Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/18

12 and internal needs, in a language that has a distinct expression for every want of our alimentary and respiratory organs, for every distress of our tissues, sinews and muscles, for every needed reaction against the influence of abnormal circumstances. Our skin protests against injurious degrees of heat or cold; our lungs against atmospheric impurities; our eyes against the intrusion of the smallest insect. The human body is a house that cleanses its own chambers and heats its own stoves, opens and shuts its windows at proper intervals, expels mischievous intruders and promptly informs its tenant of every external peril and internal disorder. If it were not for the perverting influence of baneful sanitary superstitions we should run no risk of mistaking poison for food, nor of substituting unnatural for natural stimulants. We should never have conceived the idea that the sick must be forced to swallow virulent drugs; all our "ailments and pains, in form, variety and degree beyond description," could be cured by the three remedies of Nature: Exercise, fasting and refrigeration.

The application of those remedies is not followed by distressing after effects. It does not