Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/99

 and shelved all symptoms, and that it is its plan to await development of indications before diagnosis. But medicine devotes its attention entirely to the suppression of the manifestation to the neglect of its cause, and a classification thus made finds items overlapping each other in such manner as to make distinction difficult if not impossible. But an arrangement of general disease forms may be made on lines that are sharply defined.

1. Purely functional ailments that readily yield to the fast. In these cases because of accumulation of excess-food-rubbish in the digestive tract, blood, and tissue, organs are hampered in function but are not structurally defective or in themselves diseased. Gradual improvement is noted from the beginning of preparation for the fast, and recovery is always possible.

2. Organic defect in slight degree, occasioning disturbance because of work imperfectly performed by a partially disabled organ. This condition places heavier burdens upon other organs and functionally unbalances the entire system. Disagreeable symptoms are noted in these cases during the progress of the fast, and it is possible that full functioning may never be restored.