Dec. 11, 1910.
MR. HORACE FLETCHER,
Care EDITOR OF _Good Health_,
BATTLE CREEK, MICH.
MY DEAR MR. FLETCHER,--It must have been a year and a half ago that we
had our talk on the subject of fasting; you promised me that you would
investigate it. I have only just seen the copy of the November _Good
Health_, and discovered that you carried out your promise. There are
some things in connection with your account about which I want to ask
you.
You say that you have come to agree with Dr. Kellogg, that
autointoxication continues during the fast; and that your reason
for this is that at the end of a couple of weeks you found yourself
developing weakness, bad breath, coated tongue, etc. You broke your
fast because these symptoms grew worse and worse. Now surely if a
person is going to give a fair trial to the claims of the fasters,
he should follow their instructions, and he should not proceed in
opposition to their most important advice. You say that for four days
you took no water, and that after that you took only a pint or so a
day. In this you violated the leading injunction of every advocate of
fasting with whose writings I am acquainted; I have read the books of
Bernarr Macfadden, C. C. Haskell, and Dr. L. B. Hazzard, all of whom
have treated scores and hundreds of patients by means of the fast, and
all of whom are strenuous on the point that one should drink as much
water as possible. I myself while fasting have taken at least a glass
every hour. I believe that a very great deal of your trouble may have
been caused by your procedure in this respect.
Another point which you do not mention is whether or not you took an
enema during the fast. This is a very important point. It may very well
be true that poisons are excreted into the intestinal tract, and that
owing to lack of food they are re-absorbed; if we can aid nature by
washing these poisons out at once, can we not overcome this difficulty?
May not the reason for the non-success of your fast lie here?
If it be true that the fast leads to constantly increasing
autointoxication, how do you account for those phenomena which are
summed up in the phrase, "the complete fast"? I personally do not
advocate the complete fast; I only advocate the investigation of it.
I have never taken one, but I have letters from many people who have
taken them, and they are in agreement upon the point that there comes a
time during the fast when the tongue clears, the breath becomes pure,
and hunger manifests itself in unmistakable form. How can this possibly
be true if Dr. Kellogg's explanation of the symptoms of fasting is
correct? Would it not happen just to the contrary, would not the
symptoms of autointoxication increase, until death through poisoning
resulted?
Dr. Kellogg's argument is a very plausible one; for many years it
sufficed to keep me from trying the experiment of the fast. I know
that it has kept many other people. His claim is, in brief, that
during the fast the body is living off its own tissue; that we are
therefore meat-eaters, and even cannibals, while fasting. We are living
on a kind of food which is over-rich in proteid, and which generates
excessive quantities of uric acid, indican, etc. This, as I say, sounds
plausible, but I found by actual experiment that the facts do not
work out according to the theory. I myself have taken a week's fast
recently, with perfect success. During this time I had not one particle
of weakness or trouble of any sort. Perhaps it may be that my body was
excreting undue amounts of uric acid and indican, but I did not know
it, and it did me no harm so far as I could discover. I am much less
afraid of the consequences of living from my own body tissue, since I
have tried for myself the experiment of living on the tissues of other
animals.
I am trying to get at the truth about these questions, and I know that
you are trying to do it also. For three years I did myself incalculable
harm by accepting blindly statements that meat was the prime cause
of autointoxication, together with other high proteid food. I lived
on starches and sugars, grew pale and thin and chilly, and, as I was
accustomed to phrase it, was never more than fifteen minutes ahead of a
headache. I can give myself a headache at any time at present by two or
three days of eating rice, potatoes, white flour, and sugar. Apparently
I cannot give it to myself by eating any possible quantity of broiled
lean beef. So far as I can make out, beef is the one article of diet
which never does me any harm, no matter how much of it I eat. The same
thing is true, apparently, with my little boy.
I wish you would tell me what you think about all this. I wish that I
could induce you to try the experiment of fasting again with the use of
the enema and the copious water drinking. Still more do I wish that you
could be induced to try it with some people who need it--some people
who are desperately ill, and who have not been able to get well by
following the low proteid diet.
Sincerely,
UPTON SINCLAIR.
NORWICH, CONN., U. S. A. Dec. 23, 1910.
MY DEAR MR. SINCLAIR,--Your valued favor of the 14th inst. received
enclosing copy of your letter to Horace Fletcher. I have read your
letter to Mr. Fletcher with much interest, and I have also read Mr.
Fletcher's letter to Dr. Kellogg in _Good Health_.
I am so crowded with work that I cannot take the time to write you on
this subject of Fasting as I would like. I have had nearly seventeen
years' experience studying and practising the "no-breakfast plan and
fasting for the cure of disease." I have followed the no-breakfast
plan all that time without a single break, and I know it has been
of exceedingly great value to me. It has also been my privilege and
pleasure to advise in thousands of cases covering nearly all forms of
disease, and where the Law of Fasting has been followed faithfully,
there have always been splendid results.
Aside from the omission of the breakfast, I have fasted a great
many times from one day to four weeks, and always the results have
been beneficial. This could not have been the case if Dr. Kellogg's
contention is correct, that autointoxication continues and increases
during a fast. If his idea is correct on this point, instead of one
improving and at last overcoming the disease entirely, there would not
only be a continuation of the disease but an increase, and death would
naturally result. Should autointoxication continue and increase while
one is fasting, the time would not come when the tongue would be clean
and natural hunger manifest itself. On the contrary, there would be an
increase of the coating on the tongue until death finally resulted.
I think if Mr. Fletcher had continued his fast until his tongue had
become clean, which certainly would be the case, he would have written
a very different letter. In the case of Mrs. Tarbox, whose letter
I enclose, on the thirty-seventh day of her fast, her tongue was
perfectly clean and she had natural hunger, and she was well on the way
to recovery from the terrible cancerous growth and condition in which I
found her. Since Mrs. Tarbox' cure, I have had several other cases of
cancer cured through fasting. You will note the case of Mrs. Hobson,
copy of whose letter I enclose, and the case of Mr. Davis is another
very interesting case as well as that of Mrs. Osborne. These persons
would not have been cured if autointoxication had been going on and
increasing.
Dr. Dewey's contention I know to be true, that during a fast the heart,
lungs, and brain are supported by the predigested food stored up in
the body. These organs take the nourishment and not the poison, for
during a fast the eliminating organs work to the very limit to force
the poison out of every cell of the body, so that during a fast all
the poison in the body is growing less every hour, and when it is all
eliminated natural hunger manifests itself, the tongue is clean, and
the patient is ready to build up and have a clean physical organism.
The use of the enema is exceedingly important during a fast. I believe
that it hastens the cure at least twenty-five per cent, and perhaps
more than that.
Mr. Fletcher's own letter is to my mind a refutation to Dr. Kellogg's
claim as to the continuation and increase of autointoxication, for he
tells the benefits that he has received during his fast of seventeen
days, and those benefits would have been greatly increased if he had
continued the fast until his tongue was clean. His sense of taste had
become so refined by the fast that his food was more delicious than
ever before, which showed that the refining process had been going on
all through his body. Another benefit that he mentions is the lessening
of his desire for sugar, that he is satisfied with the sugar sweet that
is in the food itself, which is so much more healthful than the cane
sugar. Another thing that he speaks of is the reduction in his weight,
which he needed. I sincerely hope that Mr. Fletcher will fast again,
and make it a complete fast, for I think he will have a very different
story to tell from what he tells in this letter.