When an animal becomes seriously ill, it wants to fast, and does so
unless man interferes. Here we could with advantage do as the animals
do. Nature made no mistake when she took hunger away in acute diseases,
and if we disregard her desires, we invariably suffer for it.
We should make it a rule to take no food, either liquid or solid, during
acute disease.
Those who have had no opportunity to watch the rapidity with which
people recover from serious illness may take the ground that sick people
would starve to death if they were to be treated thus, for some of these
acute diseases last a long time. Typhoid fever, for instance,
occasionally lasts two or three months. It never lasts that long when
treated by natural means, and it is very mild, as a rule. The fever will
be gone in from seven to fourteen days in the vast majority of cases,
and then feeding can be resumed.
Chronic disease is often due to neglected acute disease, at other times
to the building of abnormality through errors of life which have not
resulted in acute troubles. While acquiring chronic disease, the
individual may be fairly comfortable, but he is never up to par.
Pages:
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169