They can smell the foul breath and the disagreeable odor from the skin
and from the bowel discharges. These they interpret as signs of physical
deterioration and degeneration. These manifestations indicate that the
entire body is cleansing itself, throwing out impurities that have
accumulated, because the system has had so much work to do that it has
lacked the power to be self-cleansing. Nothing is needed to prove this
fact except to continue the fast until the odors disappear and the
tongue becomes clean.
The bad odors given off by the body resemble the odors in severe fevers
with much wasting, and hence they alarm those who have had little or no
experience with protracted fasts. These odors are often bad at the end
of about one week of fasting, though there is no fixed period for their
appearance. They should cause no alarm for they simply indicate that the
body is cleansing itself, and that is exactly what is desired. Under
proper conditions I have neither seen nor heard of a fatality coming
from a short fast. Those who are in such physical shape that they will
die if fasted from five to ten days would die if they were fed.
Another symptom that may alarm the attendant is the lowered blood
pressure.
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