Fasting for the cure of disease/Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII
MENTAL AND BODILY REACTION
"Whosoever is out of patience, is out of possession of his body and his soul."
Lord Bacon.
CHAPTER XIII
MENTAL AND BODILY REACTION
BODILY action may be brought about in two ways through the brain, or through internal or external physical causes. In either case the nerve centers perform their functions, either in the inception of the thought or in the transfer of outward or inward cause. The act of moving the hand may originate in the brain, or it may occur through the fact that the member is in close proximity to fire. In the former circumstance the act begins with the thought in the brain, and nervous influence operates directly upon moving muscles. In the second condition the sensory nerves inform the brain that the flesh is burning, and the brain sets in motion the muscles necessary to move the hand. In both instances the moving power emanates from the brain, and the phenomenon as described may happen in connection with any specific portion of the body. Not only are these facts true of the voluntary muscles, but they may also be observed in similar phase in heart, lungs, stomach, and the organs of function in general. Swallowing an emetic causes vomiting, an effect brought about through muscular convulsion of the stomach for the purpose of ejecting a substance irritating to its nerves. The mere sight or thought of a disgusting object may have the same consequence, and imagination is oftentimes able to produce results like that occasioned by a powerful drug or by a combination of physical conditions.
Every organic act, healthy or diseased, is due solely to a current sent from one of the great nerve centers, and the latter may be called into being either indirectly by reflex action, or directly by feeling or thought. Though the mind and the emotions have large influence over physical functions, the field of operation over which that influence extends is comparatively little known. It is, in some respects, almost unbounded, for every bodily function may be hastened, retarded, or even totally suspended, and life itself may be destroyed by the subjective effect of thought. Pleasurable emotions are physically healthful ; painful ones the reverse ; but, when too intense and sudden, either can terminate life.
The fibres of the pneumogastric nerve are distributed principally in and about the lungs and the stomach; hence its name. Whatever may be the motor functions that this nerve supplies, it largely influences the progress of digestion, for, when its fibres are cut below those branches that extend to the trachea, digestion is virtually arrested. Nervous influence is essential to the proper action of the stomach, and, in the region of this organ, the nerves are so interlaced one with the other that, even though the direct road be destroyed, by-paths will still remain for the passage of nerve energy. If the latter were not needed in digestion, no reason would exist for the suspension of function by its withdrawal, and the invariable effect of worry, anxiety, fright, and anger is to arrest for a time all digestive action. The cause is obvious when the close connection between the brain and the nerve ganglia is considered. If nervous force is diverted in directions other than those followed in the digestion of food, exactly similar results occur as when the pneumogastric nerve is severed.
Does the physical condition of the body in like manner affect the mind? Observation shows not only that it does influence brain function, but that the results of disease are always and continuously displayed mentally. In many of the ordinary hypochondriacal disturbances, in melancholia, and in the various manias, other forms of treatment should be accompanied by correction of deranged digestive function.
In health the constructive and destructive changes that take place in the human body progress without noticeable diminution or increase in excellence of brain quality, so long as waste material is promptly removed and suitable food is supplied and properly assimilated.
In conditions of debility and weakness, whenever the influx is too large for the demand, or the waste too great for disposal by the organs of elimination, absorption of the poisons generated in fermenting food rubbish retained in the intestinal tract is continuously occurring, and the subject becomes a victim of auto-intoxication, is drunk with the products of his own decomposition. This condition, if long continued, is no less baneful in effect than that of alcoholic saturation, and, in some cases, it may take the form of insanity, while, in all, diminished brain power is evident.
The digestion of a meal, with the subsequent forcing of food waste through the bowels, consumes brain energy in greater amount than does any ordinary work of muscle or of mind, and the result is apparent in weakened vitality, which overfeeding never fails to show. Sufficient food, perfectly digested, produces a body with brain equal to clear thought and maximum of energy. More than this entails excessive labor upon the organs of digestion and consequent overtax of vitality.
The cause of mental disease is one and the same with that of physical disturbance. The physical signs precede the mental danger signals and should be heeded and remedied when first displayed.
The close connection between mental and physical functions is always prominently exhibited in the consequences of the fast, and never more so than in the treatment of those morbid depressions that often lead to confinement in state institutions. These cases originate in the abuse of the digestive organs, which, coupled with hereditary tendencies, affects the nerve centers and ultimately the brain. During the fast constant improvement in mental capacity is shown after proper preparation on restricted diet and omitted meals; and, as the fast progresses, the return to sanity proceeds at a rate commensurate with physical advance. A general fact observed in treating this symptom of disease, when functional in origin, is the presence of quantities of dark, foul-smelling discharges from the bowels, which do not decrease, either in amount or in vileness, until long after the period indicated in ordinary disease. The value of the fast as employed in cases of extreme nervousness and of insanity from functional causes, is almost unknown to alienists, but in the near future it is bound to receive recognition as a certain means of cure.
Due to superficial observation of the delirium of auto-intoxication sometimes present in the early stages of the fast, the criticism has been advanced that prolonged abstinence from food not only produces weakened mentality in the patient, but that it will eventually cause insanity. Fasting never entails a loss of mental power, and this statement is based upon experience gathered from considerably over two thousand cases of fasting in which not one developed aught but improvement in brain function.
All functional derangements, when not corrected, finally lead to organic disease.
In organic disease some portion of the bodily machinery is unable to perform its work; its structure is injured or essentially imperfect.
In functional disease, the structure of the organ shows no defect, yet it is inefficient in action because of nerve force impeded.
It is an established fact that drugs do not affect brain structure; and it is equally well known that, in most instances, insanity causes no deterioration in nerve tissue. In these facts lies strong collateral proof that the sources of mental disease are to be sought elsewhere than in the brain. Injuries and ailments that involve change in brain substance will necessarily interfere with brain function, and, in softening of nerve tissue or in any inflammation, there are organic alterations that may be seen and noted. Incidentally these defects are primarily due to continued functional disease. But in hysteria, epilepsy, and mania, no changes in structure in brain and nerve substance can be discovered, notwithstanding the presence of extreme mental disorder. It may be deduced that a functionally perfect brain is the product of a physically perfect body.
To illustrate the effect of abnormal physical conditions upon mind-function, the following case is cited: The patient, a man thirty years of age, presented himself with a history of continuous digestive trouble, accompanied with strongly developed mental disturbance. Examination created the impression that the disease of the mind was the direct result of functional inactivity of the digestive tract, complicated with decided organic symptoms. A tentative diet of fruit juices and vegetable broths afforded the relief usual when organic labor is progressively decreased. Experience is needful to distinguish between temporary mitigation of the distress of disease and progress towards cure, and, though the symptoms were favorable to the extent of raising the belief in the mind of the patient that recovery would ensue, no definite hope was extended. At the end of four weeks of preparatory treatment, the patient ceased his visits, and a month later his body was found, dead by suicide, an act committed, as its condition showed, within a few days after discontinuing treatment. The actions of the man throughout, together with the contents of a letter found on his person, were evidence that decided lack of mental balance existed, and search of his effects brought to light numbers of long, rambling, scribbled comments that left no doubt concerning mental decay. The body was in shape such that post mortem examination was possible, and the autopsy revealed the following: The kidneys were normal. The lungs and the heart were congested, but functionally equal to their tasks. The liver was cirrhosed, and there was only a rudimentary gall sac, not larger than the first joint of the adult index finger, containing no bile and with no evidence that it had been functioning, since no stain was present, and the color of the sac was a perfect white. The stomach was enlarged to the capacity of four fluid quarts, and it lay in the abdominal cavity opposite the navel; it was filled with food, and all evidences pointed to the fact that glandular function had been inoperative for months. The small intestines were tangled and knotted into a mass, with bleached portions that had been inactive for a long time. The colon was excessively dilated, and its transverse section had fallen, shaping the organ into a letter "M" with the vertex of the dropped tube resting upon the bladder and the pelvic bones; the transverse, ascending, and descending parts adhered at their angles for several inches. The bladder was normal. The pancreas was a soft disintegrated mass. The spleen was extremely large and cirrhosed. The mesentery exhibited old lesions, while no trace of the omentum remained. The brain was structurally perfect.
The above instance of a body exceedingly deformed internally was preserved with its handicaps for thirty years. The cause of the organic defects is to be attributed to digestive functions paralyzed in early life by disease and by the administration of drugs as a remedy. In this case progressive inability to function brought about morbid mental disturbance. It may be asked why this effect was not produced in each of the instances cited under another heading, and reply is made that these also showed the influences of physical condition upon mindfunction, but in lesser degree. And the general conclusion is stated that all disease, functional as well as organic, acts detrimentally upon brain capability.
The work that the brain can perform is dependent upon the physical condition of the body. To repeat, a functionally perfect brain is the product of a physically perfect body, but the brain is not a producer of energy, nor of vitality, nor of mental processes. It acts merely as a medium of reception and transmission, and it no more thinks than do the words that express a thought. Mind, as received from the creative source is perfect. Its expression is affected by functional ability or inability in the human instrument.
The mysterious forces, energy and vitality, which are manifested as life, exist outside of and independent of the human body. A healthy organism is one that is in position to liberate these forces in the form of strength, mental and physical, as it is needed in the activities. When, through the fast, dead and noxious refuse is eliminated, the expression of each of these qualities is evident, and we learn that man does not depend upon food for strength, nor for the accompaniment of energy, body heat. Food is needed only for the repair of broken-down tissue, for the upbuilding and rebuilding of the framework that carries the human soul. The conclusion is not to be drawn in the absolute that strength will be manifest and that life may be continued indefinitely in the absence of food, nor is it to be assumed that in the process of evolution man may reach an ideal state of foodless existence. These are but hypotheses of idle dreamers. The source of life will possibly always remain an enigma to finite understanding, and its manifestations can do naught but continue to offer opportunity for speculation.
The theory that human energy and body heat are not derived from food ingested was advanced some years ago by Dr. E. H. Dewey, and every application of the fast for the cure of disease adds evidence to corroborate its verity. In the fast, when elimination has progressed to the point that disease is eradicated, the avenues for the expression of energy and vitality permit of the manifestation of strength strength that was apparently lost on full daily ration when illness began. As previously noted, in disease the liberation of life force is made impossible because of physical obstacles in the paths of expression. As disease vanishes, natural hunger and strength return. Food is not the source of this phenomenon, since the condition results in its absence. The conclusion is forced that Energy is an entity and that the human body is but a vehicle for its manifestation.
Again, in disease, body temperature and pulse may be above or below register. In the fast, when purification is complete, temperature and pulse are restored to normal. Food plays no more part in the accomplishment of this result than it does in the restoration of strength. Each instance of fasting for the cure of disease perfectly demonstrates the basis in fact of the theory that food serves the sole purpose of repair and growth of body tissue, and that the source of vital energy and of body heat lies without the human frame. The brain is its organ of reception, and it is significant that this instrument of function recovers from fatigue through rest and not because of the assimilation of food. Nerve sustenance is obtained from its storehouse in the body, but nerve energy is renewed through the breath of life.