Living on a right and natural diet, a man or woman will correct the effects of wrong living.  This will bring crises, and unless they know that this is Nature’s attempt to rid the body of unwanted and effete matter they may be duped into returning to their high feeding, either by those whom “M.D.” calls diet quacks or by qualified quacks.

 I do not believe it possible for anyone to die for lack of indication
 that they were eating too little.

 The opposite is what people die of.  If we carefully read Dr
 Rabagliati’s article in the same issue we shall rightly ask what would
 be the results of analyses and measurements in such a case.

About a year ago we had a young woman under our care who had suffered with deafness and other troubles for years.  She had tried dietetic treatments, “uric-acid-free” and otherwise, and had at last been told that her deafness was incurable, being due to heredity and deficiency in the organs of hearing.  She was extremely thin when she came to us, but we did not measure her, nor analyse unclean excreta, nor weigh her.

She saw an M.D. who was in sympathy with the philosophy of fasting, and she fasted (taking water only) for 28 days.  She then had four days of fruit juice, and was so disappointed at having broken her fast prematurely that she continued it for another 12 days, making 44 in all—­40 days actual fasting.

 [During this period she was living an almost complete out-door
 life.—­EDS.]

During the fast many interesting phenomena were witnessed, chief among which was the discharge from ears and nose—­significant indeed to all who study Nature’s ways.  Result:  normal hearing restored.  This was nearly twelve months ago; and, having heard of her recently, we find that, though she had had a cold, there has been no recurrence of deafness.  I wonder what assistance measurements would have been in this true cure.  The patient (an adult) weighed 4st. 8 lbs. at the end of her fast and could then walk short distances.

The way in which “M.D.” dismisses “a little gout” in his last paragraph but one almost leads one to think that he is unaware of the failure of the natural defences of the body that must have gone on in a very serious degree before the manifestation of gout became possible.

I respectfully submit this problem to “M.D.":—­If a very thin patient can go without food entirely for 40 days, with only benefit accruing, how many centuries will it take for a fairly fat person to die through slightly under-eating?

As Dr Haddon has said, the proteid myth will die hard, but there are physiologists who, with their faces to the light, are finding the truth of man’s requirements in food and who know that absolute purity and simplicity are the ideals to be sought and that all food we eat more than is absolutely necessary is a diversion of energy to carnal channels.

 ERNEST STARR.