Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/262

 past as a preventive and a cure for disease, its therapeutic possibilities have never heretofore been scientifically applied. Hence it results that modern employment of the method places the practitioner in such position that no authorities can be consulted, and no personal guidance or advice can be turned to for aid in times of stress. Early years of practice in these circumstances often developed cases in which the patient seemingly declined to the point of death. Family and friends at once condemned the physician and the treatment, and a howling public stood waiting to cry, "starvation," It mattered not that the patient had been given up to die by orthodoxy, nor that the fast had been sought as a last resort. Oftentimes only the sufferer himself was in sympathy with the method, and his condition was aggravated to the last degree by opposition.

A state of affairs such as described induces in a conscientious mind intense concentration on the work in progress. No point that may conduce to favorable issue is overlooked; no natural law or accessory is permitted to remain without investigation. Merely selfish considerations might here prove motives sufficient for earnest en-