RT Journal
T1 DAngers of fasting
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1929
FD February 23
VO 92
IS 8
SP 651
OP 652
DO 10.1001/jama.1929.02700340051017
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1929.02700340051017
AB Of the various environmental factors on which man depends for existence and growth, the diet particularly is amenable to manipulation. One may eat as much or as little as one wishes of good food or bad. The exercise of this privilege has led to striking dietary extremes, exemplied on the one hand by the gourmands of the Middle Ages and, on the other, by those who deprive themselves of all food for weeks at a time. The present-day ritualistic practice of fasting has a long history, while voluntary abstinence from food as a therapeutic measure is likewise extremely old. The Egyptians are said to have been the first to attribute disease to some agent taken by mouth, a kind of food poisoning. Since the pathogenic substance reached the body through the gastro-intestinal tract, the logical way to shield the organism against disease was to refrain from eating for a period