Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/130

 state of the waste thrown into the bowels when the process of digestion is suspended, permits of easy absorption and of consequent septic poisoning. During the fast, from the first day of abstinence until indications point to the fact that the cleansing process is complete, large amounts of brownish foul-smelling discharges are evacuated, mixed with lumps of hardened fecal matter, dislodged from the walls of the intestines or impacted from particles excreted in the process of elimination. In long fasts another feature more or less noticeable is the quantity of stringy white or yellowish mucus that is evacuated. The latter is catarrhal in nature and is evidence of the complete renewal that is accomplished when the fast is carried to its logical conclusion.

The necessity for the use of the enema would cease to exist were all food ingested perfectly transformed and entirely consumed in tissue-building. But continued excess in supply creates imperfect functioning of the digestive organs. Natural bowel movements depend upon food perfectly digested or chemically changed, and the waste products from this process are always fully eliminated. Imperfect digestion causes imperfect