THE FASTING CURE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3777, 7 November 1907, Page 2

THE FASTING CURE.

The Chief Health Officer (Dr Mason) has taken considerable interest in the fasting cure. _ Dr Mason, in conversation with a Dominion reporter, said it was undoubtedly a common thing for meh to let their intakings in the way of food more than balance their expenditure, with the result of banking up waste products in their bodies. He had no doubt whatever, not only from reading, but as the outcome of practical expert-

ence, that most people could do an ordinary day’s work on very much less food than they would consider an ordinary day’s food. In the majority of instances more food was eaten than was absolutely necessary to keep up a proper equilibrium, so to speak. At the same time he would hesitate belore he counselled an abstinence of 28 days, and the modern author of the treatment, Dr Dewey, was obviously unscientific in advising total abstinence as to the cure for all diseases. Dr Dewey made this recommendation, for example, in the case of enteric fever. The practice in such cases had hitherto been to give the patient nothing that might in any way cause rupture of that portion of the bowel that was involved by the disease, but Dr Dewey’s method was truly heroic. At the same time, after reading the doctor’s book, one felt convinced that unless one were to disbelieve all that he said, there was really more in this fasting treatment than at first sight appeared. It was ridiculous, however. to Dr Mason’s mind, to talk of a person being cured of cancer by this means. So far as doctors knew, there was only one cure for this disease, total excision at an early stage. There was very little difficulty for the ordinary individual, Dr Mason added, in going two or three days without food. Total abstinence had been recommended right through the ages as an excellent method of squaring our ledgers in the bank of health, and medical men often followed this system in reality, when they kept on barley water, or something not ranch more solid, a patient who would not easity be persuaded to fast altogether. It had long been claimed by the vegetarians that meat, tobacco, and alcohol went hand in hand, that one, so to speak, incited to another. He was not prepared to say what amount of truth there was in this, but without doubt, most people would be far better if they ate less meat. The effects of the fasting treatment, Dr Mason thinks, would justify the making of more elaborate records. In the case of a man who fasted recently for 19 days in Glasgow, careful observations were made at intervals of the value of his blood corpuscles, the numbers of red and white corpuscles being counted at regular intervals, and iris power of resistance against disease assesssed. Dr Mason, in conclusion, said it would have been of very great value to scientific men if these observations had been taken in recent fasting cases that have been recorded.