Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/83

 presence is regarded with dread, and at times when it appears, as it does, in anaesthetized subjects under the surgeon's knife, operations have been abandoned because of the fear of death while the paralysis of the anaesthetic endures. Its presence in a patient undergoing the fast indicates functional derangement of more than ordinary gravity. In health there is no production of acetone, since discarded cell tissue is eliminated before fermentation can occur. Once food is denied and cell refuse is discharged into the channels of evacuation, acetone, when it is present, appears in all the excretions, and its characteristic ether-like odor is most pronounced. In fact in these instances one of the signs of the beginning of the end of the fast is found in the disappearance of acetone from urine, breath, and excreta. It is no longer formed, since the body is again in position to produce normal healthy cell structure balanced by normal elimination of waste.

In disease it is quite usual to observe unpleasant body odors. These are manifestations of an unclean interior, manifestations which nature seeks to remove through the organs of elimination, not the least of which is the skin. One experienced in the treatment