Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/256

 more difficult when organic imperfections exist. In the adult body, chronic functional disease or drugs may produce like effects, but here the organs concerned are fully developed, and the results are shown, not in arrested development, but in lesions, or in growths.

Whenever, in the fast or otherwise, because of organs undeveloped or functionally paralyzed, the products of elimination cannot be evacuated through natural channels, reabsorption of waste occurs, and the result is displayed in a general poisoning of the blood supply. This condition is known as auto- intoxication, or, as expressed before, the body is poisoned by its own decomposition. This state gives rise in the subject to manifestations that may become alarming. The brain is affected to the extent of mild delirium, hiccoughs appear, or the patient may sink into stupor. Mechanical means of relief in the forms of the enema and of general massage of the body must be resorted to and plied to the utmost in connection with hot applications to the spine and abdomen. In cases not under careful and experienced guidance the situation related will assuredly prove disastrous, and herein lies one of the