ripe watermelon is made up of about 97 per cent. of fluids to three of harmless solids, and the plucky faster's breakfast was almost as unobjectionable as a quart of sugar-water. The same quantum of hash might have killed him, and even the attempt to masticate a big piece of bread would have been baffled by the protest of the sensitive palate.
The question as to the requisite length of a remedial fast depends upon the previous habits of the experimenter. A glutton who has complicated the consequences of three daily surfeits by drastic drugs cannot hope to be restored to anything like a normal condition in less than a quarter of a year, devoted to three fasts of a week each, and with three-weeks' intervals of moderate eating and abundant outdoor exercise.
For an ordinary indigestion three days of total abstinence will generally suffice, and votaries of the one-meal plan can keep disease at bay with a two-days' fast at the end of every month. Provided that they abstain from greasy made-dishes and all abnormal stimulants that precaution will even save them the necessity of regulating the quantity of their meals after the plan of Louis Cornaro, who weighed out his daily rations with
