Fasting

FASTING. - Fasting, from the ecclesiastical Latin "iejunus," is the state of one who is empty of food. The adjective used as a noun came in the end to mean the exercise of one who is fasting, that is, the act of fasting.

I. NOTIONS

To fast in the full meaning of the word is to abstain absolutely from all food and all drink. To this complete fast theologians have given the name of natural fast. It is the one that the Church prescribes from midnight onward for the priest who celebrates and for the faithful who intend to receive Holy Communion, and which is therefore also called the eucharistic fast.

This same fast is still strongly recommended for the adult who is baptized and for the priest who baptizes him (cans. 753 § 1, 808, 858 § 1).

The fast that one imposes upon oneself freely, as an exercise of virtue, outside the prescriptions of the Church, and which one regulates by oneself in its modalities, is called by theologians a moral fast. It consists in abstinence from food and drink according to a rational regimen. If the motives that inspire it are merely human, e.g., the health of the body, a good physical disposition for studying better, etc., then it is called philosophical. If the motives are supernatural, it is called instead a Christian fast. This fast is inspired above all by mortification and penance as a preventive measure against sin or as a means of satisfaction for sins committed.

This same fast, insofar as the Church not only approves its purpose but has fixed its regimen in its various details, is properly called an ecclesiastical fast.

The fast, if ordered to an honorable end, e.g., to curb the motions of the flesh, to render the mind more fit for contemplation (Dan. 10:3), to make satisfaction for sins, to impetrate, together with prayer, spiritual and temporal benefits, is an act of virtue.

To be such, however, it must be practiced with discernment, that is, respecting even in the exercise of the virtue of temperance the two ends from which reason by itself cannot abstract: to preserve life and the strength necessary to fulfill one's duty.

The fast is properly an act of the virtue of abstinence, a subjective part of the virtue of temperance, because it concerns the use of food, in which it is proper to the virtue of abstinence to find the mean. It can nevertheless also be commanded by other virtues: by charity, by religion, by penance, by chastity, etc.

The fast is a useful good and therefore is not commanded for its own sake, but only in order to the end for which it is useful. The benefits that can be obtained through the practice of fasting can ordinarily be attained also by other means, and therefore by the law of nature it is not commanded absolutely to all, but only to those to whom it is necessary and insofar as it is necessary to them.

Since, however, it is generally very useful to all, the Church has determined in this matter the natural law, and has established a time and a manner of fasting to be observed commonly by all.

It is, moreover, in accordance with reason to measure oneself in food (v. ABSTINENCE). That matter should gain the upper hand over the spirit, no one can desire or approve. Now gluttony is, after lust, the strongest of the passions of the senses and often itself gives bait and incentive to lust. A precept is therefore opportune which, at given periods and recurrences, with its external observances, reawakens in the soul the memory of what it has to fear from the body, and offers it a practical and effective means of keeping it subject to itself.

That the mortification of gluttony can constitute an act of religion and of worship appears so natural that it is found practiced in many religions, even non-Christian ones. Already in the books of the Old Testament fasting and prayer joined together figured among the means most proper for obtaining graces from God.

Pietro Palazzini

II. DIVORCE IN THE BIBLE

Fasting is praised and even commanded in the Old Testament (Tob. 12:8; II Kings 12:16; Judg. 8:6; Joel 2:12; Esth. 14:2; II Macc. 12:12).

The Jews were obliged to fast on the 10th of the seventh month. During the captivity the fast of the 4th, 5th and 10th months was instituted. Isaiah, however, noted that the Lord could not be appeased by external fasting alone without true penance and the observance of the virtues of justice and charity.

In the New Testament, Jesus Christ, before beginning the preaching of the Gospel, fasted 40 days and 40 nights; however, to his disciples, as long as they remained with him, he did not impose a precept of fasting, also in order to counter the exaggerations of the Pharisees, who had multiplied its days to excess (Lk. 18:12). He also announced to the disciples themselves that they would later fast (Mt. 9:14-15) and he prescribed the manner of fasting, saying to avoid ostentation and hypocrisy (Mt. 6:16-18).

Holy Scripture relates that the Apostles fasted not a few times, especially in the election of the ministers of God (Acts 13:2-3; 14:22). St. Paul expressly places fasting among the penances with which he chastised his body and held it in subjection (II Cor. 6:5 and 11:17; I Cor. 9:27).

Authors do not agree whether the Apostles commanded the fast of Lent. Although some Fathers, such as St. Jerome, say that Lent is observed "according to the tradition of the Apostles" (Ep. 27, to Marcella), and indeed St. Peter Chrysologus affirms that it is observed by divine ordinance (Serm. 11), nevertheless the thesis of St. Augustine seems more probable, holding that Jesus Christ and the Apostles did not establish the days of fasting (Epist., 36, 14; PL 33, 151).

The Church introduced the use of Lent before the paschal Communion, and it was observed in both East and West. In the Eastern Church, however, it lasted 7 weeks, because it was interrupted every Saturday and Sunday, whereas in the Western Church it lasted 6 weeks, the fast being interrupted only on Sunday. Around the 9th century, the obligatory custom was introduced of beginning the fast 4 days before Lent, so that, with the Sundays removed, there would be a fast of 40 days.

Around the 5th century the custom was introduced of fasting for some days in the "Ember Days" of the year, in order to dedicate the whole year to the Lord according to the Hebrew custom, so much so that afterwards the ordinations of priests and deacons could be performed only on the said "Ember Days." In the 6th century, some Churches obliged to a fast of three days in each week of Advent, just as the triduum of the Rogations was also introduced, which soon became a universal custom. At this time began the custom of fasting on the vigils of Christmas, Epiphany, the Assumption and the feasts of the Apostles.

In the Eastern Church, a meal was several times permitted, though a very scanty one, whereas in the Latin Church, after Vespers, that is, almost at the end of the day, there was a single meal. During the fast the faithful abstained not only from food, but also from wine, and even water was permitted, to quench thirst, only at certain determined hours. From the 10th century the custom was introduced of taking the meal at 3 in the afternoon, and later it was moved to noon. Until the 13th century there was a single meal, then that of the evening was introduced. In the 19th century began the custom of taking a little coffee in the morning with a very limited portion of bread.

III. SUBJECT AND TIME OF DIVORCE

All are bound to the moral fast. Regarding the eucharistic fast (v. HOLY COMMUNION; MASS), all those who must celebrate Holy Mass or receive communion are bound to it, from midnight until after Communion, unless they have obtained a dispensation and except in the case of viaticum. Here only the ecclesiastical fast is treated, to which all the baptized from the completed 21st year to the completed 59th are bound by the general law of the Church (can. 1254 § 2; for the computation v. can. 34 § 2), on the days of Lent (from Ash Wednesday until noon of Holy Saturday, except Sundays), on the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday of the "Ember Days"; on the vigils of Christmas, Pentecost, the Assumption and All Saints, unless these fall on a Sunday or on a day of precept (can. 1252 § 4). On the days of Lent, with the exception of Friday and Saturday, only the law of fasting is in force; on the other days, including the Fridays and Saturdays of Lent, the law of fasting is joined to that of abstinence (can. 1252 § 3).

The fast is also commanded on the vigil of the consecration of a church, for the consecrating Bishop and for those who request the consecration of the church (can. 1166 § 2). Such are: he who has built the church at his own expense, if he requests its consecration; all the canons composing the Chapter, if it is they who request the consecration; the parish priest, if he at least requests it implicitly (Sacred Congregation of the Council, 3 July 1909); not however the people or the fabric council, because they have no right in spiritual governance; nor probably the assistant vicars (unless they expressly request it), because the aforementioned can. 1166 § 2 departs from the Roman Pontifical, which required the fast of the clergy and the people.

The days of abstinence and fasting are considered as sacred time (can. 1243). To establish, transfer, or abolish them is a task reserved to the supreme ecclesiastical authority (can. 1244 § 1). Ordinaries may only per modum actus appoint days of fasting and abstinence for their dioceses.

IV. ESSENCE OF DIVORCE

There is no authentic declaration of the Church that determines the essence of the ecclesiastical fast.

Ancient authors placed the essence of the fast in three conditions, namely: a) in the single meal; b) in the determined hour of this meal; c) in the determined abstinence from certain foods such as meat and dairy products. According to modern authors these three conditions belong to the perfection of the fast, but do not form its essence. What, through the disciplinary changes of the Church, has instead remained unchanged in the fast is the principle of the single principal meal.

1. Single or principal meal

The duration of a day of fast is reckoned from midnight to midnight. Within this time only one full meal is permitted (can. 1254 § 1); if for any reason another equal meal is added to it, the fast becomes impossible and the precept is violated in grave matter. Custom has added, it is true, two other small meals, in the morning (frustulum mattutinum) and in the evening (cavula vespertina); these, however, are subject to various restrictions as to the quality and quantity of foods. For the principal meal, on the other hand, there is no determined quantity of food to be taken, beyond which the fast is violated. Even one who eats lavishly or exceeds may sin against temperance, may totally or partially lose the merit of the fast, but does not sin against the precept of the fast. The same holds regarding quality. On days of fast only: a) not even meat is excluded (which before the CIC was a matter of controversy); b) it is not forbidden to mix meat with fish (this, however, was formerly forbidden). Even the place that the principal meal must occupy in the day of fast is not strictly determined, whatever may be said of ancient customs and the disputes of ancient authors. Custom in our countries makes the principal meal the pranzo, which is usually taken around the noon hour. But one may also invert the pranzo with the evening meal or even take the evening meal in the morning, then the pranzo at noon and the morning collation in the evening (can. 1251 § 2). Some determination exists regarding the duration of the principal meal. It is concordantly admitted that one cannot without fault prolong the pranzo beyond two hours, barring a just cause, such as the custom of lengthening the time when there are guests. The pranzo must be morally continuous, since a notable interruption would lead to several meals, which is not permitted. The determination of the interruption is to be made according to a more moral than mathematical reckoning, taking into account the intention of the one fasting, as well as the more or less long interruption. The interruption, in general, is held to be of no notable extent within half an hour; but, if one has interrupted legitimately, even an interruption of an hour does no harm and therefore one may lawfully continue the pranzo.

2. Collation or morning meal and evening meal or supper

At present, even on days of fast, in the morning it is permitted to take a little food, that is, a small quantity of coffee, chocolate and the like with a little bread, sweets, fruit or a quantity of nutritious food, except meat (Pontifical Commission for the Interpretation, 29 Oct. 1919). The quantity allowed is about 60 gr. (S. Penit., 24 Nov. 1843), unless the constitution or the office to be performed requires something more.

In the evening too a modest meal is now permitted according to that quantity and quality of food (except meat and meat broth) permitted by local custom.

Regarding quantity, each one may take as much as is necessary to attend suitably to his own duties; but in general, the quantity, considered in nature, allowed by theologians is from 250 to 300 gr., or by another reckoning one may say that a fourth part of a full pranzo is allowed.

On Christmas Eve, universal custom permits a quantity double that usual on days of fast.

Custom, generally expressed in diocesan acts and in the practice of good faithful, indicates, as has been said, the quality of the foods permitted. In many places dairy products and eggs are lawful.

Pilgrims may certainly follow local customs regarding quantity and quality. Indeed, according to some, they may even follow the more favorable customs of their domicile, provided scandal is avoided.

3. Matter not injurious to the law of the fast

No liquid breaks the fast, that is, everything that is taken as a drink to quench thirst or aid digestion, or as medicine.

The violation of the fast can be substantial or accidental. The fast is violated substantially when one takes so great a quantity of food that it is equivalent to another pranzo or full meal. If this is done knowingly, one sins gravely, whereas, if it is done through ignorance, inadvertence or forgetfulness, there is no sin, but the fast no longer exists for that day.

The accidental violation of the fast occurs when one takes something as food, but the essence of the fast still remains; it is commonly admitted that a quantity of food of 130 gr. constitutes a grave accidental lesion whether taken in continued time or taken at different times (v. Denz-U, n. 1129, prop. 29 proscribed by Alexander VII). However, if taken at a different time, the more common doctrine admits that a greater quantity than 130 gr. is required.

In the negative doubt of having violated the fast, the obligation of the fast substantially remains; in the positive doubt, according to the norm of probabilism, one is no longer bound.

V. EXCUSING CAUSES FROM FASTING

There are three: moral impossibility, arduous work, dispensation.

1. Moral impossibility

Every positive law, provided it does not concern something intrinsically evil or common harm or extreme spiritual harm to someone, does not oblige with grave inconvenience, whether physical or moral.

2. Arduous and continuous work for several hours

This concerns not only manual work but also intellectual work; therefore, if fasting prevented one from fulfilling one's duties or forced one to perform them with great effort or weakness of strength, one is not obliged to observe the fast.

Excused, given heavy work, are peasants, blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, stonecutters, shoemakers, weavers, porters, etc. Custom also excuses those engaged in less heavy work, such as typographers, soldiers, servants, shepherds, painters, fishermen, hunters, etc., that is, those who work almost the whole day in fields, workshops, and industrial trades. Although professionals in the liberal arts are not excused in themselves, nevertheless they too are excused from fasting if they devote themselves with great commitment to these disciplines, whether by studying many hours a day or by practicing their profession, and especially if they are of weak constitution; thus judges, lawyers, professors, students, etc. Confessors who must hear confessions for 7 or 8 hours a day, preachers or missionaries who have a sermon almost every day, if it involves great fatigue of preparation or delivery, are excused from fasting. Likewise excused are public employees who work about 9 hours a day. Finally, travelers too are excused when the journey entails considerable inconvenience.

3. Dispensation

The obligation of fasting ceases if one is dispensed by the legitimate superior. Often the cause in itself is not sufficient to excuse from fasting, but it is sufficient to ask the superior for a dispensation, all the more so since the obligation of the law depends on the will of the superior, who, if he believes fit, can remove that bond. The dispensation can be granted for fasting alone or for abstinence alone or for both.

4. Author of the dispensation

In the Church those who can dispense from fasting are: a) the Pope, who always dispenses validly and, when there is a just motive, also licitly (lacking a just motive there would be acceptance or preference of persons); b) the Ordinary of the diocese in individual cases or for individual families; however, he can dispense the whole diocese for reasons of public health or for a great concourse of people. The Ordinary, in order to dispense not only licitly but also validly, must have a just cause (since he dispenses in the law of a superior); in his diocese he can dispense everyone, outside the diocese only his own subjects (can. 1245 § 1-2); c) the parish priest can dispense everyone (including pilgrims) within the limits of the parish, but only individual faithful or individual families; outside the parish he has the same faculty only for his own parishioners (can. 1245 § 1). Also the vicar who supplies for an absent parish priest or is delegated by him, even though the parish priest himself is present, can dispense individual faithful or individual families; d) the superiors of an exempt clerical religious order have the same faculty as the parish priest (to dispense in individual cases) with regard to professed members, novices, and all those who, by reason of service, education, hospitality, or illness, reside in the religious house for a whole day (it is enough to have the intention of remaining for such time; can. 1245 § 3); e) delegates within the limits of the delegation.

Confessors, unless they have been delegated, physicians, and superiors of religious women cannot dispense, but they can declare whether in the case there is an excusing cause from fasting.

VI. MORAL OBLIGATION

The law of fasting is a positive precept and binds under pain of mortal sin those who are bound by it, unless they have some excusing cause. On Sept. 24, 1665, Alexander VII condemned the following proposition: "Whoever violates the ecclesiastical fast to which he is bound does not sin mortally, provided he does not do so out of contempt or disobedience, for example, because he does not wish to submit to the precept" (Denz-U, n. 1123).

Invincible ignorance, complete inadvertence or forgetfulness excuse from formal sin.

Giuseppe Sima

VII. CURRENT RELEVANCE OF THE LAW ON DIVORCE

After all that has been said and reported, one consideration arises spontaneously: why is there still a law of fasting when its concrete observance, already objectively, owing to a combination of circumstances, is quite limited; and, what is more, the faithful often add to this their neglect of the precept itself?

The reason for this phenomenon has been sought in the decline of faith and of the Christian spirit, and it must be admitted that this has had a great influence; yet it must be acknowledged that this is not the only cause. Cases of physical or moral impossibility are far more frequent than theologians foresee. On account of these considerations, not a few, at the time of the promulgation of the Code, expected a mitigation of the law, which did not come. Desiring it nonetheless, they took care to introduce it (cf. Ami du clergé, 1921; Ephémérides theologiae Lavandenses, 4 [1927], pp. 207-11); but this mitigation, after the CIC, despite the attempt to introduce a contrary custom, could not be obtained for lack of sufficient time for its introduction. All the more, then, one cannot admit what no one dares to write but is often repeated: that the law of fasting no longer obliges, because only a few observe it. This reason, writes Merkelbach (Summa theol. mor., 5th ed., II, Paris 1947, p. 897, n. 954, note 1), is not sufficient, because the law has not become harmful or contrary to reason. On the contrary, every year, on the occasion of Lent, in the individual dioceses and churches it is customary to inculcate it anew; and the very dispensations that the faithful request presuppose the persistence of the law. All this prevents the introduction of a custom contra ius.

Moreover, in the extraordinarily adverse circumstances produced by the war, the supreme legislator (Apostolic Indult of 19 Dec. 1941, AAS, 33 [1941], p. 516) felt a fatherly need to lighten the law of abstinence and of fasting, but he did so by granting to Ordinaries, by way of general indult, the faculty to dispense within the territory of their own jurisdiction, while at the same time keeping firm the observance of the law for the faithful of the Latin rite on the two days of Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and for the faithful of the other rites on two days to be established by their own Ordinaries.

More recently, then (Sacred Congregation of the Council, 28 Jan. 1949), in view of the improvement in circumstances, it partially restored the law of abstinence and of fasting, providing that the faculty granted to Ordinaries to dispense be limited in the following way: 6) abstinence is to be observed on all Fridays of the year; 8) abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday and the vigils of the Assumption and of Christmas; on which days, however, all Ordinaries are given the faculty to concede the use of eggs and dairy products even at the small morning and evening refreshments (AAS, 41 [1949], pp. 32-33).

In these two decrees, besides leaving it to Ordinaries to avail themselves or not of these faculties, the Holy See has always recommended that the granting of the indult be accompanied by the recommendation to make up for the lacking bodily mortification with exercises of Christian perfection and of charity. All this leads to a fundamental consideration.

The Church, although not a few wish the law of fasting abolished as impracticable, is on the contrary very zealous regarding it. One might think that it is only the weight of a long tradition that determines this, but the reason is in fact deeper.

The fasting prescribed by the Church is an act of public and social worship. It is not the isolated faithful who mortifies himself, it is the Church herself who spiritualizes and purifies herself, fixing and ordering this special mode of purification. Moreover, it is intimately linked with the spiritual and social life of the faithful. During Lent fasting constitutes the object of all the most beautiful liturgical prayers; the faithful are obliged or at least exhorted to abstain from entertainments, to frequent the word of God; even today, though less than once, civil life itself feels that Lent is a time sacred to all.

To remove ecclesiastical fasting and leave only the moral and natural duty of mortification would be very pernicious for the life of the faithful, because many would then in practice be led to take no account at all of bodily mortification.

Now the Church, in the positive precept, has fixed the general bases for the observance of fasting, because, since it is imposed on the whole community of the faithful, it must also have a common external manifestation.

Within this norm, then, the faithful must truly love the mortification of their flesh and of their spirit.

Pietro Palazzini

VIII. FASTING IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

In all religions one finds the practice of fasting either during a determined period of time, with complete abstinence from eating and drinking (natural fasting), or with the limited use of certain foods and drinks (partial fasting); for abstinence from particular foods, v. ASTINENZA.

Fasting is called public if it is prescribed for the entire community, private if it depends on the will of individuals. In relation, then, to the purpose it sets for itself, fasting can be an exercise of penance or of propitiation, or a rite of sorrow directed at expressing mourning, as well as a rite of preparation for certain acts of religion or for special ceremonies. Mention is made in this regard of the fast of the month of ramagān (the ninth month of the Muslim lunar year), consisting in absolute abstinence from food, drink, smoking and sexual relations from dawn to sunset. Sometimes fasting is a rite of purification in preparation for every act that puts man in communication with God, especially in the Communion of ritual food. Fasting also serves to place the one who practices it in favorable conditions for procuring visions and hallucinations.

Among primitive peoples there prevails the prohibition against using for profane food the flesh of sacred animals, or sacred plants; among the Indians, the Orphics and the Pythagoreans, who admitted metempsychosis, it was forbidden to feed on any living being. One must also remember the abstinence from the use of impure animals, not for hygienic reasons or reasons of repugnance, but only because it was believed that they contained something contrary to the divine principle, or because it was held that they belonged in some way to demonic powers. For this reason among the Pythagoreans there prevailed the prohibition of egg-laying creatures, of eggs, of certain fish and of the broad bean among vegetables (Diog. Laert., Vita Pythag., 29, 33).

As for the origin of fasting, some have thought that grief over the loss of a relative may have led to forgetfulness of food, and in this way fasting would have become a conventional sign of grief in the cult of the dead. Others explain fasting by the fear of contagion, the abstinence from objects or foods contaminated by contact with the dead. Yet others, finally, have thought that the practices of sobriety and temperance required by the philosophers may have led to the idea of religious fasting. As a practice of asceticism it is prescribed in Orphism and by Pythagoras; as a rite of preparation for initiation or for certain ceremonies it is found commonly practiced in the cult of Eleusis, of Ceres, of Mithra, of Attis and Cybele, for whom one fasted on March 24. Apuleius prepared himself with 10 days of fasting for the practices of magic. Fasting prepared one in Athens for the festival of the Thesmophoria.

Alberto Galetti

IX. DIVORCE AND SCIENCE

In order to understand the problems posed by fasting, one must recall the meaning and the fate of the various types of food materials normally introduced. On this point see ASTINENCE. The question now arises: for how long can the organism, during a period of fasting, cope by its own means with the deprivation of the various types of food (carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, vitamins)? Secondly, how will it make up for their absence? Finally, since such a state of affairs can only have a limited duration, at the end of which it will inexorably lead — unless corrected — to death, what are the immediate factors of this?

As regards the first of the three questions proposed, that of duration, the answer is very different according to the species, or rather according to the different character of their metabolism. As is, moreover, easily foreseeable, forms with a sluggish metabolism, like all heterotherms, are those which, in relation to the lesser consumption of dynamogenic materials and the greater slowness of wear, offer the greatest resistance to fasting, which can reach truly astonishing periods, if evaluated on the basis of our own possibilities. Durations of a year are common both in invertebrates and in lower vertebrates. Thus, a leech, for example, can remain fasting for a year and more, after having completely exhausted the reserve of blood with which it fills its digestive tract each time it finds itself able to suck; not to mention argus reflexus, which, after an abundant blood-meal, fasts for as long as seven years. Similar durations reappear also for vertebrates: the case is cited of snakes that survived even two years of fasting. Resistance drops considerably, however, in homeotherms, in which adaptation to a body temperature higher than the ordinary environmental average implies the necessity of active combustions, in order to cope with the continuous loss of heat by radiation. In relation to this, the maximum duration of fasting varies considerably from species to species, as a function precisely of the extent of such radiation, and can, in fact, be evaluated as inversely proportional to the linear dimensions of the animal. When one considers that smaller dimensions correspond to a body surface that is smaller in absolute value but greater as a relative value, that is, referred to the unit of volume and therefore of weight, one will understand how small animals face a thermal radiation much greater than large ones and are therefore endowed with a much more intense metabolism and, correspondingly, possess far lower resistances to fasting.

Particular conditions are offered by hibernating mammals (e.g., marmots), in which fasting can last much longer than would be expected, because here a further adaptation is superimposed, which allows the animal to survive a lowering of body temperature by several degrees.

For man, the few reliably documentable data lead us to consider the maximum duration of fasting to be around 70 days or so, a value somewhat lower than what would have been foreseeable on the basis of the relation with linear dimensions.

During fasting, the organism — once the last residues of the digestive tract are exhausted — passes to the attack on its reserves. First of all the carbohydrates and, in particular, the glycogen of the liver, which rapidly disappears; subsequently that of the muscles. At a second stage, the fat accumulated in the subcutaneous adipose layer and in the intervisceral pads comes into play. Moreover, with the onset of inanition, the curve of metabolic intensity also falls; although the data on the matter are not entirely concordant, it nevertheless seems that this lowering cannot simply be attributed to the simultaneous decrease in weight, but, being more rapid than this, expresses a particular adaptation by which the organism adjusts the intensity of its metabolism to the particular emergency conditions in which it finds itself, and to the consequent need for economy. In the case of man, for example, one passes from the production of 30.2 calories per kg. of weight on the first day, to 17 calories on the forty-second. At the end, a sharp rise in the metabolic curve, of still obscure significance, forms part of the picture of those pathological phenomena that herald the now imminent end and accompany it.

We have, up to this point, spoken of the dynamogenic foods par excellence, carbohydrates and lipids. As regards proteins, which, though also usable for energy purposes, are nevertheless the precious components of protoplasmic structures, the rapid initial fall of urinary nitrogen — which then remains for a long time at this level — attests that the organism places itself, at first, in a regime of protein economy. Toward the end, a sharp rise in the nitrogen excretion curve reveals the entry into play of proteins. Once the ternary reserves are exhausted, it is now their turn to feed the last flicker of life. But we are by now within the sphere of pathological facts, when the organism is forced to attack the very constituents of its tissues. Moreover, the self-regulating power still plays a role in directing even this last phase: the nervous system is the one that persists intact the longest, the last to decrease in weight. The first, instead, to be reduced is the liver, which can be related, not only to the quantity of reserves contained in it, but also to the fact that its parenchymal mass must be considered (judging from the results of Remotti's research) much greater than that corresponding to the functional requirements of a given moment, so as to allow, moment by moment, a disponibility of territories at rest.

As for the third category of foods — vitamins —, once the meager quantities still present in the tissues are exhausted, the functional effects of their deficiency will not fail to make themselves felt. In fact, prolonged fasting is accompanied by a series of disturbances referable not simply to the quantitative lack of food intake, but, in all likelihood, at least in part, to the vitamin deficit, as, moreover, those disturbances which today counsel abandoning the technique of overly severe diets even in serious intestinal affections.

After a more or less long period, inanition leads — as has been said — to death. The muscular forces have gradually weakened and all functions have been depressed; but, in homeotherms, body temperature will not fall until the last days, while the excitability of the nervous elements also diminishes and secretory activity is reduced to a minimum. Autopsy will reveal, in addition to the extreme reduction of adipose tissue (97% on average) and of the muscular masses (50%), degenerative or reductive changes affecting the most diverse tissues, first among them the hepatic parenchyma. Brain and heart are the territories that, even for anatomopathological purposes, present later alterations. Moreover, death — which occurs when the overall loss of weight reaches 40-50% (rarely 60%) of the initial value — cannot be attributed to total exhaustion of every material that still feeds the basal metabolism. Other factors must be its immediate causes: toxic facts, presumably from the qualitative alterations of metabolism (one thinks of the early acetonuria of the fasting animal, or, on the other hand, of the importance of water for prolonging resistance and attenuating the pathological manifestations), or profound functional disturbances of vitamin deficiency.

From what has been said thus far, it would seem that fasting should be considered solely as an abnormal occurrence in the body's economy. Nothing could be more inaccurate. It is a fact of extreme interest to find it normally intercalated in the life of very many species of the most diverse systematic position. In these cases it is not the simple deprivation of food of hibernating forms, correlated with the inertia and immobility of lethargic states; but, a far more suggestive phenomenon, it is a fast that accompanies periods of intense physiological activity: thus in holometabolous insects, during the nymphal phase, when the work of renewal of nearly all the organic apparatuses, destroyed and then rebuilt, is greatest; thus in many teleosts, in the course of the laborious process of maturation of the reproductive organs, accomplished at the expense of muscle proteins; thus again in the tadpoles of anurans undergoing metamorphosis. Such a relationship, observable in nature, is, in a certain sense, corroborated by experimental results, which seem to indicate in fasting a sort of "stimulating principle" for certain physiological periods.

But its positive importance also emerges from the fact that it has constituted, since most ancient times, a therapeutic and preventive practice, also in human hygiene and medicine. Apart from the rest that it ensures for the entire digestive system – liver and pancreas included – and therefore, indirectly, also for the cardiovascular system, lightened of all the load corresponding to the muscular and glandular work of digestion (whence the excellent practice of intercalating a day of fasting in the weekly diet), the fact that the cell comes to find itself in a deficit of food means the necessity of utilizing also products otherwise inert and not metabolized. It will be a forced metabolism, which compels it to the deepest degradation and removal of a quantity of substances ordinarily deposited as waste. Is it perhaps this discharge of waste, this deeper "cleansing," the factor of that renewed youthfulness which the experiments cited above would lead one to think of? On the other hand, in the lipid deposits, the organism accumulates – together with the reserve fat derived from alimentary excesses – also a notable proportion of catabolites (waste) that remain sequestered there, whence the adipose pads can, in a certain sense, be compared to those accumulation kidneys, of which examples are found in a great number of invertebrates. And perhaps it is precisely the necessity of freeing the circulation from these wastes that is one of the stimuli to adipogenesis; this is shown by the frequent onset of the latter, independently of alimentary excesses and rather in relation to anomalous states of metabolism. And here is a new aspect of fasting which, with the mobilization of these inert adipose deposits, also eliminates the mass of waste accumulated therein. One can, in this way, understand what a precious therapeutic means fasting constitutes, provided it is applied with certain precautions, suited to avoiding its dangers. It will be a matter, first of all, of removing from the intestine those residues that the organism rapidly reabsorbs, with all the load that accompanies them, of the toxic products of the putrefactions of the intestinal bacterial flora.

It will be a matter of ensuring, with an abundant supply of water, the normal water balance of the tissues and the normal work of the emunctories for the removal of every type of toxin; of alternating fasting or phases of hypoalimentation, during which the "dirty fat" is removed, with phases of normal and intense feeding to recharge the organism with "clean fat," ready to receive new waste.

Among the most diverse peoples and religions, fasting is found widely applied as a universal norm. Certainly one does not wish to fall back into the narrow materialistic error that, in such a precept, can see nothing but a happy physiological intuition of the legislator, who would have cloaked in spirituality a practice imposed by purely physical requirements of climate and race, continuing, in the human species, as a voluntary exercise, what, in a great number of animals, is the fruit of instinct and of the ordinary functional rhythm. The value of fasting, for man made of body and spirit, is, once and for all, suggestively impressed in the few but incisive words: "corporali ieiunio vitia comprimis, mentem elevas, virtutem largiris et praemia." These, while explicitly translating its spiritual resonances, implicitly also suggest its physiological sense, intimately connected with the former. Elasticity, that is, and freshness of the body, which, through mysterious bonds, reverberate from the physiological sphere onto that of the spirit; elasticity and freshness of mind and heart, capacity for control over the impulses of the one, of agile expansion to the elevations of the other, in a freedom of movement unknown to an organism numbed and imprisoned in the suffocating invasiveness of its own metabolism. Youth, in a word, youth of body and of spirit, which is far less the enviable privilege of a fleeting age than the lasting fruit of a conquest strongly willed and firmly defended.

Ettore Remotti