20-DAY FAST

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 499, 31 October 1928, Page 11

20-DAY FAST

Berlin Woman Loses Hunger in Four Days EXPERIMENT FOR SCIENCE A Berlin woman doctor, Margarete Freund, fasted for 20 days in the j Hydropathic Institute of Berlin University so that scientific observations of the effects might be made. During this time she allowed herself water and the juice of two lemons | without sugar each day. She ’also continued her mental and physical work. At the end of this period she had lost 191 b in weight, but this loss did not occur gradually. In the first week her weight fell by 111 b, in tbe second 51b, and in the third 31b. The weight incre'ased quickly after her fast had ended, and in eight weeks she recovered completely. Low Temperature During the fast the temperature of the body fell by a few tenths of a degree, while the hands and feet were generally cold and blue. The pulse was also affected. It beat normally during repose, but the slightest physical exercise rendered it violent. Dr. Freund reports that the first two or three days passed off well, but that on the fourth she fell ill and shivered perpetually. She had no sense of hunger then, and even thought of food with distaste. Before she started-mental work she had to overcome a feeling of laziness, and she involuntarily reduced physical movements to a minimum. No physical effect was observable and bodily disturbances ceased from the 12th day, after which Dr. Freund slept better and the general feeling of weakness gradually disappeared. On her experiences Dr. Freund declares that fasting makes a healthy body ill and intensifies what is wrong in an unhealthy body, while the organism is apparently in a condition which renders it easily susceptible to ills.