Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/322

 appalling. It is only necessary to draw the parallel between the results of administering brandy to a child and to an adult to emphasize this statement. What, then, must follow in the event of repeated dosage for fever, colic, colds, and the varied category of infantile disease? And what are the effects of this treatment upon growing human bodies? Not one of us but has the sacred relics of the day of powdered dried toads to blame for organs functionally disordered, arrested in development, or wholly ruined.

Repeating the distinction:

Starvation is the consequence of food denied, either by accident or design, to a system clamoring for sustenance.

Fasting consists in intentional abstinence from food by a system diseased, and, as a result, non-desirous of sustenance until rested, cleansed, and again ready for the labor of digestion. Then, and not till then, is food supplied. Then, and not till then, does starvation begin. The law of hunger draws the line of demarcation.

It may be repeated that, in functional disease, the fast can be carried to its logical end without a, particle of anxiety, because the law of hunger marks the limit beyond