CHAPTER VII
BREAKING THE FAST
" 'Tis in ourselves that rve are thus and thus. Our bodies are gardens; to which our wills are gardeners: so that if rve will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority of this lies in our wills. If the balance of our lives has not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and business of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions: but we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted lusts."
Shakespeare, "Othello."
CHAPTER VII
BREAKING THE FAST
INJUDICIOUS fasting, fasting without preparation, fasting for extended periods without guidance, and fasting for the sake of following a method merely because it is popular for the moment, are all severely condemned. The fast should be undertaken only for the cure of disease, and it should be scientifically applied. In disease, if adverse conditions, other than those apparent, are latent in the system, if nature has been carrying the burden of an imperfect organism, the fast is certain to uncover the fact, and symptoms will be revealed that need to be coped with by competent hands. It is, however, probable that, when purely functional derangements are in question, the self -guided patient will progress to a favorable end, but will not be equal to the problem of breaking the fast with success. This is a point of such importance that detailed comment is essential for the purpose of obtaining a clear insight into the matter of diet, hygienic care, and exercise after abstinence is ended.
An experienced director of the method is only too well aware that there are subjects, whose number entitles them to be distinguished as a class, who, through physical defect, store within the system extraordinarily excessive accumulations of food poison. These cases are grouped under Class 2 in the division of general disease symptoms noted in a previous chapter. In them constant stimulation prevents recognition of the presence of toxic products until some serious indiscretion overturns the balance, and a fast is begun, usually without preparation or direction. Once elimination has commenced, no return is possible until the logical end of the cleansing process is reached, and often alarming symptoms develop ere the first week has elapsed. The attempt is made at once to supply nourishment, and digestive trouble more severe in kind is produced, for the alimentary canal is filled with the products of elimination, and food but adds fuel to the combustion in progress. Fear now takes possession of the family and, more often than not, of the patient as well, and the deadliest foe to nature and her methods of cure is called to aid in offsetting the work already accomplished. Medicine completes in these circumstances what food began, and the chances are that death will ensue. No defense of the fast can be made, and it is visited with wide-spread and emphatic condemnation, whereas, were the facts known for their real worth, the conditions arising therefrom would be recognized as natural in origin, and as warnings that prodigious and successful efforts towards cure were at work.
To break the fast at a wrong time is even worse than to break it upon erroneous diet. The point of greatest import here to be observed is the care that should be given and the confidence that should be engendered lest fear step in and with it food and drugs. In the administration of copious enemata, duplicated and reduplicated, for the purpose of the immediate removal of disturbing elements lies the remedy for the eradication of alarming signs.
The fast in ordinary cases should be broken by the ingestion of the juices of ripe fruit, and of broths prepared from vegetables. The juices of perfectly ripened fruit are most easily changed in mouth and stomach for the subsequent process of assimilation. There is therefore but small effort in digestion. The same reasoning is applicable to the administration of strained vegetable broths seasoned to taste and void of solid particles. The thought that bids for this consideration of the digestive organs finds origin in the fact that the stomach has been for a time deprived of the exercise of its function, and return to solid food must be carefully made. The hunger instinct should guide, and, after all but a small amount of sustenance is needed to maintain the body. A caution is appended to the effect that the juices of sweet fruits should not be mixed at any time with those of acid. Vegetables in solid form and green salads are gradually added to the dietary as digestive power asserts itself.
There are many vegetables that lend themselves readily to the preparation of the broths referred to, and among them may be mentioned as particularly easy of digestion, ripe tomatoes, celery, carrots, and green peas. Some of the cereals, such as rice and barley, are also easy to prepare and to assimilate in the form of broth. Great caution is essential in order to suit the diet to individual requirement, and slight experiment may be found necessary for a satisfactory solution of the problem presented.
In the infant, when hunger returns after the fast, the strained juice of stewed ripe tomatoes or of boiled carrots, both unseasoned, is most suitable preparatory food. To the carrots may gradually be added in small quantity top-milk and honey, but these should never be combined with tomatoes or with acid fruits. This regimen should be continued, varying the vegetables from which the broths are made and increasing their quantity as digestion advances, until the final teeth have been cut, and solids may be handled.
In late popular discussions of the treatment of disease by fasting and its accessories, patients have been advised to break the fast upon large quantities of cow's milk. From a chemical standpoint the milk of the cow contains all the nutritive compounds required by a growing animal, and contains them in the proportions of a correct scientific dietary. It does not, however, fulfil the conditions of a typical and model food when considered as sustenance for man. The chemical composition of milk renders it a most suitable soil for the cultivation of bacteria, and, even though Pasteurized or sterilized, it will again take up germs if exposed to the air. In addition, sterilized milk is a different article from fresh milk, its chemical composition being altered by the process. The milk of the cow, when ingested, is changed upon encountering the gastric juices, into whey, a liquid, and into a tough mass of curd most difficult of digestion. To call milk a liquid food is absurd, for the solid matter in a pint of milk is equal to that in a half pound of meat, and in its dense coagulated form it is vastly more difficult of digestion.
In the present discussion the digestive capability under contemplation is that of an individual who has just succeeded in ridding his system of the toxic products of food in excess of the needs of the body. Hunger has returned and feeding must be resumed. If the milk of the cow is the form in which nourishment is supplied, and if, in addition, not one pint, but, as recommended, several quarts daily are imbibed, for each quart consumed, an equivalent in flesh food of one pound is offered for digestion. The purpose of the fast is at once defeated, since the most vigorous of bodies is unable perfectly to transform and to assimilate this mass of material. All of the excess and most of it is excess fills the alimentary tract with decomposing rubbish, and the system is again in the developing process of disease. A diet including ordinary quantities of milk succeeds at any time in depositing adipose tissue and in creating increased bilious flow. At the very best the milk of the cow is intended only as food for the calf.
When, after the fast, digestive power reasserts itself, the enemata are discontinued daily, but they should be administered without question at least twice weekly in health. That natural movements of the bowels are dependent upon perfect digestion is but slightly qualified by the statement that muscular tone is a necessary condition in the intestinal walls. For the attainment of this state, and for the rebuilding of general muscular quality, a system of judicious exercise is recommended and insisted upon when the fast is broken and thereafter. This, like diet, must be entered upon in gradual manner and is increased and extended in proportion as the body shows progressive capability.
The process involved in breaking the fast demands extreme caution and care. At the end of the period of abstinence and with the return of hunger, weak-willed patients are almost certain to overstep the bounds of supply. In these cases acute symptoms may develop, due to congestion of the entire circulatory system. The brain may suffer to the extent of the production of violent delirium, and all the organs of the body are included in the revolt. When a gradual process of return to normal amount in sustenance is not pursued, all the benefits of the fast are worse than destroyed, and, if will-power be lacking in the patient, its equivalent in supervision must be furnished by the director of treatment. If necessary, personal watch must be established over the convalescing subject.
When organic defects are present in the colon, they may or may not prove seriously shortening to life; but, when, at the end of a fast, feeding is resumed, even a slight displacement of the lower bowel may retard elimination to such degree that absorption of fecal material proceeds so rapidly as to cause severe physical and mental derangement. This is especially so in cases that are not under guidance, in which ignorance of consequence exists, and will-control is absent. Yet, even under competent supervision, oftentimes desire impels the patient to overeat. This tendency must be controlled, for serious and disastrous results wait on premature excessive demand upon the eliminative function. Defective or normal in vital parts, man here learns to live within the limitations of his organs. The several portions of the treatment in comparison show the fast itself is easy of accomplishment. Resumption of feeding calls for greatest care.