:" THE DIARY : OF A FAST "
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] presume, with difficulty, Mr. Yeats-Brown intends his " Diary of a Fast " to be taken seriously,. but henever fasted. In the six daya of partial fast he consumed,. I suppose, about two dozen oranges, and an orange contains a quite definite amount of nutriment. And there is nothing new about it all. " She suffered much from breathlessness, and very nearly died. For full three weeks she literally took_ nothing beyond occasionally aw:king an orange . . made a goOd recovery." This is not a quotation from life at Champneys, but from a medical work, by the medical man responsible for the treat- ment, published_ about thirty-three years ago, l_._myself know a man who literally took nothing :but water for two weeks, and daily attended " business as usual.'.' Mr. Yeats- Brown has discovered an old story, with .the zeal and amazement of a convert.
Froin his six days' partial fast he passed quickly into an orgy of nourishment. -To which doeshe attribute the benefit he Belt ? On the tenth day in his "Diary " he was imbibing milk to the value of over 4,000 calories ! Expressed in terms of good roast beef and fat this is equivalent to 21- lbs. of it When this is included in the " Diary of a Fast," what are we to think ? And what is the diet of Mr.-Yeats-Brown-when he is "overfed '2 ? - - 'With all deference to kith, his adventures, while harmless to his-sound and healthy body, inight not agree with many of his readers,--and he should-reconstruct his ideas about fasting, food=valuee, and bodily requirements. His thirty tumblers of milk is an outrage on any system of diet, and is neither
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sensible nor safe.—I am, Sir, &c., R. AnAmsoN, 15; Grosvenor Crescent, W.2.
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