Fasting in Acute Disease

CHAPTER XXXIV

"Instead of using medicine, rather fast a day," wrote Plutarch. Someone else has said: "Wise people, falling into any ailment, take a bath, go to bed, and fast, leaving nature to do her own work of cure, and not hindering her beneficent operations."

One of the first indications of illness is a failing appetite. Indeed appetite often fails a few days before any other symptoms appear. If the illness begins "suddenly," while the stomach is full of food, or if there is a serious accident or shock to the nervous system while the stomach is full of food, the stomach is immediately emptied by vomiting. Thus does nature indicate, both in animals and in man, that in acute "disease," no food but water should be consumed. In chronic disease she indicates that the amount of food eaten should be much less than that consumed in health. Dr. Eales admonishes: "Let the sick eat only when Nature calls for food." If this rule were adhered to by all, an untold amount of suffering would be avoided and many would be saved from an untimely death. But thanks to the medical delusion that "the sick man must eat to keep up his strength," this rule is not likely to be adopted by the great majority for years to come.

The common expression applied alike to horse and man, "off his feed," describes the instinctive abstinence from food that comes when power to digest food is low or absent. The loss of digestive power and digestive conditions is proportioned to the severity of the curative actions.

Writing of the vomiting that occurs in sea-sickness, Dr. Shew asserted that "almost all persons are benefited by it" (sea sickness), and explained the benefit thus: "It is by the beneficial power of fasting that the benefit of sea sickness is caused." Only false teachings can induce people to go on eating regularly in the face of the fact that the food is vomited as promptly as it is ingested. For this false teaching we have the medical profession to thank.

FALSE TEACHINGS OF MEDICAL "SCIENCE"

Physicians have taught the people that there are specific diseases requiring specific causes and that the sick must be fed "to keep up their strength." while being "cured" of their diseases. So long as we believe that the "cure" of a common "disease" depends upon the accidental or providentially ordained discovery of some mysterious compound, we are likely to continue overlooking the plainest indications of nature and go on killing the sick in the time-honored way.

Not merely in low chronic conditions, but in acute conditions, with high temperature as well, overfeeding is prescribed and enforced. Indeed, a high calorie diet is now the rule in fevers.

Dr. Kellogg insists on sugar in some form, even in the most violent stages of acute "disease." This insistence is not based on physiology, but on his fear of bacteria. He says that bacteria "will not grow or at least are not virulent and active in producing toxins, in the presence of sugar."

Fear and false theories lead men away from nature and physiology and cause them to do many absurd and damaging things. With all due respect to Dr. Kellogg, his influence in this matter is highly pernicious and prejudicial to the health and recovery of the sick. The indications of nature are the true guide in a search for health. Ephemeral theories of mis-called science often do much harm.

Date: 2015-01-11; view: 865