FASTING CURES

Evening Star, Issue 14632, 31 July 1911, Page 1

FASTING CURES

The wonders that may be anticipated from fasting, in a curative direction, are again coming into prominence, because of the facile pen, coupled with not too strict accuracy of statement, wielded by Mr Upton Sinclair. His very sensational book, published about two years ago, exposing and exaggerating the methods of Chicago meat packers, had a sale equal to that of a very popular novel. It must have turned many stomachs against eating tinned meats, and to some extent, probably, against meat-eating generally. The vegetarians made use of it to enforce the observance of the, tenets of their creed, and it is not at all unlikely that Mr Upton Sinclair became so obsessed with the horrors of the Chicago shambles that, for health's sake, he would avoid meats, and cultivate literature on pulse. He seems to have been ready, with FaJstaff, to swear : "I'll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.'' The advantage he has derived from this changed dietary is set forth in magazine articles and in his latest book. In this form he tells the world that For the first twenty-five years of my life 1 was a patient and humble follower and victim of the conventional medical school. I bad family physicians one after another. I went to experienced specialists of various sorts. I visited sanatoriums and health resorts. J have figured out that in that period I spent a total of £3.000 on physicians, surgeons, hospitals, and sanatorium* in the effort to find health for myself and family. My wife underwent four surgical operations; my little boy nearly died on half a dozen occasions. And at the end of the experience all three of us were complete physical wrecks, and hopeless neurasthenics. The critic who reviews this confession in the "British .Medical Journal' thinks there 16 no doubt that the Upton family were neurasthenic from the first, but others who know anything of book-writing and journalism in America will easily detect in this self diagnosis the. trail of sensationalism, that takes full'advantage of stronglydrawn contrasts to produce telling effects. Conversions do not count, for much unless the saved have been great sinners. It is highly probable that if Mr Upton Sinclair were- cross-examined in the witness box a.s to the extent,''duration, and , costliness of his personal and domestic ailments, the sum total would be greatly reduced. But if his afflictions have been of Jong duration his salvation-erede Upton—has been complete. He has gained 25 per cent, in weight; his appearance, as presented in the American illustrated papers, is that of a prizefighter ; he no longer suffers from diseases, or even gives a thought to them. Haying benefited by fasting himself, he gets on the housetop and proclaims to the suffering the infallible nature of hi.s remedy, and in a vague way trumpets the multitude, of those who have been completely restored to health by living on short commons. Everybody knows that lists of the sick who were cured by Christian Science treatment were published in the monthly magazine issued under the auspices of that strange delusion.- • It is not less notoriojs tbat when independent medical examination of some hundreds of these alleged cures nes.s of many claims wis exposed. H would necessarily be much the same with the Upton Sinclair cures as with'those of Mrs Kddy. He boasts that his lasting system has cured malaria, arid some dreadful diseases, which; he asserts, can be cured with absolute certainty by fasting for a. week or two. He .adds typhoid fever and chronic, kidney trouble to the list of diseases that can be. banished from the fiycteir. by the same simple process- Having taken so much rope, it would be thought {■■•■ at. .Mr Upton ■Sinclair might be left to hang himself as physician extraordinary to suffering humanity. But Dr William J. Robinson president of the Society of Medical Sociology. Ims taken up the. cudgels on behalf of the medical profession in America, and warns the public against believing in the Sinclair nostrum. Mr Sinclair liars declared thai he h.Ui spent as much time in the investigation of medical question* as if he had taken a complete course in any recognised school, with the result, that he has thrown over what he culls ■'the dead formulas of materia rnedica." To deal effectively witit such pretensions Dr Robinson offers to stake- l.OOCdol if Mr Upton (Sinclair will consent to be infected with certain microbes and will cure himself by fasting for cue or even four week?. If he demonstrates the truth of the* faith that is in hini by getting well the dollars will be his. If he dotii recover under the lasting cure Dr Robinson will publicly declare that medicine it, a fraud and humbug, and that fasting is the cure for all disease.--. l f fasting faik, then its high priest is to mount the cutty stool and declare that his theories aliout disesree are all wrong, and that his strictures on the medical profession are pernicious and unjustifiable. Mr Sinclair has not taken up the gage thrown down, but professes to look upon the challenge as a joke—says he is too busy, and has other ihingfv that take up the w-ho!e of hi.s time. His position with regard to the personal'test can he easily understood. If he has thrown over his belief in all substances used a& remedies in medicine he has doubtless not forgotten the maxim commonly used in medicine—fiat oxper:mentum in corpore vib. He would no doubt rather t-ee a Chicago ineatpackcr msde the subject of experiment than suffer even temporary infection himself. The proper place of dietetics in health ar.d disease is brought all the more prominently under notice just now by the issue of a new edition of Ot Robort Hutchison's authoritative volume dealing fully and sanely with the subject. Overfeeding, improver feeding, and f->od value.-; ire dealt with according t<> principles that have bean proved by long experience, and verified by careful investigation. When the liret edition of this valuable vork w.ts issiivKi a dozen yea is ago the author commented "on the almost total neglect of the subject of dietetics in ordinary medical education," but since then a great change has taken place, in this regard. If a Dunedir: practitioner is consulted to-dey In- a patient who cites out ;n HamleiVi language : O. that this too too solid flesh would inc-h, Thaw, and resolve, itself into a dew ! the up-io-dtrto medico takes from the cover of bis diary a, printed slip containing, not a proscription written in apothecaries' hieroglyphics, but plain dietary directions showing what to eat, drink, and avoid, with perhaps instructions to take a weekly Turkish bath to resolve the solids "into dew " more quickly. Perhaps it may only be fair to food* faddist:-, to giv© them a snare of the credit of bringing about a system of more rational feeding than our forbears knew anything about, just as the- promulgation -of the saving grace of homoeopathy no doubt, set up a revulsion against the a'.opathic drenching and bloodletting of a century ago While acknowledging that there is a 'soul of goodne&s in things evil, and while deprecating the. placing any faith in such ridiculous cureall systems as that championed by Mr Upton Sinclair, it is only right to acknowledge that it was Professor At water and hie colleagues in America who advanced so materially our knowledge of the principle* of dietetics. To dethrone, the god dees Hvgeia and template upon a pedestal

in our Temple of Health an image of Starvation aroountis to sacrilegious absurdity. A visit to lipping Forest when the 5,000 iil-fed children from the London slums were fed by the contributors to the 'Star' fund, and another visit to those London park* wher the well-fed children of richer j>eople disported themselves under the care, of nurses or parent*, would demonstrably prove the benefit* of good living as compared with r<enii-fit>).rv&l-Hm. To visit a. sanatorium for the tuberculous and .see. the patients consuming large quantities of eggs, Mieil, milk, and cream, and to watch how tLey train flesh, stop coughing, and 10 know that the cavities of thoir lungs are closing up, and that tubercle bacilli are being destroyed, is to witness the. splendid results flowing from proper dieting in the midst of suitable environment. To trace, thtvw good retultis, and to know that disease in ;i!i i>.s forms ii> receiving rational treatment nearly all the world ovei. makes reasonable men very impatient of sensational wiseacres, who ly virtue of a, little imperfectly assimilated medical knowledge, proclaim their ability to usher in the hygienic millennium.