pain. No food would be desired or digested; so the fast would go on
until there would be a natural hunger, which would only manifest itself
when there would be marked relief from pain. The meals, thence on, would
be so far apart that all would be keenly relished; and there could be no
loss of weight when meals would be so taken.

It is not surprising when I say that a seared stomach and a brain
converted into a whiskey pickle had no part in the digestion of milk:
else why did the weight of one hundred and sixty pounds at the time of
the accident fall to eighty-five at the time of hunger? And all this
drugging and alcoholics for a man who was not really sick! and the bill
of fare that was not changed during one hundred and sixty days! and the
time lost, and the expense entailed, and the anxious, aching hearts that
were nearest the bed of horrors--of horrors, torments clearly invited.

By way of contrast the following case is given. During vacation a lad of
twelve years of one of my families took to his bed with appendicitis in
severe form. A learned physician was called, and there were many days of
morphine, with other medication and all the food that could be coaxed
into an unwilling stomach. Enough morphine was given daily to paralyze
digestive energy for at least two or three days in one in ordinary
health. There was a month of this war against Nature, when the violence
of the acute attack subsided and a partial victory was gained against
great odds.

On my return I found him under heavy dosage for the recovery of strength
and lost appetite. Colorless, anaemic, languid--he was barely able to
walk. He was immediately put under my care, and therefore under a fast
that ended in a few days in such hunger as had not been felt in several
months; and color, cheer, energy, weight evolved in a month. But there
was also a developing abscess deep in the groin, and the time came when
a grave operation was necessary to save life. He was made ready for the
surgeon's knife that cut its way down, down many inches to relieve walls
ready to burst from the tension. The wound remained in the care of the
surgeon, but the life in my care. Who deny that the anaesthetic, the
shock of the operation, and the subsequent pain will not abolish all
power to digest as well as all the desire for food? Here was a patient
waiting for Nature to rally, which she did on the third day in a call
for food; and thence on one daily meal was keenly relished