The Fasting Cure 1V ANY of my friends arc ill - with
colds. Some drag I themselves to their appointed tasks, others -he a-bed, resting everything except their digestions.
Some people, indeed, are so busy keeping the body on an hourly qui vivc with nourishment or medicine that they are hardly ever well. They have a hard fight of it, combating the germs of disease. As soon as one victory is gained, the enemy breaks out in a new place. But they struggle on, taking in reserves of meat and milk and restoratives with a tenacity that does not falter to their latest hour. And although the battle can only have one issue, they play their gallant part, meeting influenza with injections, sluggishness with senile, force with force. At last they die, but so do the healthy. If the sick didn't keep up their strength, would they just fade away ?
I used to think so, until I visited an exponent of the fasting cure, who has an Institute some thirty miles from London. Such fasting cures are very popular in America, but not so well known over here as they might he, for if they do nothing else (and I believe they do accomplish much else), they at least present the idea of pain and illness in a new and, I believe, more Christian light.
I am aware that a layman takes some risk in writing about medical matters. I shall be told that I ant "pulling'' this cure, or that I am a faddist. Nevertheless the thunders of the British Medical Association would leave me unperturbed, impenitent, and enthusiastic about nature cures. I believe it is time that average men and women did some thinking for themselves as to the nature of disease. The doctors, with the exception of those who think with Sir Arbuthnot Lane and the New Health Society, are so busy with diagnosis and the naming of symptoms that they have little leisure to consider health as a whole.
The fasting theory, if I understand it right, is to give the life force within us room and breathing space in which to sweep up the litter of wrong living—to " clear a ring," so to speak, within ourselves, so that the mysterious powers of good may strike a blow for freedom and beauty. Disease is the norm of wrong thought and action ; it is the expression of what we actually are, not some devil that has jumped into us from outside. If we would be well, we must be different. And to be different, to effect a transition in our bodily rhythm, we must give our body at least a brief surcease from the complicated and continuous miracle of converting beef and bread into thoughts, actions and warmth. In short we must fast, as a sick animal does.
The Nature cure practitioner of whom I write appears to me to employ the usual methods of diagnosis, and he has at times received the assistance of qualified physicians. But symptoms are not so important with him as with the average doctor. His faith, and it is an abounding one, is in the life force. Given a fair field through fasting, he believes that it will cure instinctively and subconsciously. Soon or late our internal vacuum-cleaner will tidy up any disorder, the time taken depending entirely on how much mess we have made of our lives.
As adjuvants to fasting, however, he does employ certain modem methods such as massage, electric blankets, special baths, irrigations. He was one of the first people in England to use artificial sunlight. He is, of course, a great believer ttl air, exercise, sunlight, sleep. Each case is treated differently, but the following is a rough general outline of the methods employed. The patient is nest examined and his " history " considered : the next few days will he employed in bringing him into condition for the fast. 1)11ring this period of abstention, the patient takes fruit juice twice a day amid drinks frequent draughts of water : the time of fasting varies from several days to several weeks, according to the severity of the symptoms. After time second or third day no desire whatever is felt for food, the mind grows clear and there is a feeling of energy and well-being. This shutting off of the fires of food, which has been described to me by a " sufferer " as a time of real beatitude after the oppression of ill-health, is accom- panied by a mild but regular course of exercise, according to the constitution and age of the patient. The conclusion of the fast is determined largely by the state of the tongue. When time tongue is pink and healthy, the whole body is " full of light." The vis medleatiir naturae has done her secret and holy office and the normal processes of life can be gradually resumed.
I have written " secret and holy." Obviously there is more than meets the eye in fasting. All the great teachers of the world underwent such discipline, and there is no doubt in my mind that the mental is to the physical effect in the ratio of two to one. It would be profitlesS, however, to attempt to disentangle the two and to imagine what goes on within the body. Thoughts are timings indeed ; we transmute mutton-chops into Metaphysics as well as into calories. The fact that Christ, Buddha, Mohammed fasted, opens up a channel of thought I cannot now follow.
Let me make it quite clear, however, that I do not believe that fasting is a cure-all. But I have unimpeach- able evidence that sonic of the cures effected I my this method arc very remarkable. One of the recent patients at this Institute is an eminent King's Counsel, well-known also in another field ; he writes to me that the cure was " extraordinarily good and effective," • both for himself and his family. Another person (who tells me he was dying under a treatment of arsenic and blood transfu- sions for pernicious anaemia) was " greatly improved in health within a fortnight," and within six weeks " was practically well and walking about again." He calls his cure a miracle : I think it was. Again, I have the case of an accountant who had suffered from severe kidney trouble for years and was a semi-invalid. Ile says. he was completely cured after a twenty-four (lays' fast. I cannot here give extracts from the various enthusiastic letters which my inquiries have elicited. There may be Cases of failure, although I have not heard of them. I desire, however, to quote the opinion of Mr. Alg:rnon Blackwood, who has kindly give me permission to use his name. He says, in part : " I am very glad to tell you anything about the ----place and its treatment. I went there for three weeks, and fasted thirteen days out of the twenty-one, the other days being occupied in entering the fast slowly, and in coming out of it to normal food again, also slowly. During these thirteen days, I lost a pound a day in weight. I am lucky in having very good health, and in going to — 1 had nothing to be cured or treated, but when I loft I felt better than I have felt for years –since boyhood, I think--and I am now 58.
"My- object in going there was to give all organs a complete rest, and also--chiefly perhaps this—to note any psychological effects there might be. Hunger I never once felt, but I was clearer-headed than I normally am, cheerfully optimistic, with sharpened senses (especially smell) and, generally speaking, full of ideas. I can recommend the place and its treatment in the highest terms. Ott my return to England I am going again."
IThen I was going over the home I noticed a placard inscribed " Drink Room " and I looked in thinking it might be a special chamber for inebriates ; instead it is the meeting place for those who arc in the hungry stage of their cure. Here they sit and sip to their heart's content; meditating perhaps on the evening cocktail of fruit juice, or on the banquets of unregenerate years. I must saj they looked remarkably content and brisk. " Did you see that young fellow with his glass ? " I was asked as we left. " He looks fairly well, doesn't he ? Yet three days ago he was brought here on a stretcher, unable to walk. This morning he strolled about the grounds for an hour. He has had nothing to eat mean- while. Nor bite nor sup has passed his lips, except a little fruit juice. Where do you suppose he got this new strength ? "
I suppose he drew it out of the air or the universal cosmic consciousness, whatever that may be. Celsus and Hippocrates had some theories on the subject. And Zarathustra spake " I conjure thee, cast not away the
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