Inherent or congenital organic disease and functionally caused organic disease in its later stages embody defects in form, size, or cell structure of any one of the vital organs. Except in rare instances through surgical intervention, such structural deficiencies are beyond the hope of repair, but a carefully selected dietary combined with judicious application of the fast and its accessories will afford relief and prolong existence.

In disease that is purely functional in cause the vital organs are normally developed and are physically perfect in structure, but are obstructed in action by food-excess and its toxic products. Functionally caused disease is a condition that always admits of full recovery, and cure is a certainty when natural law is permitted its course.

Any symptom of disease is evidence of poison circulating in the blood. The conventional method of treatment invariably aims at the suppression of the symptom rather than at the removal of its cause. On the other hand, the natural manner of handling the situation recognizes disease as health perverted, and far from attempting to suppress its symptoms it aims at still further uncovering the condition by assisting the action of the very evident eliminative process in operation. And oftentimes this assistance of the eliminative function results in an aggravation of symptoms, in an apparent increase in the severity of disease. This is a purely logical and salutary consequence of natural curative phenomena. Disease in itself being but a process of the elimination of toxins from the system, nature, given free rein, thus expresses herself in determined effort towards the restoration of health, the normal state of physical existence

Hunger and disease cannot exist simultaneously in the animal body. This is a truth that cannot be too strongly emphasized. When hunger is absent because of disease, food is required neither for cell rebuilding nor for strength, and all animate creation, save man, obeys the primal law of abstinence when the physical scale no longer balances. Knowing that disease arises from a single source, natural therapeutics knows as well but a single means of relief--rest for organs overworked, and prompt removal by natural aids of substances deleterious to health.

To revert to the symptoms of disease--the function of digestion is generally regarded as an extensive and complicated process, and it is so closely related to the functions of other parts of the body that it is difficult to describe the bounds, if any, beyond which digestion has no influence. The digestive apparatus is commonly spoken of as including the alimentary canal and those important glands that contribute secretions to the successive processes involved; but, as absorption and assimilation, on the one hand, and formation and withdrawal of waste products, on the other, are so nearly related to preliminary digestion, it is impossible to form a clear conception of disease of the digestive organs, for instance, without observing the state of other and contributory parts of the body. While it makes for simplicity of description to exclude those organs not commonly grouped with the digestive apparatus, this does not result in a correct understanding, and therefore, if an explanation is to be found, not only for a disturbed physiological state, but also, in instances, for structural changes in the digestive organs, the field must be widened, and study be directed to the nervous system, including its physical manifestations, to the fluids of the body, to the rebuilding and breaking-down of tissue, and to the eliminative functions as well. Unconsciously a great part of the importance of this general view is perhaps recognized when it is assumed that good digestion depends upon restful sleep, fresh air, sunlight, physical exercise, and activity of the bowels, kidneys, and skin. But, disregarding these essential matters, it is difficult to apprehend the nature of digestive disturbances, or to prescribe for their relief. It may truly be said of an individual that, in a sense, his digestive ailment arises in the brain, in the lungs, in the heart, or in the kidneys, but the distinctions and differences stated must be clearly kept in mind lest the idea of the unity of disease and cure be clouded. It must be fully understood that the study of disease of the stomach is not limited to that organ, that the symptom expressed is merely that of disturbances that may be widely distributed throughout the body. Medicine has sought to give disease names that are specifically classified, names based upon the locality of expression of the symptom; but this, it is seen, is only a relatively justifiable conception. There are no symptoms referable solely to the kidneys, to the heart, to the blood; the man is sick from a single cause; his illness appears here or there, but his body is sick as a whole.

It is surprising to discover that the disturbances of the functions of the human body should not long since have been traced to their single source. Long ago should pain and other distressing symptoms of illness have been recognized as benevolent warnings, sharp reminders of a condition, not perhaps yet fully developed, but as warnings that in themselves should compel the repose that is necessary, and that should forbid admission into the body of substances that are injurious.

The doctrine of unity in the cause and cure of disease as set forth in the text of this work has been carefully and earnestly investigated by the author through a period of more than thirty years. Thousands of cases have been treated upon this basis, and each instance has but confirmed the conviction that the principle involved is absolutely sound. It has stood all tests. When death during a fast has occurred, the autopsy invariably revealed organic deficiency, inherent or acquired through years of continuous functional abuse. But in all cases of disease purely functional in cause, proper application of the method led to complete recovery.

So far as may be accomplished in a work of this size, the fast as a therapeutic agency, with its effects both upon the body and mind, is fully discussed. What is asked of the reader is that he lay aside prejudice and approach the subject without bias, keeping before the eyes of his mind the words of the apostle:--"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good."