Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/323

 which abstinence cannot continue lest the body die. Hence, death from starvation is impossible in a fast properly applied, when it is conducted for the cure of disease not organic. Hunger must return, and food must be supplied. The result in the presence of structural defect is not assured. When the latter is of slight degree, repair is possible and recovery will follow; but, when the faults are such that functioning of one or more organs is prevented, no hope of cure exists, although, by lessening the strain upon other vital parts, life may be prolonged and distress relieved.

Eleven instances of death occurring while the fast or a course of diet was in progress are quoted because of the light they cast upon the diagnosis of disease when natural methods are applied, and because of the exposition made by the autopsies of the effects of erroneous diet and of drug treatment upon the human body. In each case it is shown conclusively that the cause of death was organic disease beyond repair, and that, at the stage reached when the fast was undertaken, no means of cure could have brought about recovery. Two of the deaths described occurred while the patients were