Page:Linda Hazzard - Fasting for the cure of disease.djvu/331

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that the autopsy on this body disclosed an appendix in normal state, with no signs of former inflammation.

Eight months before death the patient had undergone a fast of twenty-eight days and had convalesced into the most satisfactory physical condition that she had known since childhood. During the time of this fast and thereafter she cared for a young baby, and continued to do so until acute bilious derangement, accompanied by symptoms of organic disease, was manifested. The case fasted until death an even sixty days, and it was found, after a few weeks of abstinence, that pregnancy of several months added somewhat to the complications that arose. From the beginning of the fast excessively foul black discharges came away with the enemas, and there was a constant, slight daily rise in temperature, which, however, was invariably reduced to average normal after the administration of the internal bath.

At the post mortem examination it was discovered that the liver was in a condition of complete disintegration; the stomach exhibited an extreme hour-glass contraction, and its pyloric opening would not permit the insertion of a lead pencil, nor could it be