Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Science
Maintaining Health (Formerly Health and Efficiency)
Alsaker, Rasmus Larssen
Diet; Hygiene
If the fast is to be of permanent benefit it is necessary to learn how
to eat properly afterwards, and to put this knowledge into practice.
This is the most important part to emphasize, yet all the books I have
read on the subject have failed to pay any attention to it. In nearly
every case the fast is necessary because of repeated mistakes in eating
and drinking. Those mistakes built bodily ills in the first place and if
the faster goes back to them they will do it again. The disease does not
always take on the same type as it did in the first place, but it is the
same old disease. During a fast there is recuperation because the body
has a chance to become clean, and a clean body can not long remain
unbalanced, provided there are no organic faults. By making mistakes in
eating after the fast is over, the body again becomes foul and full of
debris and that means more disease. Perhaps it may not require more than
one-third as much abuse to cause a second break-down as it did to bring
about the first one.
Some people fast repeatedly, and are somewhat proud of it. They should
be ashamed of the fact that they must fast time after time, for it shows
either ignorance or a weak, undeveloped will power. The fast should
teach every intelligent being that it is an emergency measure, and
emergencies are but seldom encountered in a well regulated life.
Food debauches following fasts should be avoided. A little will power
properly applied will prevent them. Gross eating may compel another
fast. We must eat and it is better to eat so that we can take sustenance
regularly than to be compelled to go without food at various intervals.
He who is moderate in his eating, uses a fair degree of intelligence in
the selection of his food, is temperate in other ways and considerate
and kind in his dealings with others will not be ill.
A fast is efficacious in clearing up a brain that is unable to work well
because it is bathed in unclean blood. It is remarkable how well the
brain works when the stomach is not overworked. Overfeeding the body
causes underfeeding of the brain. On a correct diet the brain is
efficient and clear and able to bear sustained burdens.
There is no question but that a fast, followed by a light diet,
containing less of the heavily starchy and proteid foods and more of the
succulent vegetables and fresh fruits, with their cleansing juices and
health-imparting salts, would result in the recovery of over one-half of
the insane. Most of them are suffering functionally and here the outlook
is very hopeful. Christ cured a lunatic "by prayer and fasting." Proper
feeding would work wonders in prisons. It would also be very beneficial
for wayward girls and young men who are passion's slaves. St. Peter
recommended fasting as an aid to morality, which is another evidence of
the profundity of his wisdom.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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