Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/227

CHILDREN IN THE FAST or narcotics—the former increase the action of the heart and with it the temperature, while the latter reduce nerve transmission. In addition medical treatment usually calls for nutriment at intervals of three to four hours, and food is administered in the natural manner, or, when symptoms of an especially acute nature are present, per rectum. In the body of the child, the effects of both overfeeding and of drugs are longlasting, and here most emphatically the method to be employed should remove fermenting rubbish, the cause of the condition.

As in the adult, when disease appears, prompt withholding of food removes through active elimination the immediate cause of disturbance; an enema, or several of them, cleanses the bowels of toxic digestive products; fever is abated; diarrhoea and colic disappear; and in two or three days at most the youngster is again whole and hearty. For children respond to the fasting treatment in marvelous manner; their natural forces have not been depleted by years of excess in physical indulgence, and are present in pristine vigor. No alarm need be felt, since nature readjusts the little system most rapidly, and its functions at once resume their labors re- 211