I was interested enough in the question of fasting to spend some time at a sanatorium where they make a specialty of it. One can see a sicker looking collection of humans in such a place than anywhere else in the world, I fancy. In the first place, people do not take the fasting cure until they are looking desperate; and when they have got into the fast they look more desperate. At the later stages they sometimes take to wheelchairs; and at all times they move with deliberation, and their faces wear serious expressions. They gather in little groups and discuss their symptoms; there is nothing so interesting in the world when you are fasting as to talk symptoms with a lot of people who are doing the same thing. There are some who are several days ahead of you, and who make you ashamed of your doubts; and others who are behind you, and to whom you have to appear as an old campaigner. So you develop an _esprit de corps_, as it were--though that sounds as if I were trying to make a pun. All this may not seem very alluring; but it is far better than a life-time of illness, such as many of these people have known before. I never knew that there was such terrible suffering in the world until I heard some of their stories; they would indeed be depressing company, were it not for the fact that now they are getting well. The reader may answer sarcastically that they _think_ they are. But every Christian Scientist knows that this comes to the same thing; and I have talked with not less than a hundred people who have fasted for three days or more, and out of these there were but two or three who did not report themselves as greatly benefited. So I am accustomed to say that I would rather spend my time in a fasting sanatorium than in an ordinary "swell" hotel. The people in the former are making themselves well and know it; while the people in the latter are making themselves ill, and don't know it. A SYMPOSIUM ON FASTING Recently I published a request that those who had tried the fast as the result of my advocacy would write to advise me of the results. I stated that I desired to hear unfavorable results as well as favorable; that I wanted to get at the facts, and would tabulate the results exactly as they came. The questions asked were as follows: 1. How many times have you fasted? 2. How many days on each occasion? 3. From what complaints did you suffer? 4. Were these complaints ever diagnosed by regular physician? If so, give the names and addresses of these physicians. 5. Do you consider that you were definitely benefited by the fasts? If so, in what way? 6. For how long did the benefit continue? 7. Do you consider that you were completely cured? 8. Do you consider that you were definitely harmed? If so, in what way? 9. Have you ever been examined by any regular physician since the cure? If so, give name and address.