It cannot be fairly assumed that, upon dissecting a body after death, lesions that are present in any organ are due solely to previous drugging. Where two such agencies as disease and drugs have been simultaneously acting upon a living organism, it is difficult, in the absence of a standard, to decide whether a specific result is due to one, or to the other, or to both. But it is a significant fact that, in every instance of death occurring during a fast as recorded in the writer's experience, each of the subjects, with but a single exception, had been drugged in early life, and that the effects of this dosage upon vital organs and tissue, as shown in arrested development and in structural change, were precisely such as could and would have been caused by an active poison. Preponderance of evidence gathered from the findings of these autopsies makes for the presence at some period previous to death of some toxic substance, some active noxious agent, that permanently and harmfully affected tissue structure.

The constant use of drugs to suppress the symptoms of disease in the growing child not only lowers physical resistance but it also retards the development of the vital organs, which in some instances suffer permanent deformation. Yet, despite this handicap, the framework of the body eventually reaches normal adult dimension. The disparity presented by organs in whole or in part nearly infantile in size functioning in a body adult in proportion necessarily causes forms of distress that will assuredly end in chronic disease, since the undersized organs are not equal to the demands made upon them. The process that is predominant when a fast is in progress is that of elimination, and it is easy to understand that, in a body in which, for instance, portions of the intestinal tract are under dimension, or in which one or other of the organs of special function is structurally imperfect, the labor of ridding the system of accumulated waste is beyond the ability of the organism perfectly to accomplish. Therefore, to the degree in which organic defects exist is determined the severity of the struggle with disease. In other words, the effort which is being made to cast out from the body gathered impurity becomes proportionately more difficult when organic imperfections are present. In the normally developed adult body chronic disease or drugs may produce like effects, but here vital organs are of full dimension, and results are shown, not in arrested development, but wholly in structural tissue-change.

Whenever, because of organs functionally incapacitated for any reason, the products of food and tissue waste cannot be evacuated through proper channels, general poisoning of the blood stream occurs. The resulting condition is known as auto-intoxication, or toxemia, referred to previously as a state of unbalance when both secretion and excretion are checked and the blood is surcharged with waste to the degree of developing a crisis or acute disease. This state gives rise in the subject to manifestations that may become alarming. The brain may be affected to the extent of mild delirium, hiccoughs persistent in character may occur, or the patient may sink into stupor; and there are other forms which the symptoms may take that will cause distress. In a fast that has been correctly approached toxemia so intense in degree can never arise. But if, as happens when inexperienced direction is given, food is discontinued abruptly, accessories are omitted, and no preparatory period of dieting is observed, symptoms as mentioned are apt to be manifested. Even when all essentials are correctly followed, slight toxemia may be present in cases that are fasting, when these are sufferers from chronic functional disease or from some structural organic defect. But, if the subject has been prepared for the period of abstinence in the manner heretofore described, and, if the hygienic accessories of treatment are consistently employed, symptoms that are distressing are not likely to occur.

The presence of toxins in the body is for the most part attributable to inability of the eliminative organs to perform their work. For some cause or other the latter do not dispose of waste in amount sufficient to balance intake or production. When difficulty is encountered in disposing of the refuse produced progressively during a fast, lack of eliminative power is its causation, and this arises from nerve force impeded through impingement of vertebrae, from structural organic defect, from lesions caused by previous drugging, or from waste production so extreme that even normal organs are unable to cope with it.

The physician who holds the concept that disease and cure are a unity is not at all concerned with the presence or absence of the various toxins, nor by the symptoms in evidence, save as they act as indices of the functioning ability of vital organs. If the latter are in normal structural condition, the products of food in excess of need may interfere with function because of simple congestion, which we have seen is easily relieved. But the vital parts of the human body are in many instances structurally defective through drug dosage or through food stimulation, and these organs may in consequence be brought into action only by the administration of additional drugs or by further stimulus. In these circumstances elimination can take place only abnormally, with in all cases but partial removal of body waste. In treating disease by natural methods the character of the toxin is not considered excepting in so far as it is an indication of the severity of illness, and the thought paramount concerns the condition of the organs involved, with their ability to function, rather than with the nature of the circulating poison.

The toxication or poisoning that results from absorption of certain products of metabolism has been said sometimes to cause delirium in the subject. This phenomenon, because it has infrequently been observed while a fast was in progress, has given rise to the contention that protracted abstinence from food occasions insanity. Nothing can be further from truth, for, when toxic elimination has been successfully accomplished, when the system is fully and physiologically purified, mentality is at maximum; and, on the other hand, cases displaying mental aberration to toxemia caused by overfeeding are speedily brought to sanity when food is denied. In fact, extreme auto-intoxication occurs more frequently when the subject is feeding than when he is fasting, and an overfed system is productive of poisons the effects of which upon mentality are more serious and more lasting than are those of stimulants or narcotics.