The Fasting Cure

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Dr. Edward Dewey became a fasting believer after treating a young girl who seemed to be dying. He swore off man-made medicine and began to teach fasting as a natural cure for any disease. After 35 days without food, Dr. Dewey announced that she began to recover. Later, when Edward Dewey's own baby got sick, he refused to give the baby medicine. She tried the fasting cure herself and became obsessed with physical fitness.

In 1911, two sisters traveled to Seattle to meet a "doctor" named Linda Hazzard. The sisters didn’t seem very sick, but when they arrived, Dr. Hazzard told them they didn’t have a moment to lose – they needed to begin her treatment right away.

A few months later, one of the sisters wrote a letter to her old governess. “I am wonderfully better in fact,” she said, “getting stronger by leaps.” But her handwriting was messier than usual, and her sentences ran together and overlapped.

You can find Gregg Olsen’s book, Starvation Heights, here.

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