Upton Sinclair was not only a prolifc and much admired author, but also a follower of Bernarr MacFadden's Physical Culture movement (see his Physical Culture Cook Book, 1901) and a member of the editorial staff of Physical Culture Magazine. Dedicated to MacFadden, this 1911 volume advocates the benefits of systematic fasting in producing long-lasting health benefits.

Excerpt from Fasting for the Cure of Disease Self-conceit, credulity, and skepticism are said to go hand in hand; and candor compels the remark that these graces are not confined to the ignorant or to the uneducated. If a man be a skeptic, he can but mean that certain things do not exist relatively to his own knowledge; but no one can deny the possibility of the existence of that which he cannot har monize with his accepted opinions, or of which he is ignorant. Should he do so, the conclusion holds that he is Just as credulous as the man who believes without discrimination. When an extraordinary fact, a fact be yond its own experience, is presented to a mind vicariously moulded, more often than not it is rejected as impossible or as the result of disordered physical condi tions. In these circumstances even the testimony of the senses is repudiated, and that of credible witnesses is frequently imputed to base motives. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

'Fasting For The Cure of Disease' was originally published as a distributable work to assist those individuals who were seeking out new ways to heal themselves of whatever malady (perceived or otherwise) they were afflicted with. What it became in the end, sadly, was something quite the opposite in nature. The work garnered both national and international attention, and led to the starvation - and murder - of individuals in the care of Dr. Hazzard at her Wilderness Heights facility in Olalla, Washington. Following the scandal that ensued, Dr. Hazzard continued to be a staunch proponent of her beliefs. In fact she was so convinced of their merits that she ultimately perished in 1938 while conducting a fasting regimen upon herself. This book is a faithful reproduction of the text of Dr. Hazzard's original work.

In this true story—a haunting saga of medical murder set in an era of steamships and gaslights—Gregg Olsen reveals one of the most unusual and disturbing criminal cases in American history. In 1911 two wealthy British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, arrived at a sanitorium in the forests of the Pacific Northwest to undergo the revolutionary “fasting treatment” of Dr. Linda Burfield Hazzard. It was supposed to be a holiday for the two sisters, but within a month of arriving at what the locals called Starvation Heights, the women underwent brutal treatments and were emaciated shadows of their former selves. Claire and Dora were not the first victims of Linda Hazzard, a quack doctor of extraordinary evil and greed. But as their jewelry disappeared and forged bank drafts began transferring their wealth to Hazzard’s accounts, the sisters came to learn that Hazzard would stop at nothing short of murder to achieve her ambitions.

"I had taken several fasts of ten or twelve days' duration, with the result of a complete making over of my health." -Upton Sinclair, The Fasting Cure Upton Sinclair's The Fasting Cure (1911) consists of two essays in which Sinclair discusses the reasons he believes that engaging in regular fasts to remove toxins from the body is a healthy practice. While medically controversial, this book is considered worthwhile as an historical document of the "fasting fever," which occurred around the time of its writing.