Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/258

 intoxication from overfeeding are speedily restored when food is denied. In fact, autointoxication takes place more often when feeding than when fasting, and the overfed body produces poisons the effects of which upon mentality are more dread and more lasting than those of alcohol itself.

The sole explanation of the presence of toxins in the human body lies in the inability of the eliminative organs to function. They cannot dispose of the refuse in quantity to balance intake. In the fast, when difficulty is encountered in this respect, lack of functional power is indicated, and this is due in most instances to congenital organic defect or to early drug paralysis.

The physician who has had long experience in handling disease as a unity is not concerned in any sense with the presence or absence of the various toxins, nor by the symptoms in evidence, except as indices of the state of functioning of the internal organs. If these organs are in normal condition, excess food may interfere with function through congestion. But the vital parts of the human body are in many instances drugparalyzed or food-stimulated, and, medically speaking, they are brought into action by the