Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/272

 tracted family, as a last resort, turned to the fasting method of treatment, and a description of the condition of the young man will perhaps throw stronger light upon the contrast that is drawn between the methods of nature and those of man.

The boy had been in bed for five weeks ; his body displayed all of the evidences of disease and of the remedies that had been applied. His left arm, wrist, and hand were greatly swollen and painful, as were also both knees and ankles. The face was flushed, the breathing stertorous, the pulse fluttering and irregular, while the body temperature was 105 degrees. In all respects the working foundation was insecure, and the preceding weeks of medical treatment had been worse than wasted from the standpoint of the natural. For two of these weeks the heart action had been stimulated with digitalis and strychnine; food had been forced upon an unwilling stomach as many times daily as the patient could be induced to swallow; and, when pain had become too great to be borne, or, when delirium intervened, codein and other opiates had been used unsparingly. In addition, within seven days before change of treatment occurred, two quarts of brandy