Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/90

 any case temperature is merely a symptom of the conditions within, and, whether high or low, it denotes that there is in progress a fight for life that has scarce need to be suppressed. No thermometer is necessary to read the severity of disease, and, if pulse and temperature are above or below normal at the beginning of the fast, they will descend or ascend to natural register when disease disappears, or perhaps while some of its symptoms are still in evidence. The general conditions described in this paragraph in connection with temperature below normal occur in the cases of almost all f asters. These are aggravated in certain temperaments, more especially in those who suffer from the wasting forms of illness, such as hardening of the liver, and mal-assimilation.

When the fast is concluded and the body has been rebuilt, it is to be noted that a vegetarian diet insures a pulse and temperature with no apparent tendency to rise above individual normal. If the dietary change has been one from flesh to vegetable, the pulse may show reduction of several beats from its former average.

One word more concerning bodily temperature in the fast : Physiology asserts and