Part 2

AND

ALEXANDER HAIG, M.A., M.D., OXON., F.R.C.P., LONDON, ENGLAND,

WHO HAVE COMMENDED THE WRITINGS OF THE AUTHOR IN THEIR OWN PUBLISHED WORKS,

THIS BOOK IS

GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.

PREFACE.

This volume is a history, or a story, of an evolution in the professional care of the sick. It begins in inexperience and in a haze of medical superstition, and ends with a faith that Nature is the all in all in the cure of disease. The hygiene unfolded is both original and revolutionary: its practicality is of the largest, and its physiology beyond any possible question. The reader is assured in advance that every line of this volume has been written with conviction at white heat, that enforced food in sickness and the drug that corrodes are professional barbarisms unworthy of the times in which we live.

E. H. DEWEY.

MEADVILLE, PA., U. S. A., November, 1900.

CONTENTS.

THE NO-BREAKFAST PLAN.

PAGE

Introduction--Army experiences in the Civil War--Early years in general practice--Difficulties encountered--Medicinal treatment found wanting as a means to superior professional success 13

II.

A case of typhoid fever that revolutionized the Author's faith and practice--A cure without drugs, without food--Resulting studies of Nature in disease--Illustrative cases--A crucial experience in a case of diphtheria in the Author's family 26

III.

A study of the brain from a new point of view--Some new physiology evolved illustrated by severe cases of acute disease 34

IV.

The error of enforced food in cases of severe injuries and diseases illustrated by several striking examples 42

An apostrophe to physicians 56

VI.

The origin of the No-breakfast Plan--Personal experience of the Author as a dyspeptic--His first experience without a breakfast--Physiological questions considered--A new theory of the origin and development of disease and its cure--The spread of the No-breakfast Plan--Interesting cases 60

VII.

Digestive conditions--Taste relish--Hunger relish--The moral science involved in digestion as a new study--Cheer as a digestive power--Its contagiousness--The need of higher life in the home as a matter of better health--Cheer as a duty 81

VIII.

The No-breakfast Plan among farmers and other laborers--A series of voluntary letters to an eminent divine, and the writer put down as a crank--The origin of the Author's first book--How the eminent Rev. Dr. George N. Pentecost was secured to write the introduction--His no-breakfast experience--The publisher converts a prominent editor--The case of Rev. W. E. Rambo, a returned missionary--The publishers' missionary work among missionaries-- The utility of the morning fast--Its unquestionable physiology-- Why the hardest labor is more easily performed and for more hours without a breakfast 85

IX.

The utility of slow eating and thorough mastication unusually illustrated by Mr. Horace Fletcher, the author--What should we eat?--The use of fruit from a physiological standpoint 105