When the death of a patient under my care occurs I am most anxious that no stone should be left unturned to exhibit the cause. In this, my seventh death in four years' practice in Seattle, I find my diagnosis and prognosis completely corroborated. I was assisted in the autopsy by two old-line physicians and by the deputy coroner. The results of the post-mortem examination were as follows:
Mr. Rader's viscera showed the most abnormal characteristics it has been my fortune to observe in years of post-mortem work. The lungs were adherent at every point to the pleural cavity as well as to the diaphragm in places. The heart in fair condition. Stomach dilated and prolapsed. Gall bladder in three distinct pouches, any one of which was the size of the normal sac, and two of these sections were filled with 126 gall stones of one grain to half an ounce in weight; the largest was 3 inches in circumference one way and 4 inches the other way. The small intestines collapsed to the pelvis and midway intussuscepted so that a section of two measured yards occupied but five inches in length; portions of these were of infantile development. The transverse colon lay anterior to the descending colon throughout its extent, while the ascending and descending colon showed infantile size and cartilaginous structure. The sigmoid bend and rectum were of diameter not larger than the adult thumb and in advanced cartilaginous state. The kidneys fair; the liver enlarged and badly congested.
The conditions exhibited were such that the wonder in any mind practised in the care of the human body lies in the thought that nature was able to preserve under these handicaps this man's life until the forty-seventh year. To me this is proof positive that "man does not live by bread alone."
The facts given may easily be verified. Mr. Rader fasted because he had to fast. He could not take food in any sort or in any manner, and his death occurred because of organic disease beyond repair. He was never without water and fruit juices; vegetable broths and prepared foods were given whenever the occasion seemed to present itself, but always with painful consequences. During the month of April he was virtually fasting, although food was supplied as mentioned. It is not at all remarkable in my work to have patients abstain from food for thirty, forty, and fifty days, although by far the greater number do not require this length of time.
Criticized as I have been for my methods, and realizing that the combined efforts of the old schools are aimed at what it eventually means, perhaps a definition may not prove amiss:
Starvation consists in denying food, either by accident or design, to a system clamoring for sustenance.
Fasting consists in intentional abstinence from food by a system non-desirous of sustenance until it is rested, cleansed, and ready for the task of digestion. Food is then supplied.
The conduct of the health and humane officers in the Rader case is not the first instance of their methods of procedure that it has been my fate to experience. In the latter part of January, 1908, I had under my care Mrs. D. D. Whedon, a young married woman in a critical state of health, mother of one child and about to become the mother of another. Officious neighbors complained to the authorities that the child was being subjected to the fasting method and was slowly starving. Without warrant these creatures of authority entered the apartments of Mrs. Whedon, subjected her to a bodily examination against her will and protests, took her child from her by force, and when her husband attempted to regain possession of his daughter, they arrested him for resisting an officer and had him placed in the city jail. I also was charged at this time with practising medicine without a license, an accusation that was quashed on appeal to the superior court.
I rather court an investigation of my work and its results, successful and unsuccessful. Thus far the methods pursued by those antagonistic have been the very ones that have succeeded in informing the world at large that the work is here, that it progresses, else why the furor? It is here to stay and to do what the truth eventually always does—prevail.
The autopsies in each of the several deaths that have occurred in my practice in the city of Seattle have exhibited organic disease, the origin of which lay in the early years of life. In all of these bodies arrested development of one or other of the vital organs was in evidence, and in the majority the injured intestines showed cartilaginous structure and deformation that must have required either violent shock or continued functional disturbance to produce. In view of the fact that these instances cover subjects who had endeavored to follow orthodox methods until orthodoxy proved unavailing, and who then turned to the fast and its accompaniments, I feel perfectly confident in declaring that early drug treatment is responsible for later and fatal disease. Nature had endowed each of these patients with strong vitality; each of them had suffered from severe functional disorder in infancy; each had been drug-drenched.