Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/333

 worst until two years before death, when, in hopeless apathy, the patient consented to undergo a fast, and completed one of thirty days with such success that she experienced entire relief from the menstrual pain thereafter, and had no digestive distress unless careless in diet.

The cause that compelled the patient to enter a second fast lay in organic disease that had progressed to the point that the functions became inoperative. Disintegration of the liver must have existed for some time previous to the beginning of the fast, for from its first day large amounts of black bilious discharge came away in the enemas. The condition gradually became so aggravated that the thought of food was nauseating, and its odor and even the perfume of flowers could not be borne. This was also true of the second case cited. Organic defect existed when the former fast took place, and its symptoms were present at that time, but the organs, recuperated by their enforced rest, were enabled to continue partial functioning for some months longer.

In this second fast pulse and temperature rose above normal several beats and degrees each day between the administrations of the