Part 7

DEAR SIR,--Your article in a recent magazine very greatly interested me. My sister, on her way home from a five-and-a-half-weeks' visit in Boston and New York, where she had been endeavoring to discover the causes of her frightful headaches, bought that number of the magazine and read your experience, with, as you can well imagine, a deep interest. In Boston she had consulted one of the two physicians supposed to head the profession (as consultants) in that city. This man told her she had Bright's disease and leakage of the heart, and he gave her ten years to live--if she was very careful. As she has five children under twelve years of age, this was a sad outlook. She weighed 122 pounds when she left--and this was the lowest weight since early girlhood--but on her return, weighed on the same scales in the same clothing, she was only 108 pounds. She looked _very_ bad, and her spirits were at zero.

Your article appealed to her, and she would have unhesitatingly tried your remedy, but that she was pregnant, and thought it would probably mean the child's death. The Boston obstetrician, who was consulted, said, if the other doctor's diagnosis was correct, the child would have to be taken at eight months.

After reading your experience, I said to my sister: "You cannot perhaps follow Mr. Sinclair's example, but you can approximate to it. If you go to your own doctor he will undoubtedly send you to some sanatorium where the patients are fairly stuffed. Suppose you come over to my place each noon and take dinner, having eaten only _a very light breakfast_; then rest from two to five, take a long bath when you rise, go for a walk from six to six-thirty, and then to your own home for tea, taking only a shredded wheat biscuit for that meal."

My sister consented, and on Saturday was weighed. On that light diet, and in twelve days, she had gained fourteen pounds. Her color is returning, she does not tire as she did, and we are full of hope that she may recover.

My object in writing was to thank you for your frank recital of ills and aches and their cure, and to get from you the names of the books to which you referred.

Several of my friends have read your articles on my recommendation, and one at least is seriously considering a lengthened fast. Reading the article took me back to the "no-breakfast régime," which I followed for five years, and then, for no especial reason, abandoned. Already I feel much better.

Sincerely and gratefully, M. R. T.

SKOWHEGAN, MAINE, May 30, 1910.

DEAR SIR,--I read your article in the _Cosmopolitan_ with deep interest, and am to-day on my seventh day's fast. My sensations thus far are exactly like yours. I shall fast until hunger returns, if it take a month.

My age is forty-eight, and I have enjoyed the best of health nearly all my life. Even now my digestion is all right, but for five years or so I have been troubled with rheumatism, not the painful, swelling sort, but lame joints.

I tried "Fletcherism," and for the last nine months have done my best to live up to his suggestions, but fell down, exactly as in your own case. I can't tell what to eat, or when I have eaten enough.

Whether this fast of yours does me any permanent good or not, my joints certainly move better to-day than for six months, and I have every confidence in the theory. The physicians here to a man all laugh at me, likewise my friends. I had lost ten pounds in weight at the end of the sixth day; I lost three the first, two each for the next two days, and a pound a day for the next three days.

You speak of an unmistakable appetite. I could eat, of course, now, though I have no appetite, and I am wondering how I shall know when a real appetite returns. Mrs. W. is as keen to try the fasting cure as I, and her condition is very like Mrs. Sinclair's, but I thought one member of the family was enough for the first try-out. Please pardon a total stranger for encroaching upon the time of a busy man, but in the hunt for health, without which life is not worth living, one will do things he would not otherwise think of. For your information I will say that I have attended to my office and business every day since my fast began, walking to my home and back at least three times daily, for the exercise; driving a touring-car nights and Sunday, for pleasure, exactly as though there had been no change in my habits. The strangest part of the experience is that I feel so well, and except for a slight faintness, feel perfectly well to-day. Say--but I was hungry for the first two days!

Yours truly, HERBERT WENTWORTH.

CLYDE PARK, MONT., May 17, 1910.

DEAR SIR,--I was much interested in your article in the _Cosmopolitan_ on "Starving for Health's Sake." For some time before I read it I had been troubled with a coated tongue and a nasty, bitter taste in my mouth. When I read the article my complaint was probably at its worst. I consulted a doctor, who gave me some capsules to clean out my intestinal canal, so he said. I asked him what I could eat and he said, "The less you eat the better." So I ate nothing for a week. Everything connected with my fast for that week was just as you described it--a ravenous hunger on the second day and after that no hunger at all. However, the coated tongue was still there, and when I next saw the doctor I mentioned your article and said you recommended rectal injections. He said he read your article and approved of it, and said after a thorough examination that I had an impaction of the colon. He said he would give me something to work on my colon and also added that if I fasted long enough the impaction would move out of itself. He also recommended injections. On the 25th day, although the coated tongue and nasty taste were still with me, I commenced eating again, as there was so much work to do on the ranch, and I had to do it, as hired help was scarce. I drank nothing but tepid water and very thin lemonade, slightly sweetened, during my fast of twenty-four days. I dropped from 175 pounds to 143 pounds.

It is a week now since I broke my fast and I am rapidly gaining weight. Yesterday I weighed 152 pounds. However, as I said, I still have the coated tongue, although not so bad as formerly, and when I regain more weight, I'm going to begin another fast. I am fifty-three years of age, and have never used tea, coffee, whisky, or tobacco. I want to read up on the subject, so that when I begin again I'll know what to do. Your article was all the literature I had on the subject, and it may have been incomplete in a great many important particulars.

Respectfully yours, ROBERT AITKIN.

CHICAGO, ILL., May 22, 1910.

DEAR SIR,--I think you will be interested to learn the experience of my wife, who tried your fast, with the same results as your wife, over which we are very much delighted.

Allow me to say that it was all done on the quiet, and no one knew of it until it was all over. And then, of course, every one thought she was raving crazy, but she has since shown her friends that it was just the thing to do.

In the first place it appealed to her, and she went into it with _faith_. She fasted for eleven days, after the second day was never hungry at all, and really began to take nourishment before she was hungry.

The whole thing came out exactly as in your cases and was most interesting. She had temperature the first two days and ate crushed ice. After that, hot or cold water as desired. The tongue was coated very badly and her breath very bad. The tongue cleared very slowly and was quite discouraging, but after a few days was clear again. She lost over ten pounds, all of which has been regained and more, too, and she is gaining all the time. Complexion very clear, and the picture of health. Appetite great, eats everything, no aches or pains of any kind, and, best of all, no constipation, which was what she tried the fast for. She lost no strength to speak of and didn't have to take to bed at all; in fact, did everything about the house as usual.

Everything has been fine now for three weeks, and if the troubles return, she is to fast again and do it right, and will take no nourishment until the tongue clears.

She took internal baths nearly every day, and was astonished at the results when nothing but water was being taken. While we don't recommend it for every one, it certainly has been a godsend in this case, and I believe because it was done right and with faith that it was just the thing for her. You certainly have one convert, and if this interests you, shall be pleased to know it.

Yours very sincerely, C. D. F.

KNOXVILLE, TENN., June 5, 1910.

DEAR SIR,--I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to you for a restoration to such health of body and clarity of mind as I have not known since my sixteenth year, when first I entered the high school. That was twenty years ago.

I read your article, "Starving for Health's Sake," in the _Cosmopolitan_, and, as you may recollect, asked you for information as to certain books treating of the fast as a cure for disease.

Instead of answering me fully, you referred my case to the Bernarr Macfadden Institution in Chicago, for which I thank you, but I did not go there because I had neither time nor money for that purpose.

Through a local book-dealer I ordered a copy of "Fasting, Hydrotherapy and Exercise," but after two weeks of waiting it failed to arrive, so with your _Cosmopolitan_ article as my only guide and sum total of knowledge as to the fast, I quit eating on May 13 and did not take anything except water until the morning of May 26. Even then I was not hungry, but as I did not care to remain away from work any longer I broke the fast on the morning of the 26th. I lost thirteen pounds in weight, but was never too weak not to move around. I worked in the office for seven days, and the balance of the time remained at home, basking in the sunshine and reading constantly.

My health and appetite are in such perfect condition I can eat anything without fear of ulterior consequences.

As a result of the fast, I have sloughed off all my impedimenta of disease. Constipation of ten years' standing is gone as if by magic. Piles and resulting pruritis of eight years' tearing torture are nightmares of the past. Bronchitis and eczema of scalp have vanished. Asthma, due to nervous sympathy with the pneumogastric nerve, is no more. Catarrhal deafness, sore throat, intestinal catarrh, and a general neurasthenic condition have left me. Work was never so pleasant. I cannot get enough of physical exercise, it seems; my muscles seem to grow stronger as the exercise proceeds, and my weight is going upward about a pound daily. I am now three pounds heavier than I was before my fast began.

Life was never so beautiful, hope and joy never so green, the future for me and humanity's great movement toward a better day and higher good of existence never seemed so reasonable and possible of every realization as now, in the full possession of physical health and mental strength which have come back to me.

Heretofore my work has been wrought out in pain.

I am through with drugs. I graduated from allopathy long ago, then took up homeopathy and have now discarded it. I have spent over $500 in the last ten years trying to get well on medicines. These professional quacks bled me for a living and knew not how to cure me. Your article was written in the spirit of wishing to help suffering man. It cost me only thirty cents to use your method, viz.: six feet of rubber tubing to make a siphon to take two enemas daily. For that thirty cents I obtained relief a million-fold more beneficial than from $500 worth of medicine. Nay more, from your fasting idea I got rid of $500 worth of poisoning during ten years of medical superstition.

Sincerely yours, H. E. HOOVER.

NORTHWEST SOCIETY ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA

WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, SEATTLE, WASH. Nov. 5, 1910.

EDITOR _Cosmopolitan_ MAGAZINE.

Am enclosing clipping which shows that prominent men up here in the great Northwest are not afraid to try out certain methods of fighting disease merely because they are thought to be "new" or "faddy" (tho' in truth the fast cure is as old as the Old Testament).

The value of Professor Colvin's fast experience seems to be that he has given to the world the best method of breaking the fast and getting on to a solid-food diet. Upton Sinclair said the breaking of the fast is the most important part of it, and would be the most dangerous were it not for the great natural food, milk, which tides you over. But he fails to remember there are thousands with whom milk does not agree, sick or well.

Shortly after interview noted in enclosed clipping from Seattle _Times_, Professor Colvin attempted to begin to break the fast with orange juices and utterly failed. He then tried milk and was made so sick that he had to fast for three more days to get into a condition to break the fast. He then started in with a very light veal broth (not soup, nor tea). He soon got so he could take a cup of it every hour and a half. To get on to solid food he tried a few crackers with the broth, but found too much soda in the crackers and abandoned their use. Finally he hit upon the very thing that fitted the condition of his body, dry whole-wheat bread toasted. This toasted whole-wheat bread he had his cook crush with a rolling pin into a powder and each day mixed more of it with the cup of broth. After this he filled the cup three-fourths full of this toast powder and only poured in as much broth as the dust would absorb, making a solid gruel, which was very appetizing and nourishing (so much so that the professor continues to use it for breakfast food though his fast is closed). Now to this gruel he added mashed baked potato from time to time (more each time) until he virtually supplanted the toast dust. From this he went to baked apple, thence to raw eggs, thence to macaroni, thence to pigeon squab, and thence to solid earth.

It seems to me that his discovery of the broth-toast-gruel method is a great discovery. Especially so for those who live in the cities and cannot be sure as to the absolute purity of their milk. Even when the milk diet can be used it does not afford a solution for getting off of a liquid diet on to a solid food basis.

In your July number appears a letter from Mr. Buel of New York in which he says that it would be almost criminal to permit any one advanced in years to enter upon the dangerous folly of the "fast cure." I am enclosing you a clipping from the _Oregonian_, telling of the fasting experiences of Professor Colvin's friend, Rev. J. E. Fitch. Rev. Fitch is 81 years of age and a year ago took it into his head to out-fast Moses. Holy Writ says that Moses fasted 40 days, and to prove to his congregation that one did not have to be superstitious to believe some of these Old Testament tales, Rev. J. E. Fitch, at the age of 80, fasted fifty days; and instead of losing flesh towards the last part of his fast actually gained in weight. He is as vigorous to-day as he was at 21.

Your Mr. Buel spoke of fasters as cranks and faddists and intimated that your solid citizen would not thus be led astray. Professor Colvin is not a crank but one of our best citizens, being well known both in this country and Europe, and spoken of as the probable president of the Pan-American University to be located in Porto Rico.

Very respectfully, THOS. F. MURPHY.

210 Merriman Ave., ASHEVILLE, N. C., 9/11/10.

MR. UPTON SINCLAIR, ARDEN, DEL.

DEAR SIR,--After fasting for ten days I went off for ten days. Then on for seventeen days, during which time I got rid of a long list of troubles, except a cough, for which I underwent examination by a specialist. I found I had tuberculosis. The entire upper right lobe of my lung and about half of the left upper lung being affected. Now I am up here making a very rapid recovery. I consider that the fasts I took were the best things that could have happened for me, since they eliminated a bunch of troubles that are nearly always present with tuberculosis, such as indigestion, sore throat, rheumatism, etc. All of these left me, and I never felt better in my life than since fasting. I do not believe that such a rapid recovery as I am making could be possible had I not fasted. Fasting did not cure the tuberculosis, but it gave me an excellent stomach, with which to fight it, and tuberculosis will always give way to a good stomach. I did not know I had tuberculosis when I started fasting, but I now know, since learning more about the disease, that I had the trouble in an active state more than nine months before I fasted. My cough got very tame during the fast and very nearly disappeared, but returned as I increased the amount of food I took after breaking the fast, but at no time did it get as bad as it was previous to the fast. I weighed 172 lbs. in May, when I began my fasting and dropped to 148 lbs., and now weigh 180 lbs. and never felt better in my life. Have but a slight spot of the tuberculosis affection left in my right lung.

While I would not recommend others affected with tuberculosis to fast, I would ask that if you have any letters from consumptives who have fasted I would appreciate a copy.

ROLAND A. WILSON.

NEW ZEALAND, Sept. 10, 1910.

DEAR MR. SINCLAIR,--Your article "The Truth about Fasting" in August _Physical Culture_ to hand this week has much interested me. The questions you ask at end of article will, I hope, receive many replies, and give much information regarding the fasting cure. I, personally, can supply a considerable amount of just such information as you require, but the fact that I am a druggist in business precludes the giving of such for publication until drugs and I part company. Let me explain. A little under four years ago I came upon a copy of _Physical Culture_. It interested me and I followed up the reading by subscribing, and obtaining various books--Dewey's, Hazzard's, Carrington's, Desmond's, Eales', Bell's and others. I became quite convinced that about 99 per cent of usual medical treatment was wrong, and, in fact, actually detrimental, and often death-dealing to those who were in search of health. More and more I felt that I was doing a big injustice to those who applied to me for help, and an accessory in bad practice by the dispensing of physician's prescriptions. Yet I know that, like myself, the great bulk of the doctors and chemists were acting innocently and even conscientiously when recommending drugs and practicing the accepted drug and surgical treatments. The belief that drugs cure disease is so deeply rooted in the average human mind, and the teachings in medical and druggists' colleges so universal, and even thorough, that doctors and druggists can hardly be blamed for holding to their mother-loves.

However, I had an open mind, and a desire to hand out a square deal, and decided to make a practical test of the new teachings that had come my way.

I started by carefully selecting my patients--those who I believed had a fair amount of intelligence, and whose ailments had supplied them with a fairly long course of pain, worry and expense. Being a druggist in business, it would have been a very foolish thing for me to have wholly condemned drugs. And that is one reason why I selected chronics for a start--I was able to use the argument that as drugs had had a long and faithful trial, and had proven valueless in curing, a fast of nine or ten days would be, at least, worth a trial. My first case was a lady about thirty-five years of age. Complaint, badly swollen, highly inflamed and ulcerated leg, extending from two inches below knee to one inch above ankle, and more than half way around. She proved a good patient. The leg had been bad with more or less severity for fourteen years, and had been treated by several doctors, druggists, and others. She started on an immediate fast. Within twenty-four hours after fast commenced, the inflammation decreased; by the end of the fourth day it had entirely subsided, and by the end of the eighth day not a vestige of the trouble remained. This fast took place over two years ago--she has held reasonably well to the simple foods I advised, and so far there has been no return of the ailment. Her general health has very considerably improved.

Since then I have treated, perhaps, fifty cases by fasting, and many others by simple dieting. Many complete cures have been effected that ordinary medical methods had entirely failed to benefit. My list comprises many ailments, ranging from one to forty-five years in evidence, while the patients themselves have ranged in age from one year to eighty-five years.

X. ----

HASTINGS, MICH., Sept. 11, 1910.

EDITOR, THE _Cosmopolitan_.

Every reader of your magazine owes you a vote of thanks for the Upton Sinclair article on fasting.

Mr. Sinclair said, "There are three dangers attending the fast." In my case there were four--the danger of being sent to the Insane Asylum.

All my neighbors and relations had the utmost contempt for what they termed "my craziness." But notwithstanding all this, I fasted fourteen days, and stomach trouble, heart trouble, kidney trouble, chronic catarrh, and rheumatism, which for years had made life a burden, are no more. I do not have to tell my friends, at this date, that it was a success, they know it. My family physician has since said that it was probably the best thing I ever did in my life.

I consider myself greatly indebted to you for furnishing me so efficient a remedy, free of cost.

Gratefully yours,

MRS. E. L. RAYMOND.

UPTON SINCLAIR.

DEAR SIR,--Yes, you may use my name in connection with my experience.

As I did not take a complete fast the first time, I began again Sept. 4th, and fasted thirteen days, when natural hunger returned. Had none of the unpleasant experiences of the first fast. Was able to be on my feet and work more than at any time in years.