Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/324

 dieting, not fasting, but the conditions in these show no contrast, excepting in respect to food or its omission. Death was certain, fasting or feeding. This list of eleven deaths is selected from a total of eighteen, the latter figure comprising all the fatalities of sixteen years of the practice of fasting for the cure of disease. The number of cases treated during this time reaches nearly two thousand, five hundred, each of whom fasted continuously for periods varying in duration from eight to seventy-five days. The death rate is thus seen to be about seven-tenths of one per cent.

CASE 1. A married woman, 38 years of age, who had devoted twenty years of her life in vain attempt to enjoy normal existence under medical treatment, finally ascertained that periods of dieting and of abstinence from food were the only means whereby she could obtain relief. At consultation a perilous condition indicating the presence of organic disease was evident, and careful dieting and the employment of the hygienic accompaniments of the treatment were prescribed and continued until six months later. At this time the patient, with