that
we had our talk on the subject of fast-
ing; you promised me that you would
THE FASTING CURE
investigate it. I have only just seen
the copy of the November Good
Health, and discovered that you car-
ried out your promise. There are
some things in connection with your
account about which I want to ask you.
You say that you have come to agree
with Dr. Kellogg, that autointoxica
tion continues during the fast; and
that your reason for this is that at the
end of a couple of weeks you found
yourself developing weakness, bad
breath, coated tongue, etc. You broke
your fast because these symptoms grew
worse and worse. Now surely if a per
son is going to give a fair trial to the
claims of the fasters, he should follow
their instructions and he should not
proceed in opposition to their most im-
portant advice. You say that for four
days you took no water, and that after
that you took only a pint or so a day.
M4
APPENDIX
In this you violated the leadinj^ in-
junction of every advocate of fasting
with whose writings I am acquainted;
I have read the books of Bernarr Mac-
fadden, C. C. Haskell, and Dr. L. B.
Hazzard, all of whom have treated
scores and hundreds of patients by
means of the fast, and all of whom are
strenuous on the point that one should
drink as much water as possible. I
myself while fasting have taken at
least a glass every hour. I believe that
a very great deal of your trouble may
have been caused by your procedure in
this respect.
Another point which you do not
mention is whether or not you took an
enema during the fast. This is a very
important point. It may very well be
true that poisons are excreted into the
intestinal tract, and that owing to lack
of food they are reabsorbed ; if we can
THE FASTING CUHB
aid nature by washing these poisons
out at once, can we not overcome this
difficulty ? May not the reason for the
non-success of your fast lie here ?
If it be true that the fast leads to
constantly increasing autointoxica-
tion, how do you account for those
phenomena which are summed up in
the phrase, " the complete fast " ? I
personally do not advocate the com-
plete fast ; I only advocate the investi-
gation of it. I have never taken one,
but I have letters from many people
who have taken them, and they are in
agreement upon the point that there
comes a time during the fast when the
tongue clears, the breath becomes pure,
and hunger manifests itself in unmis-
takable form. How can this possibly
be true if Dr. Kellogg' s explanation of
the symptoms of fasting is correct?
Would it not happen just to the con-
APPENDIX
trary, would not the symptoms of auto-
intoxication increase, until death
through poisoning resulted?
Dr. Kellogg' s argument is a very
plausible one; for many years it suf-
ficed to keep me from trying the ex-
periment of the fast. I know that it
has kept many other people. His
claim is, in brief, that during the fast
the body is living off its own tissue;
that we are therefore meat-eaters, and
even cannibals, while fasting. We are
living on a kind of food which is over-
rich in proteid, and which generates
excessive quantities of uric acid, indi-
can, etc. This, as I say, sounds plau-
sible, but I found by actual experiment
that the facts do not work out accord-
ing to the theory. I myself have taken
a week's fast recently, with perfect
success. During this time I had not
one particle of weakness or trouble of
247
THE FASTING CURE
any sort. Perhaps it may be that my
body was excreting undue amounts of
uric acid and indican, but I did not
know it, and it did me no harm so far
as I could discover. I am much less
afraid of the consequences of living
from my own body tissue, since I have
tried for myself the experiment
of living on the tissues of other
animals.
I am trying to get at the truth about
these questions, and I know that you
are trying to do it also. For three
years I did myself incalculable harm
by accepting blindly statements that
meat was the prime cause of autoin-
toxication, together with other high
proteid food. I lived on starches and
sugars, grew pale and thin and chilly,
and, as I was accustomed to phrase it,
was never more than fifteen minutes
ahead of a headache. I can give my-
APPENDIX
self a headache at any time at present
by two or three days of eating rice,
potatoes, white flour, and sugar. Ap-
parently I cannot give it to myself by
eating any possible quantity of broiled
lean beef. So far as I can make out,
beef is the one article of diet which
never does me any harm, no matter
how much of it I eat. The same thing
is true, apparently, with my little boy.
I wish you would tell me what you
think about all this. I wish that 1
could induce you to try the experiment
of fasting again with the use of the
enema and the copious water drinking.
Still more do I wish that you could be
induced to try it with some people who
need it — some people who are desper-
ately ill, and who have not been able
to get well by following the low pro-
teid diet Sincerely,
Upton Sinclair.
24» B
THE FASTING CURE
Norwich, Conn., U.S.A.
Dec. 23, 1910.
My dear Mr. Sinclair, — Your
valued favour of the 14th inst. received
enclosing copy of your letter to Horace
Fletcher. I have read your letter to
Mr. Fletcher with much interest, and
I have also read Mr. Fletcher's letter
to Dr. Kellogg in Good Health.
I am so crowded with work that I
cannot take the time to write you on
this subject of Fasting as I would like.
I have had nearly seventeen years' ex-
perience studying and practising the
"no-breakfast plan and fasting for
the cure of disease." I have followed
the no-breakfast plan all that time
without a single break, and I know it
has been of exceedingly great value to
me. It has also been my privilege and
pleasure to advise in thousands of
250
APPENDIX
cases covering nearly all forms of
disease, and where the Law of Fasting
has been followed faithfully, there
have always been splendid results.
Aside from the omission of the
breakfast, I have fasted a great many
times from one day to four weeks, and
always the results have been beneficial.
This could not have been the case if Dr.
Kellogg 's contention is correct, that
autointoxication continues and in-
creases during a fast. If his idea is
correct on this point, instead of one
improving and at last overcoming the
disease entirely, there would not only
be a continuation of the disease but an
increase, and death would naturally
result. Should autointoxication con-
tinue and increase while one is fast-
ing, the time would not come when the
tongue would be clean and natural
hunger manifest itself. On the con-
251
THB FA8TINO CURB
trary, there would be an increase of the
coating on the tongue until death
finally resulted.
I think if Mr. Fletcher had con-
tinued his fast until his tongue had
become clean, which certainly would be
the case, he would have written a very
different letter. In the case of Mrs.
Tarbox, whose letter I enclose, on the
thirty-seventh day of her fast, her
tongue was perfectly clean and she had
natural hunger, and she was well on
the way to recovery from the terrible
cancerous growth and condition in
which I found her. Since Mrs. Tar-
box' cure, I have had several other
cases of cancer cured through fasting.
You will note the case of Mrs. Hobson,
copy of whose letter I enclose, and the
case of Mr. Davis is another very in-
teresting case as well as that of Mrs.
Osborne. These persons would not
APPENDIX
have been cured if autointoxication
had been going on and increasing.
Dr. Dewey's contention I know to
be true, that during a fast the heart,
lungs, and brain are supported by the
predigested food stored up in the body.
These organs take the nourishment
and not the poison, for during a fast
the eliminating organs work to the
very limit to force the poison out of
every cell of the body, so that during a
fast all the poison in the body is grow-
ing less every hour, and when it is all
eliminated natural hunger manifests
itself, the tongue is clean, and the
patient is ready to build up and have a
clean physical organism. The use of
the enema is exceedingly important
during a fast. I believe that it
hastens the cure at least twenty-j&ve
per cent., and perhaps more than that.
Mr. Fletcher's own letter is to my
258
THB FASTING CURE
mind a refutation to Dr. Kellogg's
claim as to the continuation and in-
crease of autointoxication, for he tells
the benefits that he has received during
his fast of seventeen days, and those
benefits would have been greatly in-
creased if he had continued the fast
until his tongue was clean. His sense
of taste had become so refined by the
fast that his food was more delicious
than ever before, which showed that
the refining process had been going on
all through his body. Another benefit
that he mentions is the lessening of
his desire for sugar, that he is satisfied
with the sugar sweet that is in the food
itself, which is so much more healthful
than the cane sugar. Another thing
that he speaks of is the reduction in
his weight, which he needed. I sin-
cerely hope that Mr. Fletcher will fast
again, and make it a complete fast, for
254
APPENDIX
I think he will have a very different
story to tell from what he tells in this
letter.
Charles Courtney Haskell.
Dec. 28, 1910.
Dear Mr. Sinclair, — I have your
letter of the 14th inst. and its en-
closures.
To those who have carefully and
scientifically undergone or advised the
fast, the cause of the symptoms that
Dr. Kellogg and all of the rest of us
recognize as indicating self-poisoning,
is readily discovered to lie in the in-
ability of the organs of elimination to
promptly convey from the body the
products of food supplied in excess of
digestion. It is a conclusion that can-
not be escaped that, when the refuse
from broken-down tissue and from
food ingested beyond the needs of the
2fi5
TUE FASTING CURE
body is discharged into the intestines,
and when means of removal are not at
hand, re-absorption at once begins and
continues until the canal is cleansed.
Self-poisoning, autointoxication, en-
sues, and all of its symptoms were em-
phatically shown in the fast of seven-
teen days that Mr. Fletcher essayed.
These results are also often observed
when feeding is in progress, and in
this connection I refer to an article
written by Dr. Kellogg for Good
Health in the summer of 1908. In it
he says, " The writer's observations,
extending over a considerable number
of years, have brought him to the con-
clusion that the cases which are bene
fited by fasting are practically with-
out exception cases of autointoxication,
generally cases of intestinal autoin-
toxication, though perhaps also in
eluding some cases of metabolic auto-
1B6
APPENDIX
intoxication." It seems to me that the
Doctor has not made it quite clear just
why, if the fast is the certain producer
of the condition, he recommends it for
the cure of the condition. Perhaps
' ' similia similibus " or " the hair of
the dog theory " is implanted in the
Doctor's ego.
As we review the situation, covering
in origin thousands and thousands of
years of wrong living, the facts are
patent. The processes of digestion
and assimilation as functions have
long since lost natural expression.
Drugs and heredity have created in
them an inability to cope with their
work without assistance, and have in
many instances caused a positive ces-
sation of normal action.
Dr. Kellogg would have us accept
his dictum that the cause of loss of
weight during the fast is to be found
257
THE FASTING CURE
in the impoverished state of the blood,
and in the fact that, food being denied,
no upbuilding of tissue can occur.
Can he explain in this manner the
wasting of tissue in illness when food
is regularly supplied? It should be
readily understood that, in either in-
stance, the process of elimination of
decomposed excess food has at last be-
come the predominant function of the
diseased system. Fasting is the volun-
tary act that permits rapid accom-
plishment of the result ; and disease it
self is but Nature's attempt to cleanse
and purify by means of elimination.
The longer this thought is dwelt upon,
and the more its details are verified by
experiment, the stronger becomes the
conviction that we are facing the truth
of the matter.
When coated tongue, foul breath,
and vertigo appear, whether feeding
258
APPENDIX
or fasting, hunger is absent. It must
have disappeared many days before
these signs became acute, although
Nature's warnings did not fail of dis-
play. The sensation of hunger, the
desire for food for the purpose of re-
storing cell life, is the human body's
greatest natural safeguard. A sen-
tinel of lower rank is the sense of taste,
which, however, like other outposts,
often becomes debauched and valueless.
But hunger never can be turned from
its protecting task, and it cannot be
stimulated into action. Hunger is the
one natural function that is incor-
ruptible, for once abused it withdraws.
Its deceptive counterpart, appetite, is
the product of taste-stimulation, and,
as Mr. Fletcher says, takes upon itself
the guise of habit. Or, as expressed
in the text of my book, " Appetite is
craving; Hunger is desire. Craving
259
THE FASTING CURE
is never satisfied; but Desire is re
lieved when Want is supplied. Eat-
ing without Hunger or pandering to
Appetite at the expense of Digestion
makes Disease inevitable."
Had real normal hunger been pre-
sent when Mr. Fletcher broke his fast,
the demand for food would have been
so great and so insistent that no denial
would have been tolerated. Mr.
Fletcher states that he did not want
food until he had tasted it — a clear
case of taste-stimulation or appetite.
Even this was momentary and was but
the expiring flame of taste relish left
after seventeen days free from the pro-
gressive accumulation of excess food.
Despite his care in the selection and
the mastication of his food, Mr.
Fletcher must still have continually
eaten without hunger, and must, as a
result, have stored within his system
an unusual amount of material beyond
260
APPENDIX
the needs of his body. Had this not
been true, he would not have exhibited
the coated tongue, foul breath, and
vertigo. Hunger would have been
ever present, and it would have been
impossible for him to fast.
My only comment upon the neglect
of the enema that seems to have
occurred in the conduct of Mr.
Fletcher's fast is that it was a most
vital error. The enema is absolutely
necessary. The question of diet also
need not be discussed, for experience
shows that the feeding of the body is
a matter of individual requirement.
If normal physical balance be ever
reached, fixed laws to govern the diet
problem could be formulated. In its
present state, argument resolves itself
into mere utterances of individual
opinion and prejudice.
Faithfully yours,
Linda Burfield Hazzard.
261
^ /^^
University of California
SOUTHERN REGiONAL LiBRARY FACILITY
405 Hllgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388
Return this material to the library
from which it was borrovifed.
UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
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