IS FASTING HEALTHY?

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 47, 4 June 1910, Page 10

IS FASTING HEALTHY?

EXPERIENCES DIFFER. Mr. Upton Sinclair, author of "The Jungle," says that he has found fasting a remedy for all the ills that flesh ana blood are called upon to endure, and as a result of experiments he has found not only good health, but perfect health. "The fast is to me," he says, "the key to eternal youth, the secret of perfect and permanent health." After fasting Mr. Sinclair placed himself on a milk diet, the result being an extraordinary sense of peace- and calm, "as if every nerve of the body were purring like a cat under a stove. The muscles fairly leaped out of my body; I suddenly discovered the possibility of becoming an athlete," he says. "I became as round as a butter ball, and so brown and rosy in the face that I was a joke to all who saw me."

It js interesting, after Mr. Sinclair's ■warm support of fasting, to turn to the experiences of other experimenters. Dr. F. 'Penny, M.R.C.S., related his experiences in the British Medical Jouriui a month or two ago. Dr. Penny w;>s in fairly good condition, but he undertook the fast to endeavor to satisfy himself whether the accumulation of waste :ind unnecessary material in the system was the real cause of much disease, and whether a prolonged fast was a sound method of elimination, and as such conducive to bettefed health. "My time," foe said, "was occupied chiefly in reading, exercise, and conversation. I ret-; - ed generally -between 10 and 11 p.m.,, and generally spent twelve to fourteen h'i-jrs in bed, with the windows wide opt-n. My average loss of weight was lib a day. My exercise was walking three n.ilcand a-half and cycling one mile and onefifth a day. After the first two days 1 felt no hunger. I suffered much fro u cold, especially in the feet and hands. At times I was very irritable. Throughout the fast my tongue was coated and my breath offensive. During the last eiffht days I had very little inclination for exertion of any kind. The fast was broken ■on the completion of thirty days with lib of fruit, in spite of eating which my weight dropped lib during the next seventeen hours. Then I took fuller meals of milk, rice, fruit, toast, honey, etc., and gained weight rapidly. This* fast was not carried to a 'finish—that is until my tongue cleaned and natural hunger returned, as described by Dr. Dewey—and I have not yet completely satisfied myself 'with regard .to the objects for winch the fast was undertaken." Then there was the case of Mr. Eskholm Wade, who, in a, tent on a hilltop nine miles from Chichester, tried living on fresh air and fresh water. He said he felt absolutely no ill-effects after a thirty days' fast. He was in delicate health, but discovered that he was suffering from over-eating. He began to reduce his daily meals, occasionally fasting altogether for ten, twenty, aiid thirty hours. "I am simply appalled by the way your suet pudding and beef man eats. Take your swagger six-course dinner, for which you pay a sum equal to the weekly wage of a farm laborer. Put it'all in a pail, and the only animals who would touch it are pigs, hyenas, and other brutes. The primary law of nature is that nothing Impure should be put into the mouth. I have often cleansed my digestive organs with quarts of isaiul, taken a spoonful at a time, and have swallowed thin strips of satin. One effect of niy fast has been to alter my sense of taste. My tongue is white mm spongy, and a teiiapoonful of hot tea would taste to me like saltpetre, and 'butter like so much cart-grease."