Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/321

 most of these bodies, arrested development of one or more of the vital organs was found, and in all of them defective intestines displayed cartilaginous structure and malformation that must have required either acute inflammation or continued functional disturbance to produce. These cases cover subjects who had followed orthodox methods until orthodoxy proved of no avail, and who then turned to the fast and its accompaniments. Hence it is certain that erroneous diet, with subsequent lowered nutrition, occurring in the developing period of life and later, together with the baneful effects of drugs administered in the attempt to remedy disease, were responsible for the fatal issue. Nature had endowed each of these patients at birth with normal vitality; each of them had suffered in early life from severe functional disorder; and each, with one exception, had been drug-drenched.

Broadly speaking, there is no drug that is not a poison, stimulating or paralyzing in its effect; and, while harm ensues when drugs are employed for the treatment of disease in mature years, the consequences of applying ordinary medical remedies in infancy and in youth are doubly apparent and