Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/299

 disease symptom named. The mental condition of the patient was such that no physical act was under control, and all abnormal tendencies pursued erotic channels. His weight when treatment began was 150 pounds. After low diet and an absolute fast of twenty-eight days, the time of dieting and of the fast having occupied three months, weight was reduced to 67 pounds. There were no unusual symptoms during the period of fasting, but progress toward sanity was daily noticeable, and, at the end of the time mentioned, mental balance was entirely restored, while the blood taint has never since given any evidence that it ever existed.

A young man, 19 years old, who had been led into habits, mental and physical, detrimental to normal development, became, as a result, a victim of the disease symptom, epilepsy. For five years he suffered from the fits characteristic of the malady, recurrent at intervals of from one to two weeks. Medicine had been appealed to in vain, and when the fast was proposed, it was discovered, after careful examination, that the youth was addicted to masturbation, which, in instances of this nature, is more of a symptom than a cause. A condition of low phy-