BY THE PRESIDENT. 
13 § 
better to live upon itself, and the better to replenish its store of 
life-sustaining, work-performing, flesh and blood. The imprisoned 
miner, having no food ordinarily so called, but having stores 
on his own frame, is able to exist for many days, if only, by a 
periodical sip of brandy, he can stimulate his organs to utilize those 
stores. Of course he daily gets thinner, the elements of his thus- 
used flesh passing away as gases and vapours from his lungs and 
skin. The Indian performs a journey of two or three days on foot 
without any so-called food; but he really lives and works on the 
flesh stored in his frame, and lives satisfactorily if only he can 
chew his coca leaves, and so obtain the stimulus that shall induce 
his flesh to yield so much extra force. Of course he, too, daily 
decreases in weight, and must afterwards renew his jaded body by 
rest and nourishing food. The invalid, unable to take solid food, 
can generally take stimulating beef-tea, and thus stimulate his 
own flesh to maintain his life until he again is able to take true 
nourishment. That he loses flesh in the process is generally too 
apparent. These are extreme cases of what appears to be the 
ordinary action of stimulants when taken in proper quantities.” 
Even without the aid of stimulants all persons can fast, that is, 
live on their own flesh, for a certain length of time, without much 
risk of life, although with more or less of suffering. And with 
commensurate risk they may thus survive—one hesitates to say 
live—for a longer period, especially if stimulants are taken, and, of 
course, water. The greater the store of flesh and fat the victim 
has to begin with; secondly, the greater his powers of slowly but 
continuously subsisting on—we cannot quite say eating—that store; 
thirdly, the stronger his power of endurance ; and, fourthly, the 
less external work he has to do : we say the greater his advantages 
in all these respects the longer will he be able to fast. If the 
victim is a willing victim—one of the so-called fasting men or 
women—he or she, so far as nature’s laws are concerned, merely 
illustrates nature’s power of working in an unusual direction when 
nature is foolishly prevented from working in the usual direction. 
So far as the person himself or herself is concerned, and all who 
aid or abet, an exhibition of this kind is senseless, contemptible, 
and degrading. 
To sum up respecting the fluids we drink. While a few of 
them, as milk, contain true food, and while some of them, as beer, 
tea, and wine, contain a stimulant, they all consist chiefly of water, 
and their power of quenching thirst resides solely in their water. 
The water in these fluids, and the water we drink as water, per¬ 
forms the two important functions of ( a ) by virtue of its solvent 
