During the early portion of the fast there were headaches and vomiting of greenish bile and mucus, and these distressing symptoms were present until the thirtieth day, when the patient was compelled to take to her bed. The stomach had at all times resisted ingestion even of water, and in order to facilitate the discharge of bile and to reduce nausea, natural stomach-lavage was daily performed. This was done by having the patient drink warm water in quantity and then induce vomiting. Enemas and baths were administered in the usual number and manner. Body manipulation, with especial attention directed to the region under the left lower ribs, was carefully carried out, for by this time it had become obvious that the intestinal obstruction was caused by fecal impaction. On the forty-third day of the fast a broken-up mass of hardened fecal matter was passed with the enema. Extreme relief followed, and the fast was at once discontinued with gratifying results, the stomach accepting the broths, and normal digestion taking place. The feces passed were in the form of balls, black in color and extremely hard in character. This accumulation had been the cause of the symptoms described, all of them signs of exaggerated toxemia. Rapid recuperation ensued.

For a year after the experience related the patient followed a strict dietary, and during this time she underwent a total of forty-five days of short periods of fasting. Her diet consisted in the main of raw tomatoes, hot tomato broth, and salads. At present writing, more than three years from the beginning of the first fast, the young woman is in excellent health.

This case may be considered as perhaps the most aggravated instance of toxemia in the entire history of practice recorded herein. Life was saved only because the patient was constantly under observation, day and night, and distressing and dangerous symptoms were dealt with, as they developed, promptly and skilfully. The case also exemplifies the contention of the writer that at no time, even when acute crises occur, are special, fanciful auxiliaries necessary to combat conditions. Enemas, baths, body manipulation--all natural accessories--invariably prove fully equal to the task.

Without citing individual instances, attention is here directed to the ease with which certain symptoms, to which in recent years the surgical branch of medicine has devoted much time and energy, yield to the fast and its accessories. The vermiform appendix in the human body is a slender blind sac, opening from the cecal portion of the large intestine. It is on an average from three to six inches in length, and of a caliber of that of a lead pencil. It is found in man and in some of the lower animals, and in a few of the latter it is large and performs a digestive function. In the human body its use seems to be more of a question of professional argument than one of determination, but it is quite probable that its function is that of stimulating peristalsis either through the secretion of a lubricant or by muscular contraction.

Inflammation of the vermiform appendix constitutes true appendicitis. In the medical world appearance of this symptom demands immediate operation with removal of the offending organ. Observation of numbers of alleged cases of appendicitis leads to the belief that an inflamed appendix is a symptom of disease most rare in occurrence. Because the function of this organ has not been satisfactorily determined by science, and because its absence from the body seemingly creates no lack of harmony among other essential parts of the organism, extirpation has become the rule. And there has been exercised in this connection a great deal of snap judgment in diagnosis. Gas formed in the cecum, gall stones in the gall sac, inflammation of the right ovary and of the bowel in the ileo-cecal region, all have been mistaken for an appendix inflamed, and have occasioned operations unnecessary in the extreme with serious and perhaps fatal results.

In the treatment of any intestinal inflammation, appendicitis included, no assistance is needed other than that which complete rest of the digestive tract and constant use of the enema afford. When no complications exist, the fast causes inflammation to subside, pain to cease, and fever to be reduced, by, at the most, the third day of abstinence, and the sole necessity for continuing the fast is found in seeking best and lasting results.

Fasters' chilliness has been referred to a number of times, and it is as well to say here that body temperature when this sensation is in evidence is always more or less below normal in register. This feeling of chill may be attributed partly to the absence of food stimulation, but it is largely due to permeation of the circulation by bilious products that, in the circumstances, create, not fever, but a nervous reaction that causes muscular and skin contraction with an appreciable drop in body heat and probable lowered heart beat. It is to be recognized that so-called normal pulse and normal temperature terms that are relative, and that the limits placed upon them as standard vary in different persons, as do physical peculiarities. In some of the cases described and in others not mentioned, temperature and pulse remained below register during a portion of the fasting period, but as systemic cleansing progressed, average individual normal was gradually restored. When fasters' chilliness occurs, the hot therapeutic bath must frequently be resorted to in order that muscular relaxation may occur, thus permitting the temporarily inhibited eliminative function of the skin to be restored.

Organic rest and systemic purification, resulting from the employment of the fast and its auxiliary eliminative agencies, form the basis of the method outlined in the text. The fast, than which no greater eliminative agent is known, is the fundamental of treatment, but additional natural therapeutic means that may in any manner assist in attaining results are never to be ignored, and these material auxiliaries are in most senses foreign to the domain of medicine. Manipulation of the body, specific and general, intelligently applied, proves of greatest worth during a fast and thereafter. Adjustment of the spinal column has its own especial place as a valuable accessory of treatment. And each of these therapeutic measures, with others that have been described, while not to be thought of as a panacea, is yet to be considered as an important adjunct in the natural treatment of disease.