Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/38



A "fast," in the language of the medieval churchmen, generally implied the interdition of special kinds of food, and, in that sense of the word, almost every creed of ancient and modern times prescribes periods of total abstinence. The Rhamadan, or Lenten season, of the Mohammedans, has to be observed for a couple of months, though the casuists of the Koran allow travelers and busy laborers to shorten the term by lengthening the list of forbidden viands. The successors of Joe Smith prohibit alcoholic stimulants to all but invalids, and Zoroaster interdicts wine and "soma-juice"—probably some opiate—to those who can procure more wholesome tonics.

The Pythagoreans went further and tabooed wine altogether. Strict followers of the sect (whose "philosophy" was to all purposes a religion) abstained also from flesh food and, for some never wholly explained reason, from beans. Peter Bayle surmised some figurative significance of that tenet—beans of various colors being used