A young man of twenty-three offers a case of the insanity of syphilis of the type known in medicine as meningitis. In this subject the blood taint was acquired by contact, and, when observed and first under treatment the case was in what is known as the secondary stage of infection. The state of the patient was such that he had but little control over his faculties, both mental and physical. He would answer questions in a slow, drawling, sleepy manner with but small evidence of sanity in his replies unless shocked in some way. He was shameless in response to the calls of nature and showed abnormal erotic tendencies. Weight when treatment began was 150 pounds. After low diet and an absolute fast of twenty-eight days, the time of dieting and of the fast occupying three months, weight was reduced to 110 pounds. From the inception of the fast improvement was continuous, and this applies both to the physical symptoms of the disease and to the mental state of the subject. At the completion of total abstinence there was no evidence of insanity, and at present writing, ten full years from the treatment of the case, no signs of blood taint are in any manner apparent.

A young man, nineteen years old, who had been led into habits of body and of thought detrimental to normal development, became, as a result, a victim of the symptom of disease known as epilepsy. For five years he had suffered from the convulsions characteristic of the malady, recurrent at intervals of from one to two weeks. Medicine had exhausted its resources in this case, which was but another of the "last resort" kind, yet after a short while, the patient and his family were responsive to the results of treatment and thereafter were enthusiastic in carrying out its details. For five months a regimen of restricted diet and of fasting was pursued. The time of total abstinence from food intermittently included in this period was sixty days. All general unfavorable symptoms gradually subsided, and the recurrence of the epileptic seizures became reduced in number to such degree that, at the end of the second short fast, four weeks had intervened between attacks; and, when feeding was permanently resumed, no further seizures were apprehended, nor did they occur. Before disease was fully eradicated the weight of the patient was reduced from 140 pounds to 105 pounds. Increase after the fast took place and at the end of the rebuilding period the young man weighed 148 pounds.

A woman, thirty-six years of age, at the end of the third month of pregnancy developed severe symptoms of cholemia, a condition of the liver in which its functions of conversion and elimination are arrested. Vomiting of dark green bilious fluid took place, and the patient was in a state verging upon coma. Immediate action was demanded, and food was at once omitted, while copious enemas were administered twice daily for the time being. The latter brought away dark and foul discharges which continued with no apparent improvement until the seventeenth day of abstinence. On the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth days the patient lay in a semi-conscious state, but she revived on the morning of the eighteenth day, when there was a decidedly favorable change in the character of the bowel passages. Rapid return to consciousness occurred, and increased strength with no unfavorable symptoms marked all succeeding days until the twenty-second, when the fast was broken with fruit juices, and thereafter convalescence proceeded without interruption.

The loss in weight in this case was 22 pounds. Temperature and pulse were continually above individual normal until the latter part of the fast, the former ranging between 99 and 102, and the latter from 80 to 110, although a decided drop in both was always observed after the administration of an enema. No return of nausea occurred after breaking the fast, and thereafter the general health of the patient was excellent. At term an eight-pound child was easily delivered, perfect in development and vigorous in health.

On the fifteenth day of this fast, while the patient was lying in partial coma, as described above, a consultation was held with a former medical associate. The latter advocated, as the only means of saving the life of the mother, the immediate abortion of the fetus, and the abandonment of the fast. His opinion was, however, overruled, and the result of the case justified the stand then taken, for as the attending physician at confinement, five months later, he freely expressed his surprise at the state of health of the mother, the ease with which delivery was had, and the remarkable vitality of the infant, and he acknowledged his error in judgment with a complete reversal of his condemnation of the treatment the patient had undergone.

A case analogous to the one just cited is that of a woman of twenty-seven, wife of a physician.

She was between three and four months pregnant, and was suffering severe pain in the region of the uterus and in that of the stomach. The uterus was discovered to be displaced, and by manipulation and the use of tampons it was put into normal position. Nausea with vomiting was constantly distressing the patient when the case was presented, and an immediate absolute fast was decided upon. However, it was thought best that a preparatory period be observed, and for twelve days the patient subsisted upon liquid diet, after which the fast was begun and continued for thirty days. No unusual symptoms arose during this time, and constant general and specific improvement was noted from the beginning. Nausea decreased with progress and vanished about the twentieth day with no recurrence thereafter. Pulse and temperature were slightly below normal until after eating had been resumed. Preparation for the fast was made upon strained vegetable broths and it was broken upon the same dietary. Solid food was resumed twelve days after the completion of abstinence. At term the patient was delivered of a babe weighing seven pounds, as physically perfect and as healthy a specimen as that described in the previous case. The loss of weight in this instance was an even thirty pounds.