And all that is here said is in perfect consonance with the thesis of the text. For, reverting to infection, to the theory of the germ-causation of disease, it is seen that, while the process of purification that is implied by disease is essentially necessary, it is dangerous as well. While it is true that the system must be relieved of its burden of obstructing and noxious material, it is also true that the introduction of infective bacilli into a body which is carrying a large amount of waste will have substantially the same effect that a spark would have upon a heap of dry shavings in a closet--the destruction of the shavings and very probably of the house. That is to say, the fire started in the body by infective organisms, benevolent in its purpose though it be, may prove destructive to tissue and to life itself. And this, not because the organisms are themselves necessarily harmful to vitality, but because the accumulation of decomposition to be removed is so great, and the tissues in which it is located are so devitalized because of interference with their nutrition, that these structures cannot offer sufficient resistance to the destroying mob, and they therefore become involved in the disintegrating process. In other words, the body becomes the victim of the agencies actually intended for its preservation.

Before science became obsessed with the germ theory, nature conducted her own inoculating clinic, and the fight for life was then a more or less evenly balanced struggle. Since the introduction of artificial inoculation, vaccines and serums now aid in adding fuel to the flame, and in further overcoming natural resistance to disease.

We have referred many times herein to the appearance during a fast of mucus in the discharges from the body. This phenomenon is in some cases continuous throughout abstinence, although individual characteristics and conditions modify the exudation in higher or lower degree. While all of the mucosa is invariably involved in this catarrhal demonstration, the walls of the intestinal canal receive the maximum deposit, not only because of the extent of mucus membrane included in their length, but because the intestines, the colon in particular, form the main eliminative outlet of the organism.

Morgulis in his Fasting and Undernutrition comments on page 212 upon the very evident rapid diminution in the number of white corpuscles of the blood during the successive stages of a fast. On page 214 he says:--"The thing of particular significance with regard to the leueopenia (diminution of white corpuscles) of inanition is that while the blood is losing its white cells, the mucus membranes of the intestinal canal and the underlying tissues become infested with leucocytes. They occur either singly or in masses. According to Mingazzini, in the absence of food, leukocytes not merely accumulate in the intestinal wall but actually penetrate the mucous membrane and aggregate in the lumen where they ultimately disintegrate." And he concludes that the phenomenon of this "emigration" of leucoeytes is to be viewed in the light of an increased permeability of the cell membrane to bacteria under the influence of inanition.

It is to be noted that all of the observations made by Morgulis and by those investigators whom he quotes as authorities upon inanition subjected to their experiments only animals in the normal state of function--animals and human beings in health. It is manifest that, while these observations possess interest and value in respect of the physiological and chemical changes that occur in inanition forced upon an organism that is presumably fully carrying out the transformations characteristic of normal life, their worth is doubtful when one attempts to apply the conclusions reached to the results obtained when the fast is employed as a therapeutic measure, when abstinence from food is undertaken in the presence of disease.

However, upon one point agreement may be conceded: the elimination of mucus, of pathogen, of so-called white corpuscles of the blood, is a characteristic result of abstinence from food either in health or in disease. We have stated that in disease the effort of nature is to relieve the living organism of all non-usable organic matter that finds its way into the blood, and we have here a most vivid illustration of the method which she pursues--a method in action in health to preserve the resistive qualities of the organism; in action in disease to restore the organism to the resistive condition it possesses in health.

And the result: at the completion of a scientifically conducted fast, mucus ceases to be deposited upon the walls of the intestines and other membranous surfaces, while white corpuscles have virtually disappeared from the blood stream.

Morgulis still further assists our argument by stating on page 193: "A subject still very imperfectly known, but one which merits a most careful investigation, is the increase in resistance to infection revealed by organisms which are recovering from inanition. Roger and Josué report such an increased tolerance towards bacilli cold in rabbits which had undergone a preliminary fast of five to seven days. The inoculation with the bacterial culture took place three to eleven days after the fast was broken. In each case the control rabbits succumbed to the infection, while all the rabbits which had previously fasted survived the inoculation. These experiments, however, need verification." This verification we shall proceed to give.

While the author was in practice in New Zealand, the world-wide epidemic of influenza of 1918 occurred. Despite its reputation for model legislation, New Zealand is not to be lauded as a mass observer of the laws of hygiene, either from the general sanitary viewpoint or from a dietetic standard. In fact, in these two respects the Dominion is remarkably lax. In consequence the influenza took mortal toll of the inhabitants of the islands, perhaps in greater proportion than occurred in any other part of the then infected world.

In corroboration of the truth contained in the substance of the paragraph just quoted from Fasting and Undernutrition, not one of the patients who underwent or was undergoing a fast under direction of the author, irrespective of a condition of either partial or complete recovery from disease of whatever symptomatic form, was attacked by influenza. And none among the members of the families of her clientele, past and present at the time, all of whom in their fear of infection were impelled to apply at least the less drastic elements of treatment as embodied in a light dietary, daily enemata, and cleansing baths, and all of whom were daily in contact with infected subjects, fell victim to the epidemic catarrh.