-to recommend. A
very domestic woman was Mrs. Meyer. She looked with horror upon
a journey. She said she would remain at home and die.

"But one day last March there gathered at a banquet in the home
of Leonard Thress about a dozen persons, very happy, very
healthy (or believing themselves to be so), all members of the
'starvation cure' cult.

"Each had to tell the story of a long fast that brought a
remarkable cure. Newspapers gave publicity to the dinner of the
little band with the odd faith in fasting. Mrs. Meyer heard of
it. Here was a chance--a gleam of hope! She came to know Leonard
Thress, and, through him, Henry Ritter, the apostle of the fast
cure. He told her of remarkable recoveries. She caught his
enthusiasm.

"But, according to Mr. Meyer, the young man was careful first
that the family physician should consent. He never hinted at
compensation for his services; never got it. Aside from advising
total abstinence from food, he supplied small quantities of
tonicum and salts dissolved in water. These contained no food
matter; they were merely stimulative.

"In two weeks hope was strong with Mrs. Meyer; with all the
family. Certainly, she was improving. She could walk; her arm
that had been stiff and painful moved with ease--hurt no more.
She still suffered occasional twinges, and decided to continue
her self-imposed starvation until every rheumatic germ in her
body was eradicated.

"She regarded herself as almost cured, when, after twenty-five
days, she was attacked with nausea. She was very ill. It lasted
sixteen days. After the first few days of fasting all desire for
food had vanished. But on the thirty-sixth day she was hungry.

"Oatmeal porridge was given her sparingly. The nausea, however,
did not cease. She began to grow alarmingly emaciated. She had
weighed one hundred and fifty pounds. Her weight had fallen to
one hundred.

"The family physician prescribed light food, but her stomach
repulsed it. She grew very weak.

"On April 26 she died. Dr. Chestnut unhesitatingly issued a
death certificate, ascribing her death to heart-failure. He also
suspected a cancer of the stomach, but was not sure.

"Mrs. Herman Reinhardt, a cousin of the deceased woman, is
firmly convinced that fasting had nothing to do with her death.

"'For more tha