Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/109

 respectively. In the bodies of each of these women the growth of the foetus was progressive and normal, despite the total omission of food intake. Due to disease, hunger was absent in the pregnant women, but a supply of nourishment sufficient to maintain the body of the mother and to build that of the forming child existed within and was utilized until natural hunger returned at the completion of the fast. This stored nourishment is always present in tissue structure; it is the factor of safety in physical economy, and it is eliminated only at the time when in the fast complete purification of the system has occurred and hunger is asserted.

The signs of a fully completed fast are most easily recognized. The tongue is pink and clean, the breath, sweet, and appetite or false hunger is replaced by natural desire for food, a sensation exquisite beyond description, that may be realized only by a clean, pure, regenerated system. Natural hunger relishes natural food, and, once it is known, no morsel is without delight.

If the human body ate only when hunger makes demand, perfect balance would at once be created between intake and outgo,