Allen's ''starvation diet'' was a particular cruelty. Patients came to him complaining of hunger and rapid weight loss, and Allen demanded further restrictions, further weight loss. ''Yes, the method was severe; yes, many patients could not or would not follow it,'' writes Bliss. ''But what was the alternative?'' Over the years, doctors recommended opium, even heaps of sugar (which only accelerated death, but since nothing else worked, why not enjoy the moment?). But nobody had a better way than Allen to extend lives. If the fasting wasn't working and symptoms got worse, Allen insisted on more rigorous undernourishment. In his campaigns to master their disease, Allen took his patients right to the edge of death, but he justified this by pointing out that patients faced a stark choice: die of diabetes or risk ''inanition,'' which Allen explained as ''starvation due to inability to acquire tolerance for any living diet.'' The Psychiatric Institute became a famine ward.