Daily baths and enemata, mechanical accessories for the maintenance of cleanliness and aids to elimination, mark the commencement of the treatment ; and these accompaniments, with the omission of the morning meal, mark the first stage of approach to the period of total abstinence from food. Omitting breakfast and lessening quantity at the other meals paves the way; and, in the ordinary case of functional disease, the gradual diminution of food supply should occupy an interim of not more than ten days or two weeks, after which the other meals should in succession be dropped. Thus the system is prepared without any noticeable change, save that of relief, for entire deprivation of food, for the absolute cessation of the function of digestion.
In the event that the omission of the morning meal occasions undue distress, as sometimes happens, ripe fruit in small quantity may be eaten at the usual hour. Caution requires that sweet fruit and acid fruit be not mixed at any one time. Soups made of vegetables gradually becoming lighter in food value should constitute the remaining meals, which are successively dropped until all food is denied. It is well to use the juices of fruit
