Among those to become interested at an early date was a prominent minister who wore the title of D. D., and for a time his interest was intense. He came to me one day with word that a member of his household, well known to me as a young woman of unusual ability and culture, had not been able to take solid food at his table for a year, and he believed that my treatment would avail in her case. To this she was very averse, since every treatment her hapless stomach had received had only added to the debility, until disability had become the result. She finally came to me to be relieved from the forceful importunity of her reverend friend, who had excited my eager interest with a prophecy that unusual literary distinction would follow a cure, as there were abilities of the very highest order, in his estimation.
She came, and I had no difficulty in securing such a vacation for the worn-out stomach that it could begin with solid food when the time to eat arrived. The vacation was so brief and power had accumulated so rapidly that almost any food could be taken without discomfort, and no trouble ever came not invited by a relapse from the better way of living that had really created a new stomach.
This case caused more notoriety over the no-breakfast plan than any that ever occurred in the city. As a writer of biographies and of articles in high-class journals and magazines, this talented woman has been a miracle of patient, persistent study and investigation.
This endorsement in high places greatly added to my reputation as a physician with distorted mind, for the idea that any good could come from a short fast, to be followed by the giving up of that needed morning meal, was too absurd for sober reflection, too violently revolutionary to be even patiently considered.
The no-breakfast plan was not so very long in becoming known over the entire city; a bridge had been crossed, and every plank taken up and destroyed; thence the ways into new families were nearly closed.
I am enlarging a little upon the opposition that met me from all points, because all who are to be convinced that these are the true ways in health culture will begin at once to enlighten their ailing friends, and will, therefore, encounter the same opposition. "Sir, you have not had enough opposition," said bluff, old Samuel Johnson. There will be no need to complain of any lack of this kind in the efforts to render suffering friends the only aid possible, that will be in persistent efforts of Nature.
My medical brethren considered the scheme only as they would consider an invasion of smallpox or a heresy whose methods were a danger to life. One physician, a woman specialist, informed me that she was continually importuned as to her professional opinion of the new craze that had invaded the city. That all other physicians were equally called upon, that they would condemn, was inevitable; and I permitted them the largest liberty without the least resentment; but there was the sustaining cheer of seeing the happiest faces that only increased as the heresy spread.
My attendance upon the severely sick became more taxing because of the exceeding concern in the immediate environment, that the pangs of starvation were being added to the pangs of disease.
As none of my professional brethren ever manifested any desire to be enlightened on this subject, I did not volunteer, since I felt the wiser way would be to wait an adequate amount of evidence before making any public announcements of presumed important discoveries in practical hygiene.
My experiences in the rooms of the sick had convinced me, long before I gave up my morning meal, that death from starvation was so remote as practically to exclude it from consideration; hence with the great improvement that was the immediate result in my own case I could from the first speak with a "thus saith the Lord" emphasis on the safety of going through a forenoon "on an empty stomach."