Illustrative Cases

ILLUSTRATIVE CASES

FASTING APPLIED TO CASES OF INFLAMMATORY
RHEUMATISM, CHOREA, EPILEPSY, PREGNANCY, ETC.

This patient also showed extraordinary vigor and vitality throughout a period of forty-two days of abstinence from food, and she daily walked a distance of several miles, underwent manipulative treatment, and returned to her home without undue fatigue. Towards the end of the fast she was able and desirous of increasing the amount of exercise, and her mental condition exhibited improvement from the inception of the work. On the thirtieth day of the fast and thereafter the young woman performed her portion of the housework well and cheerfully. Hunger returned on the forty-first day, and the fast was broken at the end of the forty-second. Two weeks later the sisters sailed for their home abroad, and letters written by the patient since their arrival show a mind in every respect rational.

Tuberculosis of the lungs is a symptom of disease that needs to be uncovered and treated in its early stages if recovery is to be hoped for, and the case of a woman thirty-two years old is cited to illustrate the treatment of a consumptive, the outcome of whose case proved a cure. This patient abstained from food for twenty-four days, but preparation, the fast, and the period of dieting after the latter was concluded, covered full six months. When first under observation, the sputum contained the bacilli typical of the symptom; both lungs were affected; the characteristic cough, high temperature and pulse, were present; in fact, the case displayed all of the signs that distinguish the symptom. The fast was begun after usual preparatory diet, and was continued as noted for twenty-four days, during which no unfavorable symptoms occurred. However, from the latter part of the preparatory period there was excessive discharge of sputum, but during the fast this showed daily diminution in amount, and there was also pronounced decrease in the number of bacilli at the several periodical examinations made. The enemas were charged with bilious products and old feces, these toxic disturbers disappearing only during the last week of abstinence. Fever had vanished as had also the cough by the fourteenth day, and, when the sputum was examined on the twenty-second day of fasting there were no traces of bacilli tuberculosis.

To anticipate successful issue, the treatment of tuberculosis of the lungs should be undertaken before the stage of excessive structural break-down of lung tissue has been reached. If the treatment outlined is begun at this time a cure is altogether probable. Otherwise, the case classes itself with that of advanced organic disease, which, in the light of previous discussion, bars remedy.

Medical diagnosis of the next instance, a man thirty-eight years old, pronounced it a case of valvular heart disease, and medical prognosis gave no hope of recovery. There was severe pain in the regions of the heart, the stomach, and the liver, and at times in the abdomen. Heart-beats were most irregular; and, in view of the very apparent seriousness of the condition, a fast was begun without preparation. Large amounts of dark bilious fluid came away with every enema, and excruciating pain and nervous excitement were experienced until the twentieth fasting day when at least a teacupful of gall-stones was evacuated. Great relief followed, but gall-stones singly and in small numbers were passed with the exereta until the thirtieth day of abstinence. The fast was broken on its thirty-fifth day, when the weight of the patient was 174 pounds, this showing a reduction of 20 pounds within the period given. In the early part of this fast there were slight sub-normal temperature and much fasters' chilliness, but temperature and heartbeat as well reached normal by the twentieth day. Before this the pulse had been at times above, at times below register, according to the degree of activity of circulating poison. After breaking the fast all functions became and continued normal; weight was gradually gained and soon reached 185 pounds; and from the completion of treatment general health was excellent.

An interesting addendum to this case is found in its later history. The patient, after strictly adhering to the rules prescribed as to diet, exercise, and general care of the body for at least a year and a half after his restoration to health, lapsed and fell into laxness in eating and in drinking, with the result that, two years subsequent to the crisis already related, an abscess formed upon the fioor of the stomach, and the case again came under observation and treatment, undergoing this time a fast of forty-five days. The man suffered great pain until the ulcer discharged, which occurred about ten days after the fast began, and was evidenced by the passage of blood and pus from the bowels. The patient hovered between life and death for several weeks, but absence of food prevented irritation of the ulcer, which rapidly healed, and, since hunger was in evidence, the fast was broken on the forty-sixth day.

It is the fixed opinion of the author that in no instances is the medical theory of "feeding to keep up strength" so palpably in error, as in cases of the kind just cited. Whether the ulcer is located in the stomach, in the duodenum, or in any other portion of the alimentary tract, non-irritation is a first essential to healing, and non-irritation may be had in the alimentary tract only through the omission of the ingestion of food. And, more, while it is true that food is never essential in disease, the application of the method outlined herein to a condition such as was exhibited in the second siege of illness undergone by the ease just noted is so plain in exposition and so beautifully reasonable and convincing in argument that no unbiased mind should read this description without being satisfied of its truth and in consequence of the efficacy of the method itself.

A short description of a fast for chronic digestive disturbance is presented in the following case, that of a man of forty-five years of age. The fast itself covered a period of forty-nine days, and from its beginning until the forty-fifth day the patient was confined to his bed. This is a striking example of the extreme toxemia that sometimes occurs during fasting when the organs of elimination are called upon to cope with an accumulation of waste that taxes them to the utmost Because this material is liquefied in form, both in consequence of the body secretions and of the water of the enemas, it is more easily absorbed from the walls of the intestines, and in this instance, the weakness in evidence was directly occasioned by this sort of self-poisoning. But the condition gradually improved as the eliminative organs became equal to their tasks, and on the forty-fifth day, hunger returned and with it strength. The fast was broken on the morning of the fiftieth day and afterwards the patient walked several miles on the city pavements with but little fatigue. There were no unusual symptoms other than the toxemia mentioned, and from the breaking of the fast, improvement was constant and permanent.

>>Pg 6

Home | Contact Us | Site Map