er
revelations thankfully, and beg her to allow us to make our own
philosophic and other explanations in attempting to account for the
existence, sequences and relations of the facts of life.

After his return home, patient continued to gain weight, as might have
been expected. On the seventeenth day after ending the fast he
weighed 140 lbs. and on the nineteenth day 144 lbs. On that day he
received from a hospital a report that the reaction of the
physiologico-pathological test was negative. This has naturally had a
great effect on the patient; and it is worthy of very careful
consideration. Of course one negative result may not be conclusive
although it was positive before the fast. But if the result should be
repeated, and especially if it should prove to be permanent, the
importance of the fact can hardly be exaggerated, since the suggestion
arises in our minds that perhaps we may be able to cure profound
blood-poisoning by fasting, neither the usual treatment nor the use of
Salvarsan enabling the investigator to say that the result of the
pathological reaction was negative; but this has followed after a
heroic fast of 56 days. The result if confirmed would not be unique.
Quite recently I saw a specific ulcer close to the ankle-joint for
which operation had been recommended. It seemed to me that operation
would be likely to open the joint, and that therefore it was a risky
proceeding. But under a restriction of the diet, putting the young man
on barley-water for a few days and then advising him to eat once a day
only, the ulcer became very much smaller, and no operation has had to
be performed. Blood-poisoning of this nature, of course, is not caused
by improper nutrition, but it may readily be believed to be aggravated
by the ordinary conventional over-feeding to which, so far as I can
see, we are all subjecting ourselves, especially as persons who put
themselves in the way of contracting blood-poisoning do not generally
belong to the class of those who are attracted by the suggestion that
it is noble to keep the body under, and that if we do not strive to
keep the body under, it will be very likely to keep us under. Although
we shall be liable to be infected, however we live, still we may
believe that we shall be more likely to be badly infected (if we put
ourselves in the way of contracting disease) if we have been
previously subjected to the bad effects of over-feeding. This
consideration renders a possible cur