The principle of moderation, which is carried to excess in the practice of fasting, finds a certain form of expression in the various methods whose distinctive feature is the omission of one or more meals per day. The ostensible and loudly proclaimed object of such systems is somewhat forcibly to deprive the body of nutriment which is declared to be in excess of its requirements, and although all of them are in agreement on this point, they are at variance in the methods of applying the doctrine in practice.

The most aggressive section declares that one meal a day amply suffices for all the demands of the body, but we may at once dismiss this system as a freak, founded as it is on a misconception of physiological facts and on the dictum of Dr. Abernethy, who is reported to have said, "One-fourth of all a man eats sustains him; the balance he retains at his risk."

Most of the advocates of this method are vegetarians, and as they are compelled to eat a much larger meal than is customary, a much longer period is taken to digest and assimilate it than would be the case on a mixed diet. A certain amount of time may apparently be saved, but it must be at the cost of efficiency of work and even economy of food, for it is found that the body is unable to take full advantage of such a flood of nourishment poured into it at one time. In the end gastrectasis is bound to take place, on account of the mechanical power of the stomach being overburdened by the mere weight of food. At the best it is a system which should only be adopted temporarily, and where this has been done we have known complete freedom to have been obtained from the most inveterate migraine, after every other therapeutical method had failed. This patient was a clergyman of massive physique, and he was accustomed to take his meal at midday, devoting an hour to the consumption of his victuals and a couple of hours thereafter to a python-like rest. As might be anticipated, this system has never succeeded in making any real impression on the popular mind, and the literature in support of it is very scanty.

Dewey's Crusade

It is far otherwise, however, with the two-meal-a-day system, which has, as its corollary, the no-breakfast plan, because quite a number of books have been published dealing directly or indirectly with the method, and a selection of these both from medical men and laymen will be found in the bibliography at the end of the book. Its pioneer, the late Dr. E. H. Dewey, who has attained notoriety, if not celebrity, by the publication of his famous work on the subject, boldly proclaimed that the American people ate more than was good for them, and that most of their troubles could be cured by the omission of at least one meal per day. This announcement was hailed with acclamation by the diseased portion of the populace, and many adherents were gained immediately. The results attained were on the whole so beneficial that the practice of abstinence was carried to excess, and total desist-ence from food was by many persisted in for several days at a time. The evil effects resulting from this self-abnegation were so much less serious than had been anticipated that Dewey tentatively advanced the theory that the energy of the body is not derived from the food at all, but in some way spontaneously absorbed by the brain from some external source.

This, of course, is the echo of the theory maintained by theosophists and others, that nitrogen can in some occult way be obtained from the atmosphere and utilised by the body, perhaps in some manner analogous to its fixation by leguminous plants. Dr. Dewey quotes from Yeo's "Physiology" details of the estimated losses of the bodily tissues that occur in death from starvation. "Fat is at one end of the scale, and at the other the brain, which does not waste till all the other textures and organs are depleted to the utmost.

Fat ... 97 per cent. Liver ... 56 ,, Blood ... 17

Spleen ... 63 per cent. Muscle ... 30 ,, Brain ... 0 ,,

(See also Chapter XV (Fasting In Theory And Practice).)

"Instantly," says Dewey, "I saw in human bodies a vast reserve of predigested food, with the brain in possession of the power so as to absorb it as to maintain structural integrity in the absence of food or of power to digest it." "The head is the power-house of the human plant, with the brain the dynamo, as the source of every possible human energy." "The brain is not only a self-feeding organ when necessary, but it is also a self-charging dynamo, regaining its exhausted energies through rest and sleep."

These quotations will prove that Dr. Dewey began with the cautious assertion that the brain is a parasite living on the other bodily tissues, and ended by boldly declaring that it could charge itself during sleep. We can only infer from this that the body is capable of obtaining energy quite independent of the food, and his followers have not been slow in proclaiming that neither bodily energy nor bodily heat is in any way derived from the food.

Rabagliati On Energy

In this country the chief apostle of this theory is Dr. Rabagliati, who in a number of books published during recent years, and again at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association in 1911, has maintained it against all comers. In his most recent book, as in most of his others, he has fortunately enshrined his ideas in such pedantic terminology that he has been, comparatively speaking, saved from much hostile criticism. Much of his reasoning is of a metaphysical order, which is quite beside the point in a purely physical subject, but when dealing with the ordinary facts of metabolism he quickly falls into obvious error. He quotes the case of a man who fasted for thirty-five days, and who lost in weight at most what amounted to 8 ounces a day. He adds, "According to accepted doctrine, even the starving man emits a caloric value of 2,000 calories a day in the form of heat lost. Now, half a pound of best rump-steak provides energy if perfectly oxidised up to 547 calories. It is not to be assumed (is it?) that a man's general tissues will have a greater caloric value than an equal weight of bovine tissue." The questioning of his own assertion is a frank demand for information, and I do not hesitate to give it. I will pass over the fallacy that a starving man emits as much in a prolonged fast as 2,000 calories a day, and content myself with pointing out the mistake in his caloric calculations. He admits, with Dewey, that during starvation 97 per cent. of fat and only 30 per cent. of muscle is used up for the purpose of nourishing the tissues, or, in other words, three times more fat than muscle is used. Now, in every ounce of fat roast beef there are 155 calories, so that 8 ounces would mount up to as much as 1,240 calories; but as roast beef contains probably three times more lean than fat, it is reasonable to suppose that the half-pound of tissue material would yield much more than the 547 calories to which he refers.

Dr. Fraser Harris, in reviewing another of his books, asserts that to hold such a parlous view of the production of energy in the body is a tacit admission that Rabagliati does not understand the law of conservation of energy, nor believe in the power of the transmutation of various forms of energy into others. Heat, according to Dr. Rabagliati, is a "thing" which can be put into and let out of things, for, he says, "The heat itself was stored up in (by?) the sun long ago, and is now liberated by the action of chemical energy between carbon and oxygen," which is a denial that carbon oxidised by oxygen yields heat in a coal fire. Such fire ought to "burn" in a vacuum or in pure nitrogen, so long as heat was let out of it. Food does not contribute either to bodily energy or bodily heat, although it builds up the tissues of "growing bodies" and "repairs the waste," and is incidentally the source of all diseases. If bodily heat is not due to oxidation, why then do we inhale many hundreds of litres of oxygen in the twenty-four hours? Nitrogen, hydrogen, or any other gas would be equally suitable according to Rabagliati. The conclusion of this review is so apposite that I quote it in full: "Doubtless the fact that the temperature falls during sleep and that fewer calories are given off during sleep than during Waking hours may, if 'viewed with insight,' support the new view. Rubner and Atwater have lived in vain. This discovery is supplemented by the following gems. 'I should prefer the statement that all kinetic (or active) energy is probably warm to the statement that it is heat,' and 'Disease is nearly always, if not quite always, the process by which waste ... is being thrown out of the body.' So that if we could only sleep enough and eat almost nothing, and throw no waste out of the body, we should be healthy. ' The food is in no sense the source of the working energy of the body, either mental or mechanical.' For what purpose, then, do cows, sheep, and horses eat so much and so continuously - are they too all mistaken, like the 'blind physiologists '? Ought they not also to fast and sleep? 'Many persons,' we are told, 'have fasted for six weeks or longer, and have experienced a positive increase of strength from the fast '! These comfortable facts cannot be well known to the 'unemployed,' else they would have obtained wider recognition. If only viewed with 'insight,' the condition of entombed miners and shipwrecked sailors, is, physiologically speaking, of all things the most desirable; if only their bodies would not waste, and they could sleep enough, they would be able, happy and warm, to live the simple life - an eternity of economy \ Sidney Smith said the Edinburgh reviewers cultivated 'the muses on a little oatmeal.' The gospel from Bradford is that they would have done better spiritually, morally, and intellectually and mechanically if they had had less oatmeal and more sleep - and this in 1907!"

Clearly such a view of the production of bodily energy is absolutely untenable. But long before Dr. Rabagliati appropriated or conceived this view he was an advocate of a subsistence dietary, and in his whole-hearted pleading for its adoption he has ingeniously invented a perfect battery of most unrhythmical words, which at first sight have far from the illuminating function expected of them. He designates the taking of food as siteism, so that the one-meal-a-day system would be monositeism, the two-meal-a-day system disiteism, the three-meal-a-day system trisiteism, and so on. Pollaki-siteism signifies the act of eating too often; polysiteism means eating too much; oligositeism means eating too little, and oligakisiteism eating too seldom. Modifications of these terms are to be found in such words as pollakiamylism, signifying taking starchy food too often, and polyamylism, taking too much starchy food. It is questionable whether any good purpose is served by such a multiplication of compound words. Holding such views on the origin of physical energy, it is natural and obvious to conclude that as the body must be fully charged after sleep, no food would be required for some time thereafter. It is important to note, however, that the practice preceded the reasoning, which was only added as an afterthought.