he shows that in illness, when we are
using up the materials accumulated in our bodies, we may use as much as
99 per cent. of our fat (practically all of it), that of muscle we may
use as much as 30 per cent., that the spleen may waste to the extent of
63 per cent., the liver as much as 56 per cent., and the blood itself be
absorbed to the extent of 17 per cent. of its total amount. But even
when wasting to this extent has occurred the curious and significant
fact is emphasized that the _brain and nerve-centres may not have wasted
at all_. The controlling nervous system thus does not lose its powers
till the very last. Generally, however, the wasting process does not
require to be carried to the very last, the chronic inflammatory deposit
(and in rare cases even a cancerous infiltration) being absorbed and got
rid of before this point is reached.

"As most, if not all, of the chronic diseases depend upon the deposition
of waste, unassimilated materials in various situations; or, in other
words, depend upon a blocking of the local circulation in this way, a
little wholesome starvation is generally of vast benefit by inducing
the economy to use up some of its waste stuff. Nature herself points the
way to us in this matter, because when things have gone as far as she
can bear, and when, were things to go on in the same way, death must
ensue, she generally throws the patient into bed with a digestive system
entirely disorganized, taking away all appetite for food and all power
of assimilation for the time being. We may, in such circumstances, do
much harm by efforts too persistently made to feed our patients; but
generally they refuse all sustenance for some time. After a while (Dr.
Dewey does not seem to be afraid if his patients refuse all food even
for as long on some occasions as thirty days continuously, or even
longer) they right themselves, the tongue cleans, appetite returns, the
power of assimilation is reestablished, and recovery takes place. It
strikes me as somewhat curious (and yet, if we both look at the facts of
life candidly and impartially, perhaps it is not curious) that observers
so wide apart, and in circumstances so very different as the conditions
of human life must be in Yorkshire from what they are in Pennsylvania,
should come to conclusions so practically similar as Dr. Dewey and the
writer have reached."

Gentlemen, masters in the medical profession, to what good end are you
pumping food into huma