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EATIIG and DRmKING; 
 
 A POPULAR MANUA.I. OF 
 
 FOOD AND DIET IN HEALTH AND DISEASE. 
 
 BY 
 
 GEOEGE M. BEARD, M.D. 
 
 NEW YOEK: 
 G. P. PUTIfAM & SONS. 
 
 1871. 
 
Entered according io act of Congress, in the year 1871, by 
 
 GEOEGE P. PUTNAM & SONS, 
 In the office of the librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 This volume is designed to be a companion treatise to 
 my work on Stimulants and Narcotics. What that ■work 
 did for negative, this aims to do for positive food — to give a 
 description and history of the principal articles of ordinary 
 consumption ; to show their relation to each other, and 
 their complex influence on the human system, as modified by 
 race, climate, age, sex, ha.bit,- and the progress of civiliza- 
 tion ; to expose the widely prevailing errors in regard tci 
 this subject, and to point out and enforce those practical 
 rules of dietetics which the experience of mankind has illus- 
 trated and confirmed. 
 
 The two volumes have a mutual dependence, and to a cer- 
 tain extent supplement each other. 
 
 The terms positive and negative food, which I first sug- 
 gested a few years since, I have hei-e retained, although 
 they have never been formally presented to the profession. 
 
 The distinction whicli they imply between the respective 
 action of ordinary food and stimulants and narcotics, though 
 not complete or satisfactory, is yet convenient and clear, and 
 in the present state of our ignorance of the subject, is per- 
 haps about as far as we can go. Strictly speaking, we do 
 not, in the last analysis, know how food of any kind sustains 
 the system. Why it is and how it is that beef and bread, 
 
iv PKEFAOE. 
 
 fruits and vegetables, when digested and taken into the cir- 
 culation, supply heat and force and the material for growth 
 and repair, we do not precisely know ; and all the labors of 
 chemists and physiologists leave us still in the dark. 
 
 To those who have derived their conceptions of dietetics 
 from the noisy and ignorant charlatans who in this country 
 more than in any other, through the unfortunateindiffer- 
 ence of the profession, have monopolized the public atten- 
 tion, the facts and conclusions of this work must seem revo- 
 lutionary, if not incredible. 
 
 Those who believe that the chief end of man is to be 
 hungry, will find in this volume little to confirm, perhaps 
 much to disturb that belief. Those who expect that the na- 
 tural a^jpetite, as a guide in determining the quantity and qual- 
 ity of our food, is to be superseded by the chemist or the 
 scales, and who are unwilling to listen to opposing argu- 
 ments, will need to read no further than this preface. 
 
 The vast avmy of Jeremiahs who have gone up and down 
 the land, predicting that our gluttony would be our ruin, 
 will be surprised and gratified at the suggestion that the 
 vice o| over-eating, once so prevalent, is under civilization 
 fast disappearing, and that it is no longer national or univer- 
 I sal ; that indeed the tendency among the intellectual and 
 cultivated classes of our time is to eat too little rather than 
 i^^o much. 
 
 If there be any who suspect that the classification of Lie- 
 big has correctly or exhaustively expressed the chemistry of 
 food, they would do well to consider the very numerous 
 facts which demonstrate that iu extremely hot, as well as in 
 extremely cold climates, the so-called heat-producing foods 
 in large quantities are imperatively demanded. 
 
 The dogma that fish diet increases the power and activity 
 of the intellect — which, unlike most of the popular errors, 
 has been sanctioned by eminent names in science — which 
 has hitherto never been formally disputed, I hiJve shown to 
 be quite the reverse of the truth, and if there are any -yho 
 have failed to derive the promised increase of brain-power 
 
PEErAOE. V 
 
 \ 
 
 from a diet composed largely of fish, they -will find in this 
 ■work the consolation that they are not alone in their failure. 
 
 The cruel edicts which dietarians have so rigidly enforced 
 —that only one or two varieties should be taken at a time ; 
 that there should, be no drinking at meals ; that the appetite 
 is to be subdued rather than guided, and that a sense of sa- 
 tiety^is a_ j!onviction of sin — are shown to have no scien- 
 tific foundation. For- those who are proclaiming that the 
 hope of salvation of the race depends on our returning to 
 the dietetic habits of our fathers, I have adduced facts and 
 reasonings, which show that the law of evolution applies to 
 diet as demonstrably as to all else in (nature, and that to re- 
 vive the eating and drinking customy of the past, while re- 
 taining our present customs and constitutions, would be to 
 imperil our civilization. 
 
 The dietetic treatment which I have recommended for 
 nervous dyspepsia— a disease with which nearly all intelli- 
 gent Americans become acquainted before they die — will be 
 found to be as much more successful than the opposite me- 
 thod, which has so long prevailed, as it is m.ore scientific 
 and agreeable. 
 
 The task which I have here begun of raising hygiene to 
 a science, based on experience, and confirmed, guided and 
 illustrated by chemistry, physiology, and other allied sciences, 
 is one of appalling difftculties, not the least of which is, that 
 first of all it becomes necessary to clear away the rubbish 
 that has been accumulating through centuries of ignorance, 
 and to eradicate errors that have been so long rooted in the 
 popular mind, as to have acquired the strength that belongs 
 to possession, and the authority and sacredness that are 
 attributed to age. 
 
 Fully recognizing on the part of a popular scientific 
 writer a double fealty, fin the one hand to the science 
 that I represent, and on the other to the people for 
 whom I write, I have sought to make these works as 
 true to scientific methods as though they were designed for 
 
VI PEEFACE. 
 
 an audience strictly professional, and at the same time fully 
 comprehensible to the readers of the ordinary newspaper, 
 which in this country constitutes the almost exclusive intel- 
 lectual entertainment of those who are able to read at all. It 
 has been my aim to treat the subjects here discussed so 
 thoroughly and so impartially, that even those who question 
 the soundness of my views, may find in these volumes the 
 best materials to sustain their gueries, and the strongest 
 weapons with which to combat the doctrines that I teach. 
 
 Some of the practical portions of this work — the diet of 
 brain-workers and students — originally appeared in the 
 Hours at Home magazine, and the College CouranI, and it 
 has been a source of gratification to learn that they have 
 been of substantial service to many erring sufierers. My 
 hope is that in this permament form they may be yet more 
 widely useful. 
 
 I desire to express my obligations to Mr. S. B. Noyes, 
 Librarian of the Brooklyn Mercantile Library, who, during 
 all the laborious investigations that the preparation of these 
 works have called forth, has very cheerfully and with remark- 
 able patience, and oftentimes without solicitation, given me 
 the aid of his extensive bibliographical knowledge and ex- 
 perience, and the free range of the remarkably well-selected 
 collection of books under his charge. Similarly, I am 
 indebted to Mr. Hannah, the accompUshed Librarian of the 
 Long Island Historical Society. 
 
 For information concerning the dietetic habits of the 
 East, I am under obligations to Naotaro Yangimoto, of 
 Japan. 
 
 o. M. B. 
 
 New Yoke, October 1st, 1871. 
 
SOUECES OF INFOEMATION ON THE SUBJECT OP 
 THIS WOEK. 
 
 Until quite recently, the profession had written scarcely any- 
 thing of truly real value on the important department of Dietetics. - 
 
 Within the past few years a number of careful and scholarly ob- 
 servers, especially in Europe, have endeavored to advance and to 
 popularize this branch of hygiene both by laborious experiment- 
 ing and a judicious use of the pen. 
 
 Of the very numerous special writings on this subject that have 
 recently been pubhshed in this eountrj', none, so fer as I am 
 aware, have been prepared by writers of scientific attainments and 
 reputation ; and most of them contain such a large admixture of er- 
 ror and absurdity that they should be carefully avoided by those 
 who have any regard for scientific truth or for their own physical 
 wellbeing. The latest views of the profession on the subject are 
 found in the following wiitings, to many of which I have been 
 more or less indebted. 
 
 H. Lethebt. — ^Lectures ctu Food, London, 1870. 
 
 C. A. Camebon, M. D On rood and Diet, London, 1871. 
 
 HOBACE DoBELL, M., D — On Diet and Kegimen in Sickness and Healtli, Lon- 
 don, 1870. 
 
 WniiAM Beinton, M. D.— On Food and its Digestion. 
 
 Jonathan Peeeika, M. D.— On Food and Diet. 
 
 A. Bbighak, M. D.— On Mental Exertion in Belation to Health. (This work, 
 now almost forgotten, was certainly far in advance of the age in 
 which it was written, and is well worthy of study. It was but re- 
 cently that I. read it, and found that Dr. Brigham had anticipated 
 me in some views that I have in this work demonstrated by histo- 
 ric facts.) 
 
 y 
 
Ylii EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 W. Maboet On the Composition of Food, and how it is adulterated, Lon- 
 don, 1866. 
 
 Thomas H. Hoskins, M. D What we Eat, 1861. 
 
 AcsiiN Flint, Jr.— On the Physiological Effects of Severe and Protracted 
 Muscular ExerciBe upon the Excretion of Nitrogen, New York, i871. 
 
 Geo. M. Beabd, M. D.— Our Home Physician, New York, 1869. 
 
 LlEBlG. — Animal Chemistry, London, 1840. 
 
 Hatjghton. — Relation of Food to Work, Lancet, Aug. 15, 22, and 29, 1868 
 
 Paten Precis theorique et pratique des substances alimentatres,1865. 
 
 E. Lankestee.— On Food, 1864. 
 
 A. SoxER The Pautropheon, or the History of Food and its Preparation 
 
 from the Earliest Ages of the World, 1863. 
 
 Gastronomy, or the School for Good living, London, 1822. 
 
 Peter L. Simmonds. — The Curiosities of Food, 1857. 
 
 Austin Flint, Sa. — Alimentation in Disease. New York Medical Journal, Feb, 
 1868. 
 
 My information concerning the eating customs of different 
 countiies was derived from a large variety of works of travel, 
 some of whicli are included in the following list. For the gener- 
 alizations from the facta I am alone responsible. 
 
 P. S. Simmonds.— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom. 
 London, 1854. 
 
 John Montgomery. — Wealth of Nature. Edinburgh, 1870. 
 
 J. M. GiLLlss.— U. S. Astronomical Expedition. Washington, 1865. 
 
 Chaeles Darwin. — Origin of Species. 
 
 Varieties of Animals and Plants under domestication. New Yori, 
 
 18P3. 
 
 Descent of Man. New York, 1871. 
 
 Herbert Spenoer. — ^Principles of Biology. New York, 1867. 
 
 Henry T. Buckle.— History of Civilization. Nfew York, 1868. 
 
 Prof, and Mrs. Louis Agassiz.— A Journey in Brazil. New York, 1868. 
 
 James Richardson. -Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, 1848. 
 
 Henry Barth — Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa. Now 
 
 York, 1857. 
 H. B. Tristram — The Groat Sahara. London, I860. 
 W. WiNwooD Read.- -Savage Attica. New York, 1&69. 
 Paul B. du Chaillu.— Wild Liie under the Ec(uat0);. New York, 1864. 
 Equatorial Africa. New York, 1862. 
 
SOUECES OP INFORMATION. IX 
 
 Paul B. du Chaillu.— A Journey to Ashango. London and New York, 1867. 
 
 EiMMELiNE LoTT. — Harem Life. Philadelphia. 
 
 S. S. Hiix,— Travels in Peru and Mexico. London, 18G0. 
 
 M. Hue— A Journey through Tartary, Thibet and China. New York, 1852. 
 
 -. A Journey through the Chinese Empire. New York, 1855. 
 
 pLiNT Miles. — Kamblee in Iceland. New York, 1859, 
 
 Chaeles S. Fokbes. — Iceland. London, 1860. 
 
 John Babbow. — A Visit to Iceland. London, 1835. 
 
 Alexander von Humboldt.'— Personal Narrative of Travels. Bohn's Library. 
 
 London, 1852. 
 N. H. Bishop.— A Thousand Miles Walk acroes'South America. Boston, 1867. 
 Don Ramon Paez.— Wild Scenes in South America. New York, 1862. 
 pETEXt ScHMiDTMETER. — Travels in Chile. London, 1824. 
 Kidder and Fletcher.— Brazil and the Brazilians. 
 John Capper. — The Three Presidencies of India. Loudon, 1853. 
 India. — ^Pictorial, Descriptive and Historical. Bohn's Library. London, 1859. 
 H. DwiGHT Williams.— A Year in China. New York, 1869. 
 Wm. M. Thomson, D.D.— The Land and the BOok. New York, 1859. 
 Ida Pfeiffer. ^Travels to Madagascar. New York, 1861. 
 Maeoo Polo. — Travels. Edinburgh, 1844. 
 F. Shobert.— Persia. Philadelphia, 1828. 
 CusTiNE.— Bussia, 1854. 
 
 Thomas Forrester.— Norway in 1848 and 1849. London, 1850. 
 William Giffdrd Palgrave.— Central and Eastern Arabia, London, 1866. 
 Charles MacFarlane. — Japan, 1856. 
 GrEORGE Kennan.— Tent Life in Siberia, 1870. 
 Samuel Hazard. — Cuba, with pen and pencil, 1871. 
 Alfred Russell Wallace. — The Malay Archipelago, 1869. 
 
 Travelp on the Ainazou and Bio Negro. London. 
 
 Richard J. Bush —Reindeer, Dogs and Snow ShoQS, 1871. 
 
 F. Whymper. — Travels and Adventures in Alaska. New York, 18S9. 
 
 Albert S. Bickmore. — Travels in the Indian Archipolago,_1869. 
 
 Speke.— Sources of the Nile, 1864. 
 
 E, K. Kane.— Arctic Explorations. Philadelphia, 1856. 
 
 J. NEViNS.—China and the Chinese. New York, 1869. 
 
 J. DooLiTTLE. — Sacred Life of the Chinese. New York, 1865. 
 
 Vambery. — Travels in Central Asia, 1865. 
 
 J. J. Hates.— The Open Polar Sea, 1867. 
 
X EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 Campbell.— Ceylon, 1843. 
 
 Massfield Pauktns.— Life in Abyssinia. New York, 1864. 
 
 BicHABD P. BuBTON.— Tlie Lalre Regions of Central Africa. New York, 1860. 
 
 John Miees.— Travels in ChUe and La Plata. London, 1826. 
 
 Vr. S. W. KnsoHENBERGEE, M. D.— A Voyage Bound the World. Philadelphia, 
 
 1838. 
 John Blaokie.— Among the Goths and Vandals. London, 1870. 
 
 Among the authorities on social customs are the following : 
 
 Geo. Bobebts. — Social History of England. London, 1856. 
 
 ■William Goodman.— The Social History of Great Britain. New York, 1845. 
 
 James Logan. — Manners, Customs and Antiquities of Scotland. Hartford, 1855. 
 
 Alexaitoeb Andrews The lilighteeuth Century. London, 1856. 
 
 BoBEBT Chambers. — Domestic Annals of Scotland, Edinburgh, 1861. 
 
 Sharon Turner. — History of the Anglo-Saxons. London, 1852. 
 
 John Dunlop. — Artificial and Compulsory Drinking Usages of the United 
 
 Kingdom. London, 1849. 
 Samuel Morkwood. — History of Inebriatuig Liquors. Dublin, 1838, 
 George Young.^A Treatise on Opium. London, 1753. 
 Edward Barby. — Observations, Historical, Critical and Medical, on the Wines 
 
 of the Ancients, and the Analogy between them and Modern Wines. 
 
 London, 1775. 
 John Ellis. — Historical Account of Coffee. London, 1764. 
 J. 0. Lettsom, M. D. — On Tea and Tea Drinking. London, 1762. 
 
 Besides these, some of the writings referred to in my work on 
 Stimulants and Narcotics may be consulted with advantage. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAOE 
 
 The Object of JSating and Dkinking 1 
 
 The Waste of the System during Life never Ceases 2 
 
 The Waste of the Body must be Supplied 3 
 
 Material Necessary for the Growth of the Body 4 
 
 Material Necessary for Warmth 5 
 
 How the Forces, the Growth, and the Heat of the Body are 
 
 maintained 5 
 
 Difficulty of Defining, Food , 5 
 
 Hunger — Thirst — Starvation 7 
 
 CHAPTEB II. 
 
 How Men have potWD otjt what to Eat and Deink — Clas- 
 sification OF Food 9 
 
 Elementary Constituents of the Human Body 12 
 
 Proximate Constituents 13 
 
 Divisions and Proximate Constituents of Food 13 
 
 Carbo-Hydrates 13 
 
 Oils and Fats 14 
 
 Albuminoids 15 
 
 Salts . .■ , 15 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 Histobt and T)escbiption of the Pkincipai; Vakietibs of Food 16 
 
 Animal Food 16 
 
XU CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Beef 17 
 
 Mutton 17 
 
 Bacon and Pork 17 
 
 Poultry, Babbits, etc., 18 
 
 Veal and Lamb 18 
 
 Horse Plesli 18 
 
 Bones 19 
 
 Tripe 19 
 
 Blood 19 
 
 Eggs 19 
 
 Milk 19 
 
 Cream 20 
 
 Whey 20 
 
 Butter 20 
 
 Cheese 20 
 
 The Cow Tree 20 
 
 Vegetable Cheese 21 
 
 Butter Tree 21 
 
 Pish 21 
 
 Mackerel, -Eels, Salmon and Herring 22 
 
 SheU Pish 22 
 
 Turtle 22 
 
 Cereals 22 
 
 "Wheat, Eye, Barley and Oats ■ 22 
 
 Bread 23 
 
 Maize or Indian Com 24 
 
 Buckwheat Plour 24 
 
 , Eice 24 
 
 Vegetables 25 
 
 Potatoes 25 
 
 Sweet Potatoes 25 
 
 Vams 25 
 
 Plantains 25 
 
 Tuiuips, Parsnips and Carrots 25 
 
 Cabbage _ _ _ 26 
 
 Peas and Beans 26 
 
 Beets 26 
 
 Onions 26 
 
 Cucumbers 27 
 
CONTENTS. XIU. 
 
 Pumpkins and Squashes 27 
 
 Tomatoes 27 
 
 Priiits 27 
 
 The Peach 27 
 
 Apricots 28 
 
 Plums 28 
 
 Cherries 28 
 
 Apples 28 
 
 Pears 28 
 
 Strawberries .;. 29 
 
 Gooseberries 29 
 
 Watermelons, Muskmelons and Oantelopes 29 
 
 Cranberries '. 29 
 
 Whortleberries, Blackberries, etc., 29 
 
 Fruits not very Nutritive 30 
 
 Tropical Fruits 31 
 
 Oranges 31 
 
 The Duriou 32 
 
 Bread Fruit 33 
 
 Lemons and Limes 33 
 
 Pineapple 34 
 
 Bananas 34 
 
 Cocoanut 34 
 
 Figs, Kaisins, Dates, Prunes 34 
 
 Nuts 35 
 
 Chestnuts 35 
 
 Sugar 35 
 
 Ice Cream 36 
 
 Water 36 
 
 Soda Water ' 38 
 
 Condiments 38 
 
 The Pepper 39 
 
 Ginger 39 
 
 Turmeric 39 
 
 Curry Powder 39 
 
 Common Salt : 40 
 
 Substitutes for Salt ^0 
 
 Chivi 41 
 
 Cupana, Chinia, Cibo 41 
 
 Relation of Food to Work 41 
 
XIV CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Eatihq CnsTOMS in Dutebent Pabts oe the WoeijD, with 
 
 Conclusions THEUErsoM 45 
 
 A Eoyal Feast in Africa 47 
 
 Tropical Productions 49 
 
 Clay Eaters : 50 
 
 Evolution of Pood 51 
 
 The Law of Evolution applies allso to Negative Food 53 
 
 The World Underfed 55 
 
 Gluttony a Vice of the Past 57 
 
 Overeating very Karely a Cause of Chronic Diseases among 
 
 the Intelligent Classes 58 
 
 The Ruling People FleSh- eaters 59 
 
 Flesh Diet — Cannibalism 61 
 
 The Law ajiplies to the Lower Animals 61 
 
 Cannibals more Courageous and Active than Vegetarians 61 
 
 Gouamba, or Meat-hunger 62 
 
 Effect of Fish Diet on the Intellect 63 
 
 Indolence and Stupidity of Fish-eaters 65 
 
 Fish-eating Communities Intellectually Inferior 66 
 
 Fish Diet a Soporific 67 
 
 Repulsive Objects used as Food 69 
 
 Appetite Hereditary 71 
 
 Rejection of Articles of Food 73 
 
 Hot Climates demand Carbo-hydrates 77 
 
 Oily Food in Hot Climates 79 
 
 Diseases caused by Food 81 
 
 Physiological Chemistry Explains Experience 83 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Four Pbaotical Rules of Dietetics 84 
 
 Sensuality of our Ancestors 85 
 
 Difficulties of Physiological Chemistry 87 
 
 Appetite the Best Guide 89 
 
 Rise and Fall of Vegetarianism 91 
 
CONTENTS. XV 
 
 Cause of the Vegetarian DeltiBioD 93 
 
 Evil Effects of Vegetarianism 95 
 
 Superstition a Cause of Vegetarianism 95 
 
 Brinking at Meals 96 
 
 Quantity of Food in Hot Climates 97 
 
 Need of Variety in Food 99 
 
 Diet Modified by Ra ce 100 
 
 Diet Modified by the Season and Climate 100 
 
 Diet Modified by Age .'.T.7; 101 
 
 Diet Modified by Sex 102 
 
 — Diet oe Women 103 
 
 -.j-Female Boarding Schools 104 
 
 Diet Modified by Individual Temperament 104 
 
 Diet Modified by Habit 105 
 
 Diet Modified by the Progress of Civilization 106 
 
 The -InsensibiUty of Savages 107 
 
 How Savages bear Stimulants Ill 
 
 How our Ancestors endured Gluttony 113 
 
 The Treatment of Diseases has Changed 114 
 
 Diet of the. Present Day 115 
 
 American vs. English, Habits of Eating 117 
 
 Eating Clubs ,. 118 
 
 Restaurants 118 
 
 Times of Eating 119 
 
 Times of Meals have Changed with the Progress of Civilization 121 
 
 Meals of the Romans 122 
 
 The Best Hour for Dining 123 
 
 Midday Lunches 124 
 
 Eating between Meals 125 
 
 Eating before Retiring 126 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 The Diet of Bbain-'Woekeks 127 
 
 Kind of Eood required by Brain-workers 129 
 
 Great Thinkers Usually Liberal Eaters. 131 
 
 CHAPTER Vn. 
 The Diet oe Athletes , 135 
 
Xvi CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTEB. VIIL 
 
 Objects amd Methods of Oookeky 13° 
 
 Frying and Boiling 1^0 
 
 Soups, Koasting, Broiling and Bread-making 141 
 
 Aef ated and Phosphorated Brdad 142 
 
 Pastry and Puddings 143 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DlETAELES • ■ 144 
 
 Dietary of British Soldiers in Time of Peace 146 
 
 A Model Diet 146 
 
 An Average Diet 147 
 
 Food for Twenty-foiir Hours 147 
 
 CHAPTEE, X. 
 
 How Food may be Adtjlteeated •Ii9 
 
 Bakers' Bread, Arrow Root, Milk, and Butter , 149 
 
 Sugar and Pickles 150 
 
 Poisonous Water , 151 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 How Food mat be Diseased 153 
 
 Diseases op Animal Food 153 
 
 Parasites in Meat 154 
 
 Diseased Fish .^ 155 
 
 Diseased and Poisonous Cereals, etc. 157 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 How Food may be Pkesekved 158 
 
 Food Preserved by Drying 158 
 
 Food Preserved by Excluding Air 158 
 
CONTENTS. XYU 
 
 FAGS 
 
 Pood Preserved by Freezing 159 
 
 Food Preserved by Chemioal Substances that prevent De- 
 composition — Antiseptics 159 
 
 Gamgee's Process ■ • • ■ 161 
 
 Preparations of Food . . . .' 161 
 
 Pemmican, Liebig's Extract of Beef, and Condensed Milk . . 161 
 
 Liebig's Food for Infants 162 
 
 CHAPTER Xin. 
 
 How THE Lean may become Fat, and the Fat Lean 163 
 
 Substances that produce Fat 165 
 
 How the Fat become Lean 167 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 The Diet ov the Dyspeptic, the Nebvous and the Con- 
 sumptive 169 
 
 Errors of Dyspeptics 171 
 
 Constipation a Result of Disease 173 
 
 A TJmversal BiU of Fare 174 
 
 Diet of Nervous Invalids 175 
 
 The Diet of Consumptives 175 
 
 Ificreasing Distaste for Fats 177 
 
 The Diet of the Sick Room 179 
 
" The first requisite for success is to be a good animal." 
 
 " Tell me what thou eatest, and I will tell thee what thou art-." 
 
EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE OBJECT OE EATESG AND DRINKING. 
 
 The object of eating and drinking is to impart heat 
 and force to the system, and to supply its waste. All ac- 
 tivity of the body — of the nervous as well as of the 
 muscular system — is attended with waste. We cannot 
 run, nor hop, nor skip, nor sUde, nor bend, nor fall, nor 
 breathe, nor hold our breath, nor lift a finger, nor hold 
 a finger stUl, nor wink, nor weep, nor smile, nor attempt 
 to repress our emotions ; nor open or compress the 
 lips, nor take a swallow of food or drink, with- 
 out changing or consuming some portions of the 
 body. 
 
 All mental activity is as much the result of bodily 
 change as muscular. For the reasoning of the philoso- 
 pher and for the love of the maiden ; for the calm cal- 
 culation of the scientist and the wild frenzy of the poet ; 
 for all fear, for all hope, for all fancy, for all adoration, 
 there is a corresponding change and waste of the brain. 
 
 It is believed that for every time we break forth into 
 passion, or breathe a prayer, there is waste of cerebral 
 
2 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 tissues without which such prayer or passion would 
 have been impossible. 
 
 In the great economy of nature force answers to force 
 and everything must be paid for. ■ 
 
 Just as the candle grows shorter as it gives light; just 
 as the coal on the grate is consumed while it warms the 
 room ; just as in the galvanic battery the acid eats away 
 the zinc in exact proportion to the quantity of elec- 
 tricity evolved, just so the brain wastes with every 
 thought and motion.* 
 
 The writing of this work, of this paragraph, of this 
 very sentence, costs more or less cerebral substance, 
 which if not replaced will leave the author poorer than 
 when he began it. The brain of the reader wastes as 
 he turns over these pages ; if he accepts these views, 
 waste will attend the emotion of acceptance ; if he re- 
 jects them, the feeling which induces such rejection will 
 be attended by chemical changes in the brain, and ad- 
 ditional argument will be arrayed against him. If he 
 merely doubt these views, the act of doubting will cost 
 him something of the most valuable part of his body, 
 by a process that ought to aid in setthng his doubts. 
 
 THE WASTE OP THE SYSTEM DURING LIFE NEVER 
 CEASES. 
 
 Even in sleep these vast and complex changes do not 
 cease. In the great human laboratory, the sound of the 
 saw and the hammer is always heard by night as well 
 
 * The question of materialism we have here no space to discuss. The state- 
 ments made above rightly represent the views of the most advanced cerebro- 
 physiologisits, and are admitted alike by those who favor and those who oppose 
 materialism. 
 
THE WASTE OP THE BODY SUPPLIED BY FOOD. 3 
 
 as by day, and only stops when its doors are closed for 
 ever. "Whether the sleep be profound or broken the 
 great tide of life rolls continuously, and every breath 
 ■we draw is the signal for innumerable atoms to change 
 their places. 
 
 That unknown and unknowable force which we call 
 Life, is a great commander, and he controls a mighty 
 and complex army. When he wills, the nerves of vital 
 force, travelling at the rate of 100 feet per second, carry 
 his commands from the head-quarters in the brain to 
 any one or to every organ; files of atoms range in platoons, 
 form in line, right about face, deploy to the right and 
 left, march slow or double quick, and an army which 
 no man can number marches hither and thither, keep- 
 ing time to the rhythm of the heart. 
 
 In short, the changes of the body are greatly dimin- 
 ished in activity, hence the necessity of sleep ; but they 
 do not entirely cease. The machinery is still going, but 
 more slowly, and at less expenditure of force. 
 
 THE WASTE OP THE BODY MUST BE SUPPLIED. 
 
 Both the matter and the force of the body are 
 limited. Great is the difference between the. weakest 
 and the strongest spesiraens of humanity ; but the 
 strongest are after all but weak, and both extremes and 
 all the intermediate grades are alike dependent on the 
 supply of matter and force that comes from food. 
 
 Just as one who continually draws on a limited ac- 
 count without making a deposit, must in time become 
 poor ; just as the candle burns to the socket, and the 
 lamp gives out because there is no more oil in it ; just 
 as the Jire on the hearth, unfed by fuel, grows fainter and 
 fainter and goes out in darkness ; just as in the gal- 
 
4 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 vanic battery the zinc must in time become so far con- 
 sumed and corroded that it can no longer generate 
 an electric current, just so the body, if its ceaseless 
 wasting be not supplied, must grow weaker and smaller, 
 and in a few days must die. 
 
 It has been estimated that the body can be reduced 
 two fifths of its weight before starvation ; that up to 
 that point the body can feed on itself, on the reserve of 
 nutriment stored up in its own receptacles. As an av- 
 erage estimate, this is probably not far from correct ; 
 but undoubtedly the starvation point must widely vary 
 with the race, the climate, the state of health, the tem- 
 perament and the power t)f will. 
 
 MATERIAL NECESSARY FOR THE GROWTH OE THE 
 BODY. 
 
 Prom birth up to the age of twenty-five or thirty, or 
 even later, the body with greater or less rapidity and 
 constancy increases in size and weight. Between thii-ty 
 and fifty, and even later, even to extreme old age, there 
 may be increase of adipose tissue, though the stature ,is 
 usually fully attained before that period. There is Httle 
 doubt, also, that the brain may increase in size after as 
 well as fore thirty, and that this increase may go on, 
 at least till middle life is reached. Now in order to 
 carry on this growth there is as much need of material 
 as there is to evolve the forces of thought and motion ; 
 and if the material be wanting, or if it be meagre and 
 insufficient, the growth must either cease or be retarded. 
 Just as a plant deprived of its needful soil, moisture 
 and sunHght, becomes stunted and dwarfed, so the 
 body, deprived of necessary food, becomes weak and 
 sickly. 
 
DIFFICULTY OF DEFINING FOOD. 
 
 MATERIAL NECESSARY FOE "WAEMTH. 
 
 The heat of the body is maintained by the chemical 
 changes that are constantly going on in it, and which 
 are necessary for its existence and growth. Animal 
 heat is a resultant of all or of many of these various 
 changes and transformations, that never cease in the 
 body so long as life remains. If, therefore, material must 
 be suppUed to replace what is lost in substance and in 
 force, it must also be supplied to keep up the warmth 
 that is generated by the active metamorphosis of tissues. 
 
 Without sustenance the body becomes cold, and the 
 greater the amount of cold that the body suffers, the 
 greater the amount of sustenance that it requires. 
 
 HOW THE FOEOES, THE GEOWTH, AND THE HEAT 
 OF THE BODY AEE MAINTAINED. 
 
 The forces, the growth, and heat of the body are prin- 
 cipally maintained by eating, drinking, and breathing. 
 The air we breathe supplies the system with oxygen ; 
 the water we drink siipplies oxygen, hydrogen, and va- 
 rious mineral S9|lts ; the food we eat supplies nearly aU 
 of the fourteen elementary substances of which the 
 body is composed. Ordinary food also contains more 
 or less water, is indeed largely composed of water ; and 
 of many alimentary substances, it is the principal in- 
 gredient. 
 
 DIFFICULTY OF DEFININGt FOOD. 
 
 The terms- that are most used, most familiar and for 
 aU practical purposes best understood, are oftentimes 
 the most difficult to define. Food is a word over which 
 
6 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 there has been not a Utile dispute, and concerning its 
 true and exhaustive definition there are broad differ- 
 ences of opinion. In the widest sense, it may include all, 
 however taken into the system, that supplies its waste, 
 maintains warmth and growth, and which corrects, inten- 
 sifies, or economizes the vital forces. 
 
 Thus defined, it includes the air that we breathe, the 
 solids that we eat, the liquids that we drink or absorb, 
 as well as the active principles of most of the stimulants 
 and narcotics, which are negative food.* 
 
 Strictly speaking, all medicine is food, and all medi- 
 cal treatment, even external applications, act as food, 
 either in a positive or negative sense. 
 
 We might go even further, and include under the term 
 all those nameless hygienic and mental influences that 
 serve to supply the waste of the body or intensify or 
 economize its forces. Certainly it is in no way fanciful 
 to call sunlight food, for it is indispensable to health ; 
 and good news from a far country is often as truly food 
 as water to the thirsty or as meat to the hungry. 
 
 The difficulty of accurately defining food comes from 
 our ignorance of physiological chemistry. We know so 
 little of the hidden processes of this body of ours, that 
 we cannot well define what does and what does not 
 minister to its substance. 
 
 For aU practical purposes food may be used in its 
 popular sense to include those substances, whether liquid 
 or solid, which, when passed into the system through the or- 
 gans of digestion, sustain life. 
 
 Food, as thus defined, I have divided into two classes — 
 Positive and Negative Food. 
 
 Positive food includes the ordinary articles of diet. 
 
 * See my work on Stimulants and Narcoiics.'ot this s 
 
HUNGER— THIBST — STAEVATION. 7 
 
 both fluid and solid, that supply positive nutritive mate- 
 rial to the system. 
 
 Negative food includes those substances that are em- 
 braced under stimulants and narcotics. 
 
 y?he subject of stimulants and narcotics is one of 
 such great difficulty and importance that it has been 
 thought worthy of separate and special consideration. 
 
 HUNGEE— THIRST— STAEVATION. 
 
 Hunger is the prayer of the body for nourishment. 
 Hunger may be appeased either by sohd or liquid food ; 
 thirst is satisfied only by water, either alone or in com- 
 bination with solids or other liquids. 
 
 This prayer of the body for nourishment should not 
 ordinarily go long unanswered. If either positive or 
 negative food is not speedily forthcoming after the de- 
 sire begins to be intensely felt, the system suffers. 
 
 One of the most terrible of deaths is that of starva- 
 tion.- 
 
 But although the sufferings of the starving are very 
 great, it is not so much hunger as debility and pain of 
 various kinds that causes the suffering. I was told by a 
 medical friend, who for two days was lost in the woods 
 without anything to eat, that the sensation of hunger soon 
 j>assed away, and an attack of nausea and vomiting, re- 
 sembling sea-sickness, came on that compelled him to rest 
 for several hours. This attack was followed by painful 
 debility but not by hunger. 
 
 Starvation from want of water, must be a death even 
 more terrible than that fi-om want of solid food, for 
 thirst is a tyrant vastly more imperious and exacting 
 than hunger. A fearful picture is drawn by Vambery 
 
8 EATING AND DEINKINGt. 
 
 of the agonies he bore in the Persian desert, from want 
 of water. A few days at most is as long as we can 
 exist without some form of liquid or solid, positive or 
 negative food.* .^ 
 
 The stories that periodically arise of young girls whbs, 
 live for weeks and months without food, may probably 
 be explained partly by fraud, and partly by ignorance. 
 At aU events they do not, thus far, seem to bear rigid 
 scrutiny. — — . -^ 
 
 * In my work on Stimulants and Narcotics, I hare given a number of re- 
 markable illufitrations of the sustaining power of alcoholic liquors, coca, 
 coffee, etc. 
 
CHAPTEE IL 
 
 HOW MEN HAVE FOCND OUT WHAT TO EAT AND DRINK — 
 CLASSIFICATION OF FOOD. 
 
 Whethee we accept or reject the Darwinian theory of 
 development, we must, at least, concede that the present 
 civihzed races of the world have arisen by slow advances 
 from the condition of semi or absolute savagery. In 
 order to answer the question how man has found out 
 what to eat and drink, we may well go back to the early 
 struggles for existence, before civilization, as we now un- 
 derstand the term, had ever been begun. We may sup- 
 pose, for example, that a portion of a tribe of about 
 the condition of the native Australians, had been mirac- 
 ulously sustained by manna up to early manhood, and 
 had been then let loose, we may say, on the African 
 continent. In a few hours they would be hungry, and 
 would seek for something to eat. They would be thirsty 
 and would seek for something to drink. How would 
 they find out what would be good and what bad, what 
 palatable, and what nauseous? There would be no 
 physiological chemistry to tell them, no one to analyze 
 the berries, herbs, roots, barks, leaves, around them, 
 and determine which were best designed for the human 
 system. 
 
10 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 Obviously there would be but one way of answering 
 the question : that is, by trial of whatever they could Jind. 
 
 In setthng the question of the healthfulness of any 
 substance, the taste would be usually a reliable guide, 
 since few natural substances that are grateful to the 
 palate are injurious to the system. But in order to 
 learn the taste of any substance they must iirst try it, 
 for neither the sense of vision nor the sense of smelling 
 could be depended on. The taste even could not be 
 relied on entirely, for many substances that are more or 
 less disagreeable, may yet be valuable as food, and may, 
 in time, become delightful. 
 
 The same difficulties would be encountered in the 
 selection of animal food. Not until they had eaten the 
 animal, or a part of it, cooked or uncooked, could they 
 know what was good and what was evil. 
 
 For drink they would naturally experiment first of 
 aU with the water of the springs, lakes, and the ocean, 
 and not until after trial would they know the difiference 
 between salt water and fresh, or hard water and soft. 
 They would be just as likely to lie down on the beach 
 and lap the waves of the sea, as by the brink of a moss 
 fringed stream. Their next experiment would likely be 
 with the milk of animals or of trees, and with the 
 juicy fruits. 
 
 As with vegetables and drinks, so with fruits ; the 
 good would be discerned from the bad, only by trial, 
 for neither the eye nor the smell would properly 
 distinguish. 
 
 The observations of each individual would be com- 
 municated to the other members of the tribe, and their 
 accumulated dietetic knowledge would be handed down 
 from generation to generation. 
 
EAELY EXPEBIMENTS OF MAN. 11 
 
 As a result of this method of experimenting, it must 
 necessarily follow — 
 
 1. That many must suffer in health, and lose their 
 Uves, by taking improper nourishment. 
 
 It is probable that many thousands have thus died 
 that we might live. 
 
 When we consider that, even in our time, the accumu- 
 lated wisdom of the ages does not prevent the occasional 
 poisoning of a family by mushrooms, or by ill selected 
 oysters, or lobsters, eaten out of seasoQ, or not properly 
 cooked ; that meat, by parasites or otherwise, annually 
 slays its victims ; that unripe and harmful fruits every 
 season increase the rate of mortality ; and that many 
 of these pernicious substances are eaten entirely with- 
 out suspicion of their pernicious character, from their 
 taste, or appearance, or flavor, we see that the reasons 
 are strong enough for believing that our distant ances- 
 tors must have suffered more than can ever be estimated 
 in their long struggle for existence, from want of die- 
 tetic knowledge. At first every mouthful was an exper- 
 iment, and an experiment that might end in disease or 
 death. 
 
 2. It would follow that the diet of the world would 
 be modified by race, climate, soil, and the state of sav- 
 agery or civilization. The past and present history of 
 the world shows that such is the case. 
 
 The dietetic customs of the world are as opposite as 
 their religious, or political, or social customs ; and among 
 all nations of a progressive character there has been 
 change in dietetic habit, with the change in civilization. 
 " Half the world," it is said", " know not how the other 
 half lives.'' The diverse customs of the world in eat- 
 
12 EATING AND DEINKINQ. 
 
 ing and drinking will be described in a subsequent 
 chapter. 
 
 As the object of food is to supply the waste of the 
 body, it is obvious that the constituents of food must, to 
 a certain extent, correspond to the constituents of the 
 body, although the body is a laboratory whose subtle 
 chemistry may and does variously transform the dissim- 
 ilar substances that it receives. 
 
 ELEMENTAHY CONSTITUENTS OP THE HUMAN BODY. 
 
 The number of elements of which the world is com- 
 posed is sixty-two. 
 
 The number of elements in the human body is four- 
 teen, as follows : 
 
 Oxygen, 
 
 Calcium, 
 
 Iron, 
 
 Hydrogen, 
 
 Sulphur, 
 
 Potassium, 
 
 Nitrogen, 
 
 Fluorine, 
 
 Magnesium, 
 
 Carbon, 
 
 Sodium, 
 
 SUieon. 
 
 Phosphorus, 
 
 Chlorine, 
 
 
 The urgency, and frequency with which any element 
 or proximate principle is required by the body, is to a 
 certain extent proportioned to its relative importance. 
 Oxygen, for example, is found in the body in great 
 abundance, for it is one of the elements of water ; and 
 w^e cannot live without breathing. 
 
 Thirst is more imperative than hunger ; we drink far 
 oftener than we eat, and water is the principal constitu- 
 ent in all our food. 
 
 Phosphorus is one of. the most important and 
 variously combined of all the elements; hence its 
 eminent importance in food and in medicine. 
 
CONSTITUENTS OF FOOD. 13 
 
 The elements of the human body are combined into 
 the following 
 
 PKOXIMA.TE CONSTITUENTS. 
 
 Water, wHoh constitutes about Pbosphate of Potash, 
 two thirds of the weight of the •' "Magnesia, 
 
 body. Carbonate of Lime, 
 Albumen, " " Soda, 
 
 Fibrin, Chloride of Sodium (common 
 
 Fat, , salt), 
 
 Gelatine, Sulphate of Po'ash, 
 
 Fluoride of Calcium, Protoxide of Iron, 
 
 Phosphate of Lime, Sulphate of Soda, 
 
 " " Soda, Silica. 
 
 These elements and proximate principles must be 
 supplied to the system directly or indirectly by the air 
 we breathe, and the positive or negative nutriment that 
 we take. 
 
 DIVISIONS AND PBOXIMATE CONSTITUENTS OF 
 FOOD. 
 
 The common varieties of food may be arranged un- 
 der the following general divisions : 
 
 I. — Caebo-Hydeates. 
 
 Alimentary substances that are composed of carbon 
 united with hydrogen and oxygen, are called carbo-hy- 
 drates. The proportion of hydrogen and oxygen is the 
 same as that in which thoy exist in water. 
 
 Under this head are included the following : 
 
 1. Starch. This is the most abundant material for 
 nutrition that is known. It consists of grains that vary 
 in size from ^^ to ^^^-j- of an inch in diameter. 
 
 Starch constitutes about 5 per cent, of turnips, 15 
 
14 EATING AND DEnjKING. 
 
 per cent, of the potato ; 60 per cent, of wheat, 82 per 
 cent, of rice. It is found also in arrow-root and tap- 
 ioca. 
 
 2. TSugars. Of sugars there are nearly a dozen differ- 
 ent varieties. Among them are Saccharose or cane, found 
 in sugar cane, beets, maple, carrots, pumpkins, etc.; 
 Glucose or grape sugar, found in honey, figs, grapes and 
 other fruits, and Lceuulose ov fruit, found in certain fruits, 
 honey, and molasses. This latter does not crystallize. 
 
 Fectose. The.pectose bodies are found in vegetables, 
 in fruit, in roots, and in foliage. It is called vegetable 
 jelly, and somewhat resembles starch and sugar. 
 
 Inulin. This substance is much like starch, and is 
 found in several vegetables, as the dandelion and chicory. 
 
 Dextrin. This is found in very small quantities in 
 several plants. In the process of malting corn it is pro- 
 duced from the starch. 
 
 Vegetable Acids. These are composed of carbon,hydro- 
 gen, and oxygen. Those which are principally known 
 are acetic acid, produced from fermentation) of the juice 
 of plants ; malic acid, found in apples, plums, cherries, 
 and other fruits, and in rhubarb ; tartaric acid, found in 
 the grape, and pine and apple, etc. ; citric acid, found in 
 the lemon ; and oxalic acid, found in the rhubarb, sorrel, 
 and other plants. 
 
 II. — Oils and Fats. 
 
 Carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, make up oils and fats, 
 but in a different proportion from the carbo-hydrates. 
 The principal fats are — 
 
 Slearifi, found in tallow. 
 
 Olein, found in oils. 
 
 Pahnitin, found in butter, wax, and oils. 
 
ALBUMINOIDS — SALTS. 15 
 
 All these consist of fatty acids combined with gly- 
 cerine. 
 
 Of the elements that are necessary for nutrition, the 
 fats and carbo-hydrates supply only three ; it is sup- 
 posed that they cannot make flesh. 
 
 m. — Albuminoids. 
 
 The leading albuminoids are — 
 
 Albumen, found in plants and animal substances. 
 
 Mbrin, found in vegetables and animal substances. 
 
 Casein, found in the pea, the bean, and in animal substances. 
 
 The gluten of wheat flour is composed both of fibrin 
 and albumen. 
 
 There are also other albuminoids that closely resemble 
 each other. 
 
 The albuminoids contain nitrogen, sulphur, and phos- 
 phorus. They are called Jiesh-formers 
 
 IV.— Saits. 
 
 Under this division are included 
 
 Potash, Soda, Lime, Magnesium, Iron, etc. 
 
 These saline matters are found associa,ted with the 
 albuminoids. 
 
 Common salt comes under this division. "Water also 
 contains salts of various kinds. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION OV THE PRINCIPAL VARIETIES 
 OF FOOD. 
 
 In this chapter I purpose to give a very general de- 
 scription and history of the varieties of food that are 
 most familiar to my readers, making no endeavor to be 
 exhaustive. 
 
 ANIMAL FOOD. 
 
 Animal food serves an important and indispensable 
 part in human nutrition. Life can be maintained with- 
 out it, especially in temperate climates ; but the 
 highest activity of the braiu and muscle is only pos- 
 sible for those whose diet consists in part of animal 
 food. That man was designed to eat animal food, is 
 shown : 
 
 1. By exjaerience, and 
 
 2. Is confirmed by a study of his organs of nutrition. 
 The size, shape, position of the teeth, and the length 
 
 of the alimentary canal, show as clearly as any fact ia 
 comparative anatomy can be made, that man does not 
 deceive himself when he concludes from his experience 
 that he is 'better, and stronger on a mixed than on a 
 purely vegetable diet. 
 
ANIMAL FOOD. 17 
 
 Beef. — Of the different kinds of meat in common 
 use, beef unquestionably stands at the head. It is the 
 king of the meats. It is about three fourths water and 
 one fourth solid matter. Fat is more nutritious than 
 ' lean meat, but is more difficult of digestion, and there 
 are very few in our climate who can take it in large 
 quantities. The solid portion of beef is composed of 
 albumen, fat, creatin, creatinin, inosinic acid, muscular 
 tissue, and various salts. 
 
 Mutton differs but little from beef in its composition, 
 and is next the throne. The English mutton is far 
 superior to the American, and in England mutton is 
 more used than with us. The pecuUar taste of mutton 
 makes it less popular than beef. 
 
 Bacon and Poke. — The bacon of England and Ireland 
 is superior to that of America, but it is nowhere the 
 best kind of meat. It contains so much fat that only 
 the hardy can digest it in large quantities. In the cities 
 of this country it is but little used by those who are able 
 to get anything better. 
 
 Pork, fresh or salted, is an article of diet that ought 
 to disappear, and is disappearing before civilization. 
 For centuries it constituted the leading article in the 
 dietary of Europe, but with the advance of culture and 
 the improvement in the race, the desire for it, and the 
 ability to digest it, are both diminished. So thoroughly 
 unfadiionable is even fresh pork in our large cities, that 
 a hotel or boarding house that should provide dinner in 
 which pork should be the only meat, would soon be 
 empty ; and fried salted pork is reserved for the ex- 
 tremely poor. In country places, among the farmiug 
 
18 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 population, where the desire for this kind of meat and 
 the ability to digest it have not yet disappeared, and 
 ■where other meats are scarce or inaccessible, fried and 
 boiled salt pork is still the great dependence. 
 
 Poultry, Babbits, etc. — The flesh of poultry, rabbits, 
 hares, is less nutritious than beef or mutton, but aflbrds 
 a pleasing variety. 
 
 Wild fowl and game of all kinds are inferior to beef 
 and mutton, and some varieties are difficult of diges- 
 tion. 
 
 Veal and Lamb. — Veal speaks for itself to those who 
 have been forced to subsist on it. Why it is that young 
 beef, which is so tender, is yet so often the cause of di- 
 gestive disturbance, has never been explained. 
 
 Lamb is much more healthful, and is more palatable. 
 
 Horse Flesh. — The use of horse flesh as an article of 
 diet is by no means a new experiment. It is said that 
 during the French Eevolution the populace were fed for 
 six months on the flesh of horses, and no injuries re- 
 sulted, although severe complaints were raised against 
 it. Baron Larrey states that during his compaigns, he 
 gave horse flesh not only to the soldiers, but to the sick 
 and convalescent in the hospitals. 
 
 In 1835, in Paris, a commission of distinguished men 
 was appointed to determine whether horse flesh was 
 good food. They decided that it was palatable, and 
 that they "could not detect any sensible difference 
 between it and beef." 
 
 In 1841 horse flesh was openly sold at Wurtemberg, 
 and since that time it has increased in popularity and 
 is sold both in Paris and in Germanv, 
 
ANIMAL FOOD. 19 
 
 Since that time, also, very many experiments have been 
 made by the giving of banquets to settle the qiiestion 
 of the palatability and the digestibility of horse flesh. 
 The pretty unanimous result of the experiments is that 
 it is sometimes quite difficult to distinguish roast horse 
 from roast beef ; that the horse soup was preferable to 
 beef soup. 
 
 More recently stiU it has been proposed to popularize 
 horse flesh as a measure of economy, and in order to 
 help out the bad nutrition of the poorer classes, econ- 
 omy being regarded as its chief recommendation. 
 
 Bones contain considerable fat and nitrogenous mat- 
 ter. It has been estimated that 6 pounds of bones 
 boiled for one hour, are equal to one pound of meat in 
 nitrogen, and to nearly two pounds in carbon. 
 
 Teipe contains 13 per cent, of albumen, and 16 per 
 cent, of fat. It is easy of digestion, but a poor de- 
 pendence for a meal. 
 
 Blood. — ^Pig blood is sometimes mixed with groats 
 and fat, and the mixture is called black pudding. 
 
 Eggs. — There is in eggs about 25 per cent, of solid 
 matter ; of this 14 per cent, is nitrogenous, and 10^ per 
 cent, is carbonaceous. 
 
 The yolk has 31 per cent, of fat. The white is mostly 
 albumen. 
 
 Eggs are deficient in carbon. Here they are com- 
 bined with bacon.' 
 
 Milk.— MUk is the food that is designed for the young 
 
20 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 of. mammals ; but its value for adults has been gi'eatly 
 overrated. Milk is composed of water, butter, sugar, 
 casein, and mineral substances. The relative pro- 
 portions of the different substances vary in the dif- 
 ferent kinds of milk, but in no kind does the solid mat- 
 ter exceed 182 parts out of a thousand. 
 
 In the milk of woman the proportion of solids is 110.92 
 parts out of a thousand. 
 
 Cbeam, which appears in the form of globules that 
 gradually rise to the surface, contains about 35 per cent, 
 of sohd matter, and about two thirds butter. 
 
 Whey contains the sugar and saline matter. In but- 
 termilk all the fat is excluded. 
 
 Butter consists of fatty and oily substances, saline 
 matter, water, and casein. 
 
 The proportion of fat is from 70 to 95 per cent. 
 
 Cheese is the casein of milk coagulated by rennet or 
 by some acid. 
 
 The sugar of milk does not ferment like other sugars, 
 else milk would be unfit for infants. The milk of the 
 ass, and the cow, and the sow, contains more sugar than 
 that of woman. Goats' milk contains more butter but 
 less sugar than that of woman. 
 
 THE COW TREE. 
 
 Corresponding to the bread fruit, there are in certain 
 warm countries milk producing plants which are found 
 in a certain district of South America. The milky juices 
 of plants are generally acrid, bitter and injurious as 
 food ; but that of the cow tree, which is obtained by 
 
FISH. 21 
 
 making incisions in the trunk, is described by Hum- 
 boldt as " tolerably thick, devoid of all acridity, and of 
 an agreeable balmy smell." 
 
 Humboldt further says that " amidst the great num- 
 ber of curious phenomena tvhich I have observed in the 
 course of my travels, I confess there are few that have 
 made' so powerful an impression on me as the aspect of 
 the cov? tree." 
 
 The same authority further states, that " this cow tree, 
 like ordinary cows, is milked in the morning ; for then 
 the fluid is most abundant." ■ Then " the negroes and 
 natives are seen hastening from all quarters, furnished 
 with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yel- 
 low and thickens at its surface." 
 
 Caoutchouc, or rubber, is a kind of vegetable mUk, 
 since it contains caseous matter. 
 
 VEGETABLE CHEESE. 
 
 When the milk of the cow tree is exposed to the air, 
 the yellow cream rises to the top, and a substance is 
 formed resembling cheese, and is so called by the 
 natives. 
 
 BDTTEE TKEE. 
 
 Mungo Park speaks of a tree in Bambarra that gave 
 an oily substance resembling butter ; and the same is 
 mentioned by more recent travellers. 
 
 FISH. 
 
 Among the white varieties of fish are whiting, cod, 
 haddock, sole, flounder. These contain only about 
 22 per cent, of solid matter, and of this 18 per cent, is 
 nitrogenous. 
 
22 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 Mackerel, Eels, Salmon and Hereing. — These cbntain 
 much more fat. 
 
 All fish are best at the time when the roe ripens. 
 At this time they are fatter, richer, and have a better 
 flavor. 
 
 Shell Fish. — Shell fish contain about 13 per cent, of 
 solid matter. 
 
 Oysters are the easiest of digestion. Lobsters, crabs, 
 scollops, mussels, etc., are more difficult to manage, 
 especially when not weU cooked, and the latter some- 
 times cause serious injury. 
 
 Turtle.- — The flesh of the turtle contains much less 
 fat than is supposed. It is about three fourths water, 
 and fat constitutes only about ^ per cent, of • its sohd 
 ingredients. 
 
 Genuine turtle soup is more digestible than the so- 
 called mock turtle. 
 
 CEEEALS. 
 
 Wheat, Eye, Barley and Oats. — ^The early history of 
 Jihese cereals is not fully known. It is stated that the 
 
 habitants of the lake dwellings of Switzerland culti- 
 vated the cereal plants. But as Darwin remarks, " bot- 
 anms are not universally agreed on the aborigiaal 
 par^tage of any one cereal plant." It is stated that all 
 our celseal plants are cultivated varieties of wild species 
 that havte been found in Asia. 
 
 There Is little question that man very early began to 
 cultivat^the earth, and that from a very distant period 
 these cereals were used by him as food. 
 
 Of all the cereals wheai is the most used. 
 
 ^y 
 
THE CEREALS — BEEAD. 23 
 
 Oatmeal does not make bread. Oatmeal porridge is, 
 however, a leading article of food with the peasantry of 
 Scotland, Ireland and England, and was formerly used 
 by the wealthy and luxurious. 
 
 Barley fiow, unless mingled with wheat flour, does 
 not make good bread, and, therefore it is chiefly used in 
 the form of porridge. 
 
 Bye flour is inferior to wheat flour, but it is much 
 used in connection with it. Rye bread is common in 
 Germany, and in the United States is used not a Uttle, 
 alone, or mingled with Indian meal or wheat flour. 
 
 BREAD. 
 
 Bread is made of several varieties of cereals ; but 
 wheat bread is the form that is most used. 
 
 The wheat is ground and sifted. Wheat contains from 
 60 to 90 parts of flour, to from 10 to 40 parts of bran. 
 The average is about 10 per cent, of bran. 
 
 There are several gi'ades of flour. The first is fine 
 flour, and contains no bran ; the second, called canaille 
 or seconds, contains a little bran ; the third, called 
 shorts, contains a larger percentage of bran ; th.& fourth, 
 called pollards, is almost all bran, and is usei mostly for 
 animals. 
 
 Unbolted wheat flour makes, what is called in Europe, 
 " brown bread," and in America " Graham bread," after 
 Mr. Graham, the founder of " Grahamism." It is less di- 
 gestible than bread made of fine flour, but it contains 
 some important nutritious ingredients in the bran, and 
 is more laxative than the bolted. 
 
 Bread contains about 60 per cent, of solid substances, 
 55 to 58 per cent, of dextrin, gum, stafch and sugar, 1^ 
 
24 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 per cent, of fat, and 8 to 10 per cent, of nitrogenous 
 substances, of which starch is the leading ingredient, 
 and 40 per cent, of water. 
 
 The proportion of water varies with the age of the 
 bread, and the method of making. 
 
 Maize ok Indian Cobn. — ^Indian corn is without doubt 
 of American origin. It was used by the aborigines in 
 both North and South America, and two kinds of it 
 have been found in the tombs, " apparently prior to the 
 dynasty of the Incas." 
 
 Very numerous varieties have arisen. Indian meal 
 is made into a bread that is called "brown bread," 
 or " corn bread ;" it is a favorite in New England 
 and in the Southern United States. In New York 
 and the Middle States it is but little used, and is 
 there known as the "Boston brown bread." It is 
 healthful, nutritious, contains a good proportion of 
 fat. It is more laxative than wheaten bread, but is less 
 adapted for feeble digestion. 
 
 Buckwheat Floub in the form of "buckwheat cakes" 
 is distinctively an American luxury. They do not con- 
 tain all the elements of nutrition, but usually, when 
 properly made, are easy of digestion, and as beneficial 
 as they are delightful. Their deficiencies are generally 
 made up by the molasses, or sugar, or butter, or cream, 
 or milk, or gravy, or meats with which they are eaten. 
 
 EiCE is in some features nutritious ; yet it is not the 
 best food, although millions subsist on it. It is deficient 
 in important elements of nutrition. It is better adapted 
 for warm than cold climates. In cold and temperate 
 regions, and for hard workers with brain and muscle 
 
VEGETABLES. 25 
 
 in. any climate, it does not sufficiently exercise tlie 
 stomach, nor warm the system, nor feed the brain o^ 
 muscle. 
 
 VEGETABLES. 
 
 Potatoes. — The potato is an American plant. The cul- 
 tivated varieties differ but little from the wild species. 
 It is stated that in Great Britain 125 kinds of potato exist. 
 
 The potato contains about 25 per cent, of solid mat- 
 ters, four fifths of which are carbo-hydrates, and the 
 remaining fifth fats, albuminoids and salts. The potato 
 alone, therefore, can sustain life, but it is very deficient 
 in fat and in the phosphates. 
 
 It is the king of the vegetables, but as an exclusive 
 diet it is to be deprecated. 
 
 Sweet Potatoes. — This vegetable, which is much used 
 in the South and the West Indies, is hardly as digestible 
 for the majority as the so-caUed Irish potato. It is, 
 however, very palatable, and need not be feared by 
 those to whom it has not in some way shown itself 
 inimical. 
 
 Yams. — The yam, so much eaten in the West Indies, 
 resembles the sweet potato. It is quite nutritive. When 
 ground into flour it is made into bread. In the same 
 way ordinary potatoes are in America sometimes min- 
 gled with Indian meal to make brown bread. 
 
 Plantains .^The plantaia, though a fruit, is to the 
 tropics what the potato i? to the temperate regions. In 
 large districts of Africa, it is a great dependence, and 
 wines or beers are also made from it. 
 
 TuKNiPs, Pabsnips and Caeeots. — These vegetables 
 
26 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 •contain a larger percentage of water than the potato, 
 and are of much less value. 
 
 They are quite palatable, and help out the variety in 
 a dinner. 
 
 Cabbage.— The cabbage is believed by many to be 
 descended from a wild plant that grows on the western 
 shores of Europe, while others contend that its ancestors 
 are to be found on the Mediterranean. 
 
 The cabbage contains only about 5 per cent, of solid 
 matter. Like all other vegetables its value in diet con- 
 sists of its saline ingredients. 
 
 Peas and Beans. — A kind of pea now extinct has been 
 found in the lake dwellings of Switzerland. 
 
 The common garden pea is believed to be descended 
 from a variety that has been found in the Crimea. 
 
 Peas and beans are valuable for their legumin, which 
 resembles casein of milk, and which constitutes nearly 
 one fourth of their weight. 
 
 Their nutritive value has been much overrated. 
 
 Beets. — Beets contain a considerable percentage of 
 sugar, and are, therefore, nutritive, but they are only 
 of value in connection with other food. 
 
 Onions. — Onions contain nourishment, and in the 
 opinion of some are superior to any other vegetable. 
 Raw onions are usually disagreeable to a dehcate 
 stomach. 
 
 Leek, garlic and shallot are very similar to the onion. 
 All of these vegetables are more used by sailors than 
 by landsmen, and in the West Indies, and in warm chmes 
 generally, than in the North. 
 
 J 
 
FRUITS. 27 
 
 CuouMBEBS. — Cucumbers, whether eaten fresh or in the 
 form of pickles, are of but little value, except to give 
 variety and to stimulate the appetite. To some temper- 
 aments they are indigestible and must be used sparingly 
 or wholly abstained from. Those who taste them over 
 and over again after they have eaten, may as well do 
 without them — and they can do so with the consolation 
 that they are losing but little. 
 
 Pumpkins and Squashes. — These when made into stews 
 contain a small amount of nutriment, are quite palata- 
 ble, and are rarely otherwise than a beneficial accom- 
 paniment to more substantial food. 
 
 Tomatoes. — Tomatoes were formerly regarded as only 
 fit for hogs, and their introduction to fashionable tables 
 in this country in raw and stewed form is of very recent 
 date. 
 
 Their value as medicinal food has probably been much 
 overestimated, and is based chiefly, I think, on the same 
 theory that has given Graham bread such great promi- 
 nence, namely, that the value of any article of food is in 
 pretty exact proportion to its disagreeableness, since, to 
 the majority of persons,, tomatoes are at first repulsive. 
 
 There is no evidence that they are in any respect su- 
 perior to ripe peaches, or pears, or apples. 
 
 Tomatoes are said to contain considerable oxalic 
 acid. 
 
 FEUITS. 
 
 The Peach. — The peach is a native of Persia. Orig- 
 inally it was a kind of bitter ahnond, but by long cul- 
 ture has developed into the luscious fruit as it is now 
 known. Itwas carried into Italy by the Romans, and 
 
28 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 thence into France. It was introduced into England 
 about the middle of the 16th century. At first it was 
 thought to be injurious on account of the prussic acid 
 contained in it. 
 
 There are 20 known varieties of the peach, and 20 
 varieties of the nectarine, which closely resembles it. 
 
 The peach is one of the most healthful as well as the 
 most agreeable of fruits. It can be eaten in enormous 
 quantities without injury, and oftentimes with positive 
 benefit. 
 
 Apricots. — The tree on which apricots grow is de- 
 scended from a species that is found wild in the Cauca- 
 sian region. It is estimated that there are 12 varieties. 
 
 PLtfMs. — The plum tree is supposed to be descended 
 from the huUace, which is found wild in the Caucasian 
 region, and .in Northwestern India. There are about 
 40 varieties. 
 
 Cheekies. — Cherries are believed to be descended 
 from several wild stocks. 
 
 Apples. — ^Whether the apple is descended fi'om one 
 or from several closely allied wild forms, is a matter ol 
 doubt. There are now nearly 1,000 varieties. 
 
 Peaks. — ^Pears a.-e descended from one form that ia 
 found wild. Both pears and apples, when ripe, can be 
 liberally used without fear by the majority of those in 
 average health. There is need, however, of greater 
 caution than in the use of peaches. 
 
FRUITS. 29 
 
 Stbawberbies. — ^In 1246 only three varieties of the 
 strawberry were known. "At the present day the 
 varieties of the several species ai'e almost innumerable," 
 and they have greatly increased during tte past half 
 century. "With culture it has wonderfully increased in 
 size and quality. 
 
 Gooseberries. — The gooseberry plant comes from ar 
 wild form that is found in Central and Northern Europe. 
 There are now about 300 varieties. Under cultivation 
 it has greatly increased in weight. The present weight 
 has been known to be seven or eight times the weight 
 of the wild gooseberry. 
 
 Watermelons, Muskmelons and Cantelopes. — Water- 
 melons are rightly named ; they contain little besides 
 water. In that little is oftentimes enough to induce 
 serious illness. 
 
 Like cucumbers, they are treacherous fruits, and 
 sometimes betray their best friends. 
 
 Muskmelons and cantelopes are more trustworthy 
 and are more valuable. 
 
 All these fruits are less liable to do injury when eaten 
 as a part of the regular meal. 
 
 Ckanbebbies. — A very pleasant and healthful acid 
 is found in the cranberry. When stewed with sugar 
 they are generally harmless, and by those of delicate 
 digestion are sometimes eagerly craved. 
 
 . Whortlebeebies, Blackberries, etc. — These berries, 
 like peaches, can usually be taken in large quantities 
 with only agreeable results. 
 
30 J!ATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 The medicinal character of blackberries, like that of 
 tomatoes, has, I suspect, been somewhat exaggerated, 
 but that they are of great value in summer food there is 
 no question. 
 
 PEUITS NOT VEBY NUTRITIVE. 
 
 The amount of actual nutriment in many of the most 
 luscious fruits and vegetables is exceedingly small, and 
 enormous quantities must be eaten in order to make a 
 meal of them, and of some varieties no amount that can 
 be swallowed will very long satisfy the appetite. 
 
 To judge of the value of food by the amount of its 
 nutriment merely, is as unscientific and as unphilosoph- 
 ical as it would be to judge of the character of men by 
 their weight avoirdupois. 
 
 These watery and luscious fruits and vegetables serve 
 not only to quench the thirst, to supply acids and sugars, 
 etc., to the body, but also to stimulate the appetite for 
 other and more substantial food, and to assist its diges- 
 tion, and very likely to enhance, in ways that are past 
 oar finding out, its assimilative power. 
 
 Fruits do not contain more than five per cent, of solid 
 matter, and very little of the albuminoids ; but they 
 contain considerable sugar and acid. They are valuable 
 in diet for their saline ingredients, for their sugars and 
 acids,_ and for the flavor and zest that they give to other 
 food. 
 
 Kipe, luscious fruits of nearly all the leading va- 
 rieties, can be eaten in their season, by those in average 
 health, in enormous quantities, to the full extent of the 
 appetite and between meals, not only without injury 
 but with very great benefit. To this rule there are 
 individual exceptions. 
 
 .'•M ■ 
 
FKUITS. 31 
 
 TROPICAL PBtriTS. 
 
 The value of tropical fruits, like the beauty of tropical 
 flowers, has in some respects been greatly exaggerated. 
 
 Some of the flowers that grow in southern lands are 
 indeed beautiful, and a few of them are magnificent, 
 but the average effect of a tropical forest or landscape 
 is far less attractive than that of the gardens, the fields, 
 and the hedges of the North. Just so, some of the 
 fruits of the tropics are rich and tempting, and one or 
 two varieties are luscious beyond anything that we have 
 in our colder clime, yet as a whole they bear no compar- 
 ison with the produce of the orchards of England or 
 America. Between the warm and the cold climes there 
 is in this respect less difference than has been supposed. 
 The grape, the peach, and the apple, wiU outweigh in the 
 variety of uses nearly all the fruits of the tropics. 
 
 The best of the tropical fruits are the orange, the du- 
 rion, the litchi, the mangosteen. 
 
 Orangses. — The orange is to us as familiar as the apple, 
 and strange as it may appear, costs less than the applei' 
 in the New York market. 
 
 In the South, oranges, and indeed other fruits, are 
 eaten early in the morning, soon after rising, or as a 
 part of breakfast. The old Spanish proverb, " Fruit is 
 gold in the- morning, silver at noon, and lead at night," 
 could only have originated in a warm cHme, for it cer- 
 tainly does not apply to the latitude of Northern Europe 
 and America. 
 
 Except in the warmest weather, fruits are not desired 
 at breakfast, and, to borrow a medical phrase, are not 
 indicated. 
 
32 EATING AND DEINSING. 
 
 In the Southern States oranges and melons are morn- 
 ing food ; and in Texas I observed that cantalopes 
 ■were, in their season, on the breakfast table almost as 
 regularly as the bread or coffee. 
 
 The Dukion. — Of this fruit, we have a most enthusi- 
 astic description by Mr. Alfred Wallace. He states that 
 in the Malay Archipelago it is regarded by the natives 
 as superior to all the many varieties with which they 
 are favored. 
 
 It grows on a lofty tree, somewhat resembling an elm. 
 The fruit is about the size of a large cocoanut, is of a 
 green color, and is covered with short spines, and is so 
 heavy that when it falls from a height on any individual 
 it produces a terrible wound. 
 
 "The pulp is the eatable part; its consistence and 
 flavor are indescribable. A rich butter-like custard 
 highly flavored with almond, gives the best general idea 
 of it, but intermingled with it come wafts of flavor that 
 call to mind cream-cheese, onion sauce, brown sherry, 
 and other incongruities. It is neither acid, nor sweet, 
 nor juicy, yet one feels the want of none of these quali- 
 ties, for it is perfect as it is. It produces no nausea or 
 other bad effect, and the more you eat of it, the less you 
 feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat durionsj is a rare 
 sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience." 
 
 Eev. Mr. MeUen, formerly U. S. Consul at Mauritius, 
 informs me that an exceedingly luscious fruit also grows 
 there, which receives the name of " bull's heart." From 
 his description I should judge that it was much hke the 
 durion. He says that it is as much better than the 
 finest custard as custard is better than hominy. 
 
 Mr. Wallace fiu'ther says, " It would not perhaps be 
 
TEOPiCAL PEUn'S. 33 
 
 correct to say that the durion is the best of all fruits, 
 because it cannot supply the place of the sub-acid juicy 
 kinds, such as the orange, graipe, mango, and mangosteen, 
 whose refreshing and cooling qualities are so wholesome 
 and grateful ; but as producing a food of the most ex- 
 quisite flavor it is unsurpassed. If I had to fix on two 
 only as representing the perfection of the two classes, 
 I should certainly choose the durion and the orange as 
 the king and queen of fruits." 
 
 While our mouths water over the descriptions of 
 fruits that can be tasted only by those who make long 
 and wearisome voyages, we can find consolation in the 
 possession of the peach, the pear, and the strawberry. 
 
 Bread Feuit.— The bread fruit tree, which grows, 
 though never abundantly, in many tropical regions, is 
 one of the most remarkable objects in nature. The 
 fruit is of the size of a melon and is of the consistence 
 of pudding. It may be baked, stewed or fried. It is 
 eaten with gravy, with sugar, molasses, butter, or milk. 
 Its taste is compared to that of mashed potato and 
 milk, or when cooked with sweets, to a delicious pud- 
 ding. Like bread and potatoes it becomes a standard 
 food which is always useful, never injures, and of which 
 we never tire. 
 
 Lemons and Limes.- — The acid^in lemons and limes is 
 not only useful against scurvy, but fulfills an excellent 
 purpose in combination with fish of all kinds, and in 
 the form of lemonade. 
 
 Lemonade is a drink that for the majority is as health- 
 ful as it is agreeable. 
 
34: EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 Pineapple. — This veiy palatable fruit is less digest- 
 ible than the orange, and must be eaten with caution, 
 especially in debilitating weather. 
 
 Bananas. — The banana contains some Uttle nutriment, 
 and is not often injurious. 
 
 CocoANTJT. — The cocoanut,when it arrives in this coun- 
 try, is so hard that it becomes indigestible, and the milk 
 is not particularly refreshing. It has been said that in 
 those regions where they grow, the milk is much better 
 and the nut itself particularly delightful. This state- 
 ment does not correspond with my experience. I have 
 taken cocoanuts from the tree and eaten them on the 
 spot, and failed to discover the superiority that has been 
 claimed for them when perfectly fresh, and the milk 
 when drunk directly from the nut was to me rather sick- 
 ening, although others were more pleased with it. 
 
 For myself I should prefer the cocoanut after it has 
 been kept for a nuniber of days. 
 
 I may say also that the flavor of the orange, when 
 eaten fresh from the tree, has been similarly exagger- 
 ated-by travelers. Oranges, when taken ripe from the 
 tree, remain luscious for a considerable time. 
 
 Figs, Kaisins, -Dates, Prunes. — All these dried fruits 
 are useful as well as palatable in their way, that is, as 
 relishes or in combination with other food. They are 
 injurious only to weak stomachs. The habit of forcing 
 them down in large quantities in order to keep the bow- 
 els free, is abominable. When eaten in large quantities 
 it is well that they should be combined with some acid 
 fruit, or at least with bread or meat. 
 
-NUTS — SUGAE. 35 
 
 The idea that figs are better when fresh from the tree 
 on which they grow, is, if I may generahze from my 
 own experience, another delusion. I have often eaten 
 them when recently plucked and prepared for the table, 
 and found them simply tolerable. 
 
 It has become so fashionable for superficial observers 
 to declare that the unfortunate dwellers in the temper- 
 ate zones, know nothing of the lusciousness of the trop- 
 ical fruits, that it is well to stop and inquire how much 
 of truth there may be in the statement. 
 
 NUTS. 
 
 The walnut tree grows wild in the Caucasus and Him- 
 alaya. There are a number of varieties. Nuts of all 
 kinds contain considerable fat, and are hard of diges- 
 tion. They are best taken in small quantities, and in 
 connection with other food of a different character, such 
 as fruits. They do less harm i^ter ;meds than on an 
 empty stomach or just before retiring. 
 
 Chestnuts. — Chestnuts contain a considerable nutri- 
 ment, and by the peasants of the Apennines are some- 
 times depended on for food. They are less burdensome 
 to the stomach than walnuts. 
 
 SUGAR. 
 
 Sugar and molasses produce heat and fat, and also 
 sustain the system in other ways that are not under- 
 stood. 
 
 They are much longed for by children, and they do 
 
36 EATING AND DEINKINQ. 
 
 them good. They are palatable — the strongest possible 
 argument in their favor — and they supply the fat and 
 the warmth that children need. 
 
 The popular candies are frequently injurious, on ac- 
 count of the bad character of the substances that 
 are used to color them. 
 
 ICE CKEAM. 
 
 Ice cream, when made of pure milk or cream, and 
 flavored without the aid of injurious ingredients, is not 
 only harmless, but positively beneficial. 
 
 It is very properly eaten in the evening or between 
 meals, or at least as an accompaniment of hot food. 
 
 An objection to eating it largely at meals, is that it 
 cools the stomach, especially if it be deHcate to such 
 a degree that digestion is hindered. 
 
 The custom of combining ice cream with acid fruits 
 is as wise as it is agreeable. 
 
 WATER. 
 
 Water constitutes, as we have seen, the principal por- 
 tion of our food. It is the leading constituent of all 
 our so-called solid food ; it is used by itself and in all 
 our beverages. 
 
 Fure water is never found, and only with great diffi- 
 culty is it manufactured approximately pure by the 
 chemist. It is without odor or color, and is therefore not 
 adapted for drinking purposes. 
 
 The purest of all water is rain water ; but this always 
 contains more or less of organic matter, with nitric acid, 
 ammonia and salts. 
 
WATER. 37 
 
 The ingredients of the majority of our drinking 
 waters, are oxygen, nitrogen, carbonic acid. 
 
 The waters of mineral springs contain, besides these 
 substances, various salts of potash, iron, and soda, on 
 which their medicinal virtues depend. 
 
 Some waters contain as much as 15 or 20 cubic inches 
 per gaUon of carbonic acid gas, and water thus impreg- 
 nated are much more palatable than those that are en- 
 tirely free from this gas. 
 
 Ifard water is that which contains salts of lime, potas- 
 sium, sodium, or magnesium. These salts are found in 
 some waters in the proportion of from 10 to 15 grains 
 to the gallon. 
 
 It is believed that a moderate proportion of salts in 
 our drinking water is beneficial, although hard water is 
 very inconvenient for culinary or washing purposes, 
 because the fat of the soap combines with the salty mat- 
 ters in the water, and forms insoluble soap. 
 
 Distilled wafer, though almost perfectly pure, is not 
 agreeable to the taste, until it has been thoroughly agi- 
 tated and mixed with common air and carbonic acid 
 gas. This may be done by pouring it from one vessel 
 to another many times, or by forcing common air into 
 it. 
 
 The water of rivers frequently contains a considerable 
 percentage of organic matter. The water of the Missis- 
 sippi, for example, when poured into a tumbler, is ex- 
 ceedingly turbid, and if allowed to stand for a few 
 moments, a considerable quantity of earthy matter set- 
 tles on the bottom. 
 
 It is strange how freely this water can be used in 
 many instances with apparent impunity. The boatmen 
 on the Mississippi drink as much as they want of it 
 
38 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 Tvithout fear. That it sometimes causes affections of the 
 bowels there is no doubt ; and yet I have had opportu- 
 nity to see that bad results occur only in exceptional 
 cases. 
 
 Water should be drunk freely dui-ing meals, and as 
 often as thirst requires. ^ 
 
 The doctrine that we shall not drink during meals 
 because some animals do not, is so abominable, so unsci- 
 entific, and so cruel, that it is worthy of being classed 
 ■frith the dogmas of the medieval ascetics. 
 
 SODA WATER 
 
 Soda water is justly regarded as a peculiarly innocent 
 beverage. 
 
 Very few are harmed by it, and thousands in the 
 country are refreshed and positively nourished by it. 
 
 This compliment applies only to good soda water. 
 
 The art of making soda water just what it should be 
 is underrated, or, at least, is practised only by a few.- 
 
 Those to whom soda water causes nausea or sick 
 headache, need no advice of mine to abstain. 
 
 T'ONDIMENTS. 
 
 Condiments are substances that sharpen the appetite and 
 stimulate the digestive organs, and aid in the digestion of 
 ordinary food. The best known condiments are : 
 
 Pepper, 
 
 Nutmeg, 
 
 Mace, 
 
 Cayenne Pepper, 
 
 Cloves, 
 
 Cassia, 
 
 Mustard, 
 
 Allspice, 
 
 Turmeric, 
 
 Cumamon, 
 
 Ginger, 
 
 Curry Powder. 
 
 Most of these condiments are natives of warm regions ; 
 
' CONDIMENTS. 39 
 
 and it is a fact of experience that they are most needed, 
 most desired, and most useful in those countries. 
 
 They are used habitually in cold and temperate cli- 
 mates, but not as a rule in large quantities. 
 
 The Peppers which grow in the West and East Indies, 
 consist of a volatile oil, a crystaUizable substance called 
 piperine, or capsicine, starchy matter, gum, woody fibre, 
 and salts of potash. 
 
 GiNGEK is cultivated in tropical Asia and America. 
 It consists of a volatile oil, resin, gum, starch, woody 
 fibre, acetic acid, sulphiu", salts of potash, lime, and iron. 
 
 TuEMEEic. — This is the tuber of a plant that grows, in 
 India and China. It has a peculiar aromatic taste, and 
 is of an orange yellow color. Turmeric is a leading in- 
 gredient in curry powder . 
 
 CuEEY PowDEE consists of a number of ingredients — 
 among which are black and cayenne pepper, coriander 
 seeds, ginger, allspice, cloves, turmeric, cardamom, 
 fcenugreck and cumin. Of these turmeric, coriander 
 seeds and black pepper, are the most important. Cori- 
 ander seed and cardamom are suflSciently familiar. 
 Cumin seeds strongly resemble caraway. Fcenugreck 
 seeds are the produce of a plant that grows in India, 
 Arabia and Sicily. 
 
 Condiments are used in hot cUmates to an extent that 
 greatly surprises travelers. Pepper and curry in enor- 
 mous quantities that a Northerner cannot endure, are 
 there used in combination with more substantial arti- 
 cles. They seem to aid digestion, to have a cooUng 
 effect, and to compensate for deficiency in salt. 
 
40 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 Common Salt. — Common salt is the most universal 
 food of man. 
 
 Salt was used by the Jews in their sacrifices, and by 
 the Arabians was placed on the table as a special mark 
 of hospitality. The Hindoos swear by salt, and the Abys- 
 sinian gentleman carries a piece in his pocket, and takes 
 it out and offers it to a friend to lick as a mark of respect 
 and esteem. 
 
 Among the Apingi tribe of Africa salt is; so scarce 
 that ten pounds will buy a slave, and Du Chaillu thinks 
 that the ulcers and diseases of the skin to which these 
 people are subject are largfely caused by deficiency in this 
 article. 
 
 The deprivation of salt is one of the most terrible of 
 calamities. In Africa tribes have been found who 
 will sell a wife or a child for a smaU quantity. 
 
 Livingstone says that the poor Backwains who are 
 forced to eat roots without salt are troubled with indi- 
 gestion. Milk and meat are in Africa found to be good 
 substitutes for salt. Of all the continents Africa seems 
 to suffer most from salt famine. 
 
 It is not very complimentary to the state of the 
 science of physiological chemistry to be obliged to con- 
 fess that the function of an agent so indispensable as 
 salt is not und-erstood. When we have stated that it 
 aids in the digestion of other food, and in the processes 
 of absorption and secretion, we have said all that we 
 know and perhaps more than we know. 
 
 SUBSTITUTES FOR SALT. 
 
 It seems that these elementary substances, such as 
 meat, milk, etc., which contain salts of potash and other 
 mineral matter, are, to a certain extent, substitutes for 
 
RELATION OF FOOD TO WORK. 41 
 
 salt ; tliat when these substances are used in abundance 
 less salt is needed, and the want of it is better endured. 
 Pepper also is said to have the same effepb. The appe- 
 tite for salt, as we aU know, depends on the quality of 
 our food. 
 
 Chivi. — ^The Indians of Javita, South America, pre- 
 pare a substitute for salt, of muriate of potash, caustic 
 lime, and the earthy salts. 
 
 CuPANA, Chinia, Cieo. — The Indians of Javita also 
 make a salt by reducing to ashes the seeds of the plant 
 cupana. The seeds also are carefully scraped, mixed 
 with cassava, covered with plantain leaves, and allowed 
 to ferment. 
 
 Chinia, another salt, is made by reducing to ashes the 
 spadix and .fruit of the chinia palm tree.^ 
 
 In Madagascar salt is obtained from the sap of the 
 oiro palm tree. 
 
 The mUk of the cocoanut tree also contains saline 
 matter. 
 
 We who live in a land where salt is not only cheap, 
 but the very cheapest article of food, so that not to be 
 able to earn it is regarded the expression of extreme 
 poverty, can with difficulty realize the condition of the 
 inhabitants of Central Africa, where only the very rich- 
 est can afford to have salt at their meals ; where chil- 
 di-en, when they can get it, suck it Jike sticks of, candy. 
 
 KELATION OF POOD TO WORK. 
 
 Various and interesting experiments have been made 
 to determine the relation of food to the amount of work 
 
42 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 that it is capable of accomplishing. Analysis of the 
 different alimentary substances, will teU us the percent- 
 age of carbo-hydrates, of albuminoids, and so forth, but 
 it does not tell us just what percentage of these are as- 
 similated, nor can it explain the manifold changes which 
 these must undergo in the body. Hence any estimate 
 of the amount of work, that food is capable of, based 
 simply on their chemical constitution, would be imper- 
 fect and erroneous. The usual method of determining^ 
 the relation of the different kinds of food to work is to 
 estimate the amount of heat they give off when burned. 
 
 Heat is regarded as an equi.valent of motive force, and 
 the food that gives off the raost heat is the best for giv- 
 ing heat 'and motive power to the body. The estimates 
 thus found must, at best, be only approximate. They 
 make no allowance for the changes that may take plaea 
 in the body, and to which I have referred. Moreover, 
 cellulose of vegetablte food is indigestible, though it burns 
 readily and evolves much heat. On the other hand, the 
 albuminous elements of food do not give out their 
 entire force iii the body. Making allowance so far as 
 possible for these facts, we may arrive at an estimate of 
 the work power of food that may, perhaps, be approxi- 
 mately accurate. 
 
 Thus it has been estimated that the latent force of 
 700 grains of food — less than 1^ ounces of butter — is suf- 
 ficient to raise 1,000,000 pounds one foot high in one 
 day. 
 
 Practically it is found that only about half of the 
 latent force of food is evolved in the body. In all me- 
 chanical arrangements — such as the steam engine — the 
 proportion of wasted force is ten times greater than the 
 force. that is utilized. 
 
BELATION OF FOOD TO WORK. 43- 
 
 It has been estimated that three fifths of the force 
 evolved by food is used in the acts of respiration and the 
 movements of the heart. 
 
 It is believed that the leading function of nitrogenous 
 food — meat, fish, bread, etc., is to repair the tissues of 
 the body. This view is rendered probable by the ex- 
 periments on animals, which show that with a purely 
 carbonaceous diet — fat, oils, sugar and starch — the 
 weight is rapidly lost. 
 
 That it is possible to live, after a sort, on a diet very 
 largely carbonaceous, is proved by the experience of the 
 wretched millions of China and India. 
 
 Then again experience demonstrates that it is not 
 enough that the food should contain nitrogen : it must 
 contain it in a variety of combinations ; hence the 
 necessity of a variety of food. 
 
 It is not improbable furthermore that nitrogenous 
 substances may aid ia the digestion of the carbo- 
 hydrates. 
 
 It is certainly proved that articles of food, which are 
 the same in chemical constitution, differ widely in their 
 capacity to sustain life. 
 
 Carbo-hydrates — ^fat, starch and sugar — ^not only 
 serve to warm the system, but they also repair the 
 tissues, especially the adispose tissues. The heat pro- 
 ducing power of fat is believed to be three times greater 
 than ijhat of starch and sugar. 
 
 They also assist in the digestion of nitrogenous food. 
 Here, then, is another argument for variety in our diet. 
 
 The question whether the tissues of the muscles are 
 actually consumed in muscular exercise or only the 
 blood, has received various answers. 
 
 The belief has been that force is developed mainly 
 
44 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 by the oxidation of the carbo-hydrates in the blood, and 
 that when abundant food is given the muscular tissue 
 is not changed. 
 
 Prof. Austin Flint, Jr., thinks he has shown, by very 
 careful experiments made on Weston, the famous pedes- 
 trian, during one of his greatest feats, that very severe 
 exertion is attended with " consumption of the muscular 
 substance." Whether this consumption of the tissue of 
 the muscles takes place during the ordinary muscular 
 exercise, when the food is various and abundant, is yet 
 to be shown. 
 
 Filially, I may remark that the belief is not unreason- 
 able that the animal heat is produced by the transfer- 
 rence of the potential energy of the food in the blood into 
 muscular power. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 EATING CUSTOMS IN DIFFEEENT PARTS OF THE WOELD, 
 WITH CONCLUSIONS theeefeom:. 
 
 , The facts contained in this chapter have been obtained 
 from a pretty exhaustive study of all possible sources of 
 information concerning the eating customs in all parts 
 of the world, where man has penetrated, and the gen- 
 eralizations are drawn from a careful sui-vey of the facts 
 considered in the light of recent science. 
 
 1. The customs of different peoples in regard to eating 
 and drinking are as diverse and opposite as their customs 
 in regard to religion, government, and social life, and 
 nearly all forms of organic life, when used as food, seem 
 to he capable of sustaining life. 
 
 I have only space, under this head, to refer to a few 
 of the more noteworthy diversities of custom. 
 
 In Persia, horse flesh and camel's flesh are the great 
 dishes. 
 
 The Tartars live on milk, butter, and oatmeal. The 
 Thibetans, rich and poor, are meagerly fed. They have 
 little rice, or wheat, or fruit, and depend on black bar- 
 ley ; from which they make tsamba, their leading article 
 of diet 
 
4:6 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 The staff of life in East Africa, is ugali, a porridge 
 made of boiled millet, or maize flour. 
 
 The North American Indians live on the flesh of ani- 
 mals obtained in hunting, fresh water fish, and others 
 obtain corn and fruits. 
 
 The African Bushmen eat roots, bulbs, garlic, the larvse 
 of ants, locusts, grasshoppers, lizards, and anything else 
 they can get hold of. 
 
 The Hottentots pick vermin from each other, and eat 
 them as a matter of course, declaring that the best way 
 to get revenge for their eating, is by our eating them. 
 
 The AustraUans eat the prairie rat, the flying fox, and 
 the ant eater. The Malayans delight in a species of 
 bat. 
 
 The Bengalese eat cow or buffalo beef, pork, pigeons, 
 and in times of scarcity, snakes, frogs, ants and rats. 
 
 Enormous fish, that we know nothing of, are caught 
 in tropical rivers. I can only mention the " Baggar," 
 the "Bayard," and the "Coor ;" the catching of which 
 is so graphically described by Baker. 
 
 The Chinese eat sea slug, which is regarded as a 
 great deUcacy ; " and birds' nests, sharks' fins, and fish 
 roes. The poorer classes subsist mainly on rice and 
 fish ; but sometimes resort to the heads and entrails 
 of fowl, earth worms, mice, dogs, cats, frogs,' horse- 
 flesh, unhatched ducks, and snakes, and rotten eggs. 
 
 The popular conception that dogs, and rats, and mice 
 are a prominent article of food in China is erroneous. 
 
 In this country who would think of eating water- 
 melon seeds, excejpt when on the borders of starvation? 
 But Mr. Hue tells us that in China they are an object 
 of daily consumption. They are taken before meals, 
 and between meals : and when it is desired to treat a 
 
A EOTAL FEABT IN AFEICA. 47 
 
 friend or caller. Everywhere they are sold ; and chil- 
 dren run to invest their little money in them like so 
 many sugar-plums. " The consumption of them through- 
 out the empire is something incredible, something 
 beyond the limits of the wildest imagination." 
 
 A merchant who was invited to a feast of the Green- 
 landers, counted the following dishes : "Dried herring; 
 dried seal's flesh, called mikiak ; boiled auks, part of a 
 whale's tail in a half putrid state, which was considered 
 a principal dish ; dried salmon; dried reindeer venison; 
 preserves of cranberries mixed with the chyle from the 
 maw of the reindeer ; and lastly, the same enriched with 
 train oil." 
 
 A BOYAL FEAST IN APEIOA. 
 
 Du Chaillu gives an interesting description of a royal 
 feast that was Igiven to him by King Obindji, on the 
 banks of the Ovenga Eiver, in Equatorial Africa. To 
 the furious beating of drums, twenty of the king's wives 
 came forth, each bringing a dish which they placed on 
 the mat. The first course was " boiled elephant, that had 
 been cooking since the day before, to make it tender. 
 Next appeared hailed crocodile, the broth of Vhich was 
 well seasoned with lemon juice and pepper. 
 
 A monkey roasted whole followed, wonderfully resem- 
 bling a roasted baby. A. wild feoarwas the next surprise, 
 with a strong flavor as if it had been killed many days 
 before. 
 
 Then came the less astonishing huffdo ribs and ibrtgue, 
 which was followed by smoked otter, antelope, and the 
 Ught gazelle. 
 
48 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 Instead of bread, plantains were placed in a large 
 dish in the center. 
 
 The meats were followed by the fish, as manaters, mul- 
 lets, and turtles. 
 
 As a kind of second course, boUed gorilla was pre- 
 pared by a friend of Du ChaiUu, and "also a dish made 
 of part of a large snake cooked in leaves." 
 
 Du ChaDlu gives his impression of each article. The 
 elephant was abominably tough ; the crocodile soup 
 was not at all agi'eeable, although the taste was extin- 
 guished by pepper ; the wild boar was putrid, but the 
 Africans "thought it exquisite ;" the otter he did not 
 like, and the buffalo he hardly touched ; but the mon- 
 key was " perfectly delicious," as good as the best of 
 venison. 
 
 The Arabs almost depend on " waJcer," which is called 
 in Ceylon and India " Barmian,'' and '^'Bandikai." The 
 pods of this are dried, and are mixed with almost every 
 kind of food. Besides this they have the " regie," a 
 juicy, brittle plant. 
 
 A great staple with the Arabs is " dhurra," a kind of 
 grain, of which they make " melach " and " abrey " 
 cakes, which they eat on their long journeys. 
 
 In other lands all sorts of strange animals and bu-ds 
 are eaten^— parrots,- which when old are tough, but when 
 young are Uke the pigeon ; the wild boar ; the ass, which 
 has been highly valued ; the donkey, not unlike the 
 . horse ; the hyena ; the leopard ; the reindeer ; the tiger, 
 which the Malay beUeves to be a specific against disease ; 
 the panther ; the wild cat ; the bear ; the lion and the 
 jaguar; the beaver ; the kangaroo, the tail of which 
 makes a soup in comparison with which that of ox tail 
 is tame enough. 
 
TEOPIOAL PKODUCTIONS. 49 
 
 Nature is continually surprising us witli singular 
 freaks and caprices in her productions. In the interior 
 of Brazil sweet lemons are found, which resemble in 
 outward appearance, the ordinary sour lemon. 
 
 Sour honey is also produced by a certain species of 
 bee in South America. 
 
 There are many tropical fruits that rarely, if ever, 
 reach the North, but are known only to travelers. 
 Among these I may mention lansat, jrnnbon, jack, ram- 
 butan, blimbing, and mangosteen which is by some re- 
 garded as the best of the tropical fruits. 
 
 In the West Indies the alligator pear is much valued ; 
 Brazil produces the elegant custard apple. In the West 
 Indies also grows the mamma apple. A fruit of Guinea 
 is the akee. One of the finest luxuries of the East, is 
 the litchi, which ranks nearly on a par with the durion 
 and mangosteen. 
 
 Other fruits of warm climates are the lucuma, maqui, 
 hog plum, sapota, star apple, chupon, guava, and tamarind, 
 whose peculiar acid is so delightful to invalids. 
 
 Among productions of the tropics that are little 
 known among us, may be mentioned the koola nut, 
 which is said to be very nutritious ; the saloom and neb- 
 buk, that grows ia Egypt ; motsouri and nijii beans ; the 
 mogametsa, a bean with a Uttle pulp around it; the 
 m/yriM, a bright red bean, and the manioc and plantain, 
 which are to Africa what bread and potatoes are to 
 Europe and America. 
 
 Travelers speak also of the marolo, "small and 
 wholesome, and full of seeds, like the custard, apple ;" 
 the mamosho, or "mother of morning," described as 
 "juicy and delicious;" the cashew apple, the "mawa;" 
 the " memgongo," A fruit much resembhng a northern 
 
50 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 apple or pear ; and the mponko, that resembles our 
 melon. 
 
 Mangabas, goyobas, jambos, mammoons, cajas, cajus, 
 cambocas, aracas, maracuja — these are some of the fruits 
 of Brazil that to Northern ears convey no definite mean- 
 ing, but which are rich, delicate and refreshing. Trav- 
 elers in South America also speak of the manirito, the 
 madrona, a deUghtful sub-acid fruit, and the cacaita, or 
 monkey cacao-bean. 
 
 CLAY EATERS. 
 
 Not only organized but unorganized substances seem 
 to be capable of sustaining life. Thus the Ottomac In- 
 dians of South America eat earth, which they swaUow 
 daily in large quantities, for months in succession. 
 This earth is a fine unctuous clay, of a yellowish color, 
 and when hardened has a little red color, due to the 
 oxide of iron. During those seasons when fruits are 
 scarce these Indians subsist almost entu-ely on this 
 earth, which they make into balls 'and consume in enor- 
 mous quantities, and take very little else besides: 
 
 Similarly the negroes on the coast of Guinea eat a 
 yellow earth caUed caauac. 
 
 The inhabitants of Java eat cakes made of " reddish 
 and somewhat ferruginous clay," but are injured by it 
 and perceptibly lose their flesh. The Ottomac Indians 
 seem to thrive on dirt-eating, for Humboldt describes 
 them as " men of a very robust constitution," but they 
 do not take much exercise. 
 
 The negroes of Gambia mingle clay with their rice. 
 ^ The conclusions to which Humboldt arrives, are, that 
 the habit of eating earth is confined to the tropics of 
 both hemispheres j that the positive nutriment in these 
 
EVOLUTION OF FOOD. 51 
 
 earths must be yery small indeed, and that it acts rather 
 to appease hunger,. and stimulate the secretion of gas- 
 tric juice ; that some tribes eat it from necessity, but 
 others from cjioice. 
 
 It seems almost necessary to accept the view that 
 these clays do contain positive nutriment which in some 
 way becomes assimilated. 
 
 The General Law of Evolution is allied to Positive 
 as well as to Negative Food. 
 
 In the general history T have given of the method by 
 which men have arrived at their present knowledge and 
 use of food, it follows that the law of evolution may be 
 justly said to apply to food, and may explain and con- 
 firm its history. The history of food, like the history of 
 stimulants and narcotics, like the history of aU organic 
 nature, is the history of a struggle for existence,- of con- 
 tinuous differentiation, and multiplication, and adapt- 
 ation to changes in soil, climate, and human progress. 
 
 In proportion as man has multipUed and advanced, 
 and become subdivided into tribes and races, in that 
 proportion has the food on which he has subsisted been 
 multiplied in variety j and in proportion as he has 
 risen from savagery toward civilization, in that propor- 
 tion has his food improved in quality as well as in 
 quantity ; and side by side with modern refinement in 
 the art of cookery there has been a great increase of 
 nervousness and nervous diseases, that has made tempt- 
 ing diet a necessity. 
 
 All the vast institutions ■ of mechanical skill, in the 
 forms of trades and specialties, would have been hamp- 
 ered and retarded had not food correspondingly com- 
 bined to meet the varying wants of all. 
 
52 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 The early savages, we have seen, must have slowly or 
 rapidly starved on barks, and leaves, and berries, with 
 occasional feasts of meat, or, fish, or fruit. The ancient 
 civilizations rejoiced in tables that were then called 
 abundant and luxurious, and at the banquets of the 
 Roman nabobs all the known world was laid under ex- 
 plicit and extravagant contribution ; but the Eoman 
 feasts were tame enough in comparison with the daUy 
 needs of the average European or American. 
 
 As man has migrated from land to land, and sea to 
 sea, in that proportion he has found new, and different, 
 and peculiar varieties of food adapted to his wants in 
 the climates in which he has taken his abode. 
 
 Climates also have changed from age to age, and the 
 materials of food which depend on climate have changed 
 with it ; and correspondingly, man's desires as well as 
 his needs have also changed. 
 
 The evolution of food has kept place with the evo- 
 lution not only of agriculture and commerce, but of 
 social life, of religion, of mechanical skUl, invention, 
 and of morals. As man has cultivated more he has 
 desired more ; as his taste has become sensitive and 
 capricious, the means to gratify that taste have arisen. 
 
 In the darkness of the Middle Ages, gluttons were 
 abundant ; but they indulged their passions with a 
 limited and oftentimes untempting variety of food. For 
 ages certain nations of Europe lived largely on pork, and 
 their intellectual achievements well corresponded. 
 
 In America, the varieties of the raw material food are 
 greater than in any other continent, and in addition, 
 nearly aU the desirable products of the world are 
 brought to our shores. 
 
LAW OF ETOLUTION APPLIED TO FOOD. 53 
 
 THE LAW OF EVOLUTION APPLIES ALSO TO 
 NEGATIVE FOOD. 
 
 Stimulants and narcotics have likewise multiplied 
 and improved with the advance of the race, and are 
 now used in their greatest variety in the most highly 
 civilized nations. 
 
 To the divine Saoma has succeeded wine, and wine has 
 differentiated into hundreds of varieties that the ancient 
 world knew not of. 
 
 The opium and hemp of the ancients have been va- 
 riously modified by modem cultivation, and are to a 
 certain extent replaced by tobacco, coffee, tea, and choc- 
 olate, with their many imitations.* 
 
 In accordance with the general law of evolution, va- 
 rieties of food that were formerly held in esteem, are 
 now little used ; according as new and better varieties 
 arise, more pleasing modifications are developed with 
 the advance of the race. The gluttonous feasts of 
 our forefathers would hardly be attractive to modern 
 Londoners or Parisians. 
 
 Ages ago, sage was a common drink in Europe, but 
 that, and numerous other herbs, have yielded to tea 
 and coffee. 
 
 Already we have seen how rapid has been the evolu- 
 tion of cereals and fruits, and how many improved va- 
 rieties are required, which in our fathers' day had not 
 been born. The fruits and vegetables of our modern 
 markets are as much richer and more varied, than those 
 of the middle ages as the civilization of the 19th century 
 
 * For a more detiiUed description and history, see my work on Stimulants 
 and yarcoticSy of this scries. 
 
54 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 is more complex, and more refined, than the civilization 
 of Mediaeval Europe. 
 
 In the time of Henry TEII. there were no cabbages, car- 
 rots, nor any esculent roots in England, and about this 
 time artichokes, apricots and plums first appeared. 
 
 Among the articles of food that were once popular, 
 but now, for some reason, have lost their popularity, 
 are the lamprey, once a great delicacy ; the sturgeon, of 
 which the Greeks and Romans were so fond ; the 
 dolphin, which is now regarded as insipid. The por- 
 poise, once most popular, is now almost forgotten. 
 Among birds the bustard and thejlamingo were greatly 
 lauded by the ancient Romans. 
 
 The majority of the inhabitants of- the world are underfed. 
 
 Of the twelve hundred million inhabitants of this 
 globe only a very small fraction systematically get 
 enough to eat. The almost universal condition of exist- 
 ence is poverty, and in no other direction is poverty so 
 widely felt as in waat of food. Clothing of some kind, 
 cheap or luxurious, and enough for health, is enjoyed by 
 all races from the lower savages to the more enlightened. 
 A suit when once provided lasts, long, and when lost or 
 worn out, can easily be replaced by some other, which 
 is aU that is needed for protection if not for luxury. 
 There are very few, and those are usually only of the 
 very poorest classes in civilized countries, who need to 
 suffer from cold through lack of clothing. 
 
 Food, on the contrary, is usually more or less difficult 
 to get, and civilization is always expensive. Even when 
 food is aljundant in quantity the quality may be so bad 
 that those who subsist on it are poorly nourished. In 
 this matter of diet extremes meet ; the savage goes hun- 
 
THE WOBLD UNDEEFED. 55 
 
 gry because he is too lazy to go after food, or, perhaps, 
 because it cannot be found ; the wealthy and cultivated 
 restrain their appetites because fashion — more tyranni- 
 cal than hunger even — enjoins it ; or because they are 
 so absorbed in intellectual pursuits that the cry of the 
 passions is not heard. 
 
 The greatest gluttons may be chronically underfed, 
 for we are told that the Siberians, the Kamtschatkans, 
 and the African tribes and savages generally, who, at 
 their feasts, appear to be enormous gluttons, go for days 
 at a time without anything to eat ; and there are mil- 
 lions and millions who live and die in this world with- 
 out ever having known a really substantial and every 
 way healthful meal. 
 
 Among enlightened nations only a small minority can 
 afford to buy the best of food. The great mass must 
 be content with what they can get, arid cooked in a 
 manner at once unscientific and unpalatable. 
 
 Oarlyle said to Emerson that the best thing he ever 
 heard of America was, that there every- one could have 
 meat for his dinner — a remark which suggests very 
 painfully the condition of the greater portion of the 
 population of Europe^ — and yet of the 40,000,000 inhabi- 
 tants of the United States — ^the most favored nation in 
 the world in regard to food — there are probably not 
 more than one million who can or do systematically live 
 well. 
 
 In Great Britain — that has given the world the best 
 civilization it has yet seen, and where among the higher 
 classes the art of dining has been carried to its highest 
 perfection — hundreds of thousands rise each morning 
 knowing not where they shall get their breakfast, and 
 
56 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 there are very many millions who have never tasted and 
 never will taste a generous and varied dinner. 
 
 In the United States the diet of the poorer classes in 
 the great cities is so abominable that the physicians of 
 the public institutions of charity find great difficulty 
 in treating them — with satisfaction. Our farming pop- 
 ulation, who raise their own food, live much worse than 
 is supposed. Pork, cabbage and potatoes are the great 
 staples, and in thousands of families a piece of tender 
 beef steak would be as much of a rarity as a durion of 
 the Malay Archipelago.* 
 
 Thus we see that from the starving millions on the 
 Plains of Persia, whom despotism and ignorance keep 
 perpetually poor, and the bigoted castes of India dying 
 by millions amid the cattle which their rehgion forbids 
 them to eat ; and the lazy Siberian, too short-sighted to 
 accumulate in seasons of plenty against seasons of 
 scarcity ; and the wretched African tribes, decimated by 
 disease brought on by life-long deprivation of the com- 
 monest necessities, to the gay lady of fashion, who goes 
 hungry away from a bountiful table, lest she might 
 become gross, or have blotches on her face, and the hard 
 toiling brain-worker, who forgets whether he has dined 
 in the excitement of his book or a problem, or whom 
 crazy hygienists have taught that prolonged hunger is 
 the true prescription for health and long life — through 
 all grades of humanity inanition is the rule, repletion 
 the exception. 
 
 Among the civilized portions of society of modern 
 
 * The statements on this topic, though necessaril; given with considerable 
 absoluteness, are not made at random. They are based on careful ttudy of 
 those works that desciibe the manners and customs of di£rerent countries, 
 and on the statistics of Europe and America. 
 
GLUTTONY A VICE OF THE PAST. 57 
 
 times, the number of those who often overeat is very- 
 limited. In the old civilizations of Persia and Kome, 
 and with our forefathers in Great Britain and Northern 
 Europe,* gluttony was a prominent if not universal vice 
 among those who could obtain the material on which to 
 be gluttonous. The vice is a relic of savagery, of a 
 social state when food was scarce, or at least uncertain, 
 and men were tempted to gorge themselves in order to 
 compensate for the famines of the past and anticipate 
 those that were to come. Then again, savages have so lit- 
 tle intellectual culture and so few amusements, that the 
 gratification of appetite has limited restraints. 
 
 With the rise of modern culture, with the vast mul- -, 
 tiplication of books and newspapers, with the varied 
 opportunities for literary and social activity and re- 
 creation, in lectures, public worship, in political gather- 
 ings, in the multitudinous cares and details of science, 
 art, scholarship, education and trade, and with the vary- 
 ing and incessant demands of fashion, and, in connec- 
 tion with all these activities, with an improved moral ' 
 sense and consequent growing repugnance to coarse 
 vices, crimes of every kind are either disappearing, or, 
 retaining their confined essence, assume a more refined 
 character. Thus the love for bull fights and the gladi- 
 atorial arena, have given way to the pantomime, the 
 tragedy, and the ballet. Thus also in the best circles, 
 intemperate drinking, which only half a century ago 
 was almost universal in the leading classes of Great 
 Britain and the United States, and was held in esteem, 
 has now become among these classes an exceptional 
 
 * The word " gOrmand" is said to ba derived from Gorman, a gluttonous - 
 king o£ the Danes. The Normans were more temperate than the Britons, but 
 were won over to habits of gluttony by the people whom they cpnciuered. 
 
^ 
 
 58 EATING AND DEINKDJO. 
 
 vice, and is held in great reproach. Ardent spirits have, 
 to a certain extent, been replaced by the milder stimu- 
 lants, tea, coffee, and chocolate. Similarly, also, the dis- 
 gusting habit of tobacco-chewing has slowly yielded to 
 tobacco-smoking, and carrying the refinement further 
 still, the filthy pipe has been cast aside in favor of the 
 beautiful meerschaum, the elegant cigar, or the light 
 cigarette. 
 
 All these habits, from the sturdy women of Queen 
 Bessie's reign gulping their beer by the quart, to the 
 fashionable lady of "West End or Fifth Avenue, deli- 
 cately sipping her weak chocolate or tea, have a common 
 basis, but the difference between the former and the lat- 
 ter represents the difference between the coarseness of 
 i the sixteenth and the culture of the nineteenth cen- 
 ''/' turies. 
 
 Civilization has vices enough, but they are different 
 from those of barbarism in their manifestation if not in 
 their purpose. The corruption- — which is the one great 
 vice of a high civilization — is simply a refined method 
 of robbery. The man who in the 14:th century would 
 have waylaid a stage coach and murdered the passen- 
 gers, now embezzles his employer's -funds, steals from 
 the people by lying advertisements, and robs the treas- 
 uries of cities, nations, and railroads. 
 
 OVEEEATING VEBY BARELY A CAUSE OF CHRONIC 
 DISEASES AMONG THE INTELLIGENT CLASSES. 
 
 Earely, if ever, do I see a patient with chronic disease 
 that has been induced or aggravated by overeating. 
 Temporary disturbances in digestion are continually 
 caused by carelessness in the use of indigestible fruits 
 and other substances ; but permanerd ill health, as a 
 
THE EULING PEOPLE FLESH EATERS. 59 
 
 result^ excessive ewtin^^good food, in cultivated, 
 iQteUigenT^aSMS^s^so rare thatTTo not Temember 
 gver to ha sa^een a case. 
 
 The vast and increasing army of paralytics, dyspep- 
 tics, consumptives, nervously exhausted, and insane, is 
 |filled,_jftot by those who overeat, but by those who 
 ridereat.*^ The great difficulty that practitioners, of 
 ' chronic diseases especially, encounter is in getting their 
 patients to take sufficient nutriment. Very much of 
 the benefit that follows traveling, change of residence 
 to the seaside or the mountains, muscular exercise, 
 ' electrical treatment, and various medicines, is due to, 
 ^ and is measured by, the increase of the appetite, and 
 corresponding increase in digestive capacity. 
 
 Many of our most valued medicines — cod liver oil, 
 cream, phosphates, and iron — act directly as food, and 
 owe their value to their nutritive powers. 
 
 To restrain debilitated patients from eating in our 
 
 days is as unscientific as it would be to bleed them a 
 
 few ounces daily, as was formerly done in such cases, 
 
 V and would have a similar effect to increase their de- 
 
 bihty. 
 
 The most vigorous, independent, and energetic people in 
 all parts of the world are flesh eaters, while those who live 
 exclusively or mainly on fish and vegetables are inactive, 
 phlegmatic, and stationary. 
 
 This conclusion is clear and inevitable from the facts 
 of history, and well accords with our knowledge of 
 comparative anatomy, and with common observation. 
 
 * I do not forget the well recognized disease, boulimia, wMcli consists in 
 abnormal and unappeasable appetite ; nor that epilepsy has for one of ita 
 symptoms or results a morbid desire for food that demands restraint. 
 
60 EATING AND DEINZING. 
 
 Theoretically, it would seem that the flesh of lower 
 animals, which so closely resembles that of man, would 
 be of all food the easiest to assimilate, and the best 
 form of nutrition. Experience demonstrates the cor- 
 rectness of this theoiy. The strength and working 
 power of human beings is, to a certain extent, propor- 
 tioned to the quantity of animal food that they can 
 habitually digest. 
 
 / The most powerful nations and the greatest and best 
 men everywhere are flesh eaters. In all civilized coun- 
 tries the leading classes who control the ciyihzation, 
 have never been vegetarians, and so far as can be learned 
 this statement is true for aU the older nations — 
 Assyria, Egypt, Greece and Eome ; that it is true of all 
 the great nations of modern times no one will question.* 
 
 Among the savage and semi-savage races we find that 
 the energetic, . the warlike, and the migratory, are 
 flesh eaters, while those whose dependence is ex- 
 clusively on fish, vegetables or fruit, are comparatively 
 passive, timid, peaceable and stationary both in char- 
 acter and locality.f Contrast the wild and ugly- 
 tribes of Central Africa, who make murder a pastime, 
 and keep their country half depopulated by cruel wars : 
 the bold and adventurous herdsmen of the South Amer- 
 ican pampas ; the fierce and wandering Arab of the 
 desert; and the murderous aborigine of North America, 
 and the well-to-do classes of civihzed lands — aU of 
 whom are hberal or exclusive flesh eaters, with the 
 
 * It has been calculated that in Prance one sixth of a pound of meat ia daily 
 consumed ; tke average for London and New York is about half a pounds 
 
 tl do not overlook althoush Ibave bere no room to describe the elements of 
 race, climate, goycrnment, religion and education, all of wbicb more or leas 
 co-operate with diet in making nations wbat tbey are. 
 
FLESH DIET — CANNIBALISM. 61 
 
 timid and oppressed Eyots oi India, the peaceable 
 Chinese and Japanese, stationary for centuries ; the 
 Laplanders and Icelanders, incredibly phlegmatic and 
 indolent ; the Siberians, the Kamtsohatkans, the dwellers 
 on the Pacific Islands, and the peasantry of civilization 
 everywhere — all of whom depend whoUy or largely on 
 fish, vegetables and fruit, and we have facts sufficient 
 from which to draw our generalization of the effect of 
 flesh diet on the activity of the brain and muscle. 
 
 Pizarro Jound the Peruvians, who lived on vegetables, 
 mUd and peaceable, while Cortes found the same" race 
 in Mexico, Uving on flesh, fierce and, savage. 
 
 THE LAW APPLEElS TO THE LOWER AiTIMALS. 
 
 The law is just as fixed in its application to the lower 
 animals. It is stated the bears of India and America 
 that live on acorns are mild and tamable, while those 
 of polar climates, that feed on .flesh, are fierce and im- 
 tamable. 
 
 Even our domestic animals advertise their diet in 
 their faces, and any one can tell a batcher's dog as far 
 as he can see him. 
 
 Enough is known on this subject to enable us to know 
 a priori, that the German tribes who overthrew the 
 Boman Empire could not have been vegetarians or fish 
 eaters, and -that the great Grermano-Scandinavians \yho 
 colonized Great Britain and North America, and sent 
 their commerce to every ocean, must have been a beef 
 eating race. 
 
 CANNIBALS MOEE COUEAGEOUS AND ACTIVE THAN 
 VEGETAKIANS. 
 
 Human flesh seems to agree with those who eat it ; 
 
62 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 it is certainly far preferable to a purely vegetable diet. 
 Du ChaiUu says that the Fans — a cannibal tribe who 
 eat even those who have died from sickness, and wiR 
 steal bodies that have been long dead, — are " the finest, 
 bravest-looking set" of negroes of the interior of 
 Africa. 
 
 Tribes that devour human flesh are by no means, 
 however, the most cruel, or the most degraded speci- 
 mens of humanity. Cannibalism exists in different 
 parts of the globe, and in very different races. 
 
 It is stated by Abd-allatif, physician of Bagdad, that 
 in Egypt, in the 13th century, in a season of great 
 scarcity, the habit of eating human flesh spread through 
 aU classes. At first it caused amazement and horror ; 
 but the habit gradually extended until people of wealth 
 and position regarded human flesh as a treat, and 
 secreted it in stock against hard times. It was cooked 
 in various ways. Of the poorer classes, large numbers 
 were destroyed in this way. 
 
 Fhysicians were in especial demand. They were sent 
 for on pretense of consultation and were seized and 
 devoured.* 
 
 Eeade, who has traveled among cannibals, expresses 
 the same views. Says he, "A cannibal is not neces- 
 sarily ferocious. He eats his fellow creatures not be- 
 cause he hates them, but because he Ukes them." 
 
 Even in the hottest climates meat seems to be re- 
 quired for those who toil hard. 
 
 GOUAMBA, OK MEAT-HUNGEB. 
 Du ChaUlu describes a disease very prevalent in 
 
 * This account I take from Hiunboldt's Travels. Bohn's ed., ToL U. p. 416. 
 
EFFECT OP PISH DIET ON THE BEAIN. 63 
 
 Equatorial Africa, calle^^'gouamba^ It is an intense 
 anging. for meat, induce<f~By long abstinence from, it. 
 t is very distressing ; one of Du Chaillu's companions, 
 n African, suffered from it so rnuck that he cried like 
 
 child. In that climate vegetables will not satisfy. 
 
 In this country those who, after living a long time on 
 esh, are suddenly and entirely deprived of it, are some- 
 ;mes afflicted with this gouamba, at least in a roild 
 
 , EFFECT OF FISH DIET ON THE INTELLECT. 
 
 The statement has recently gone forth on the au- 
 lority of Prof. Agassiz and others, and has been veiy 
 enerally accepted, that flsh diet, by virtue of the phos- 
 horus which it contains, is pre-eminently adapted to 
 ourish the brain, and that those who subsist on it 
 irgely are distinguished for their brightness and intel- 
 ictuality. Now, while it is true that a small percentage 
 E phosphorus enters into the composition of the healthy 
 rain, and while it is also true that fish contains more 
 r less of phosphorus, that may, and probably does, 
 ass into the circulation, it is yet to be proved 
 ther by theory or by the experience of mankind, 
 lat a diet of fish is, on the whole, better adapted to 
 ipply the waste of the brain than a liberal variety of 
 ;her alimentary substances, and especially of meats. 
 ideed, as we have seen, aU the facts that in any 
 ay bear on the subject go to prove directly the 
 mtrary. It must be remembered that, besides phos- 
 lorus, the brain is composed of a number of other im- 
 Drtant substances, on a proper supply of which its 
 itivity and healthfulness materially depend, and there- 
 
 j.1. _i. 
 
64: EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 that best supplies the waste of dl those elements. Many 
 of our common alimentary substaiices contain phos- 
 phorus, and the different varieties of meat contain it in 
 about as large a percentage as fish. Pereira states that 
 more phosphorus is afforded to the body than it re- 
 quires when flesh, bread, fruit, and husks of grain are 
 used for food, and ' the excess is eHminated from the 
 system. 
 
 Furthermore, the different varieties of nieat, besides 
 containing nearly as much phosphorus as fish, have a 
 greater percentage of nitrogeneous substances, and a 
 much less quantity of water ; and must therefore, 
 necessarily, be more nutritive for the brain as well as 
 for the system generally. It is found by universal ex- 
 perience that filsh is not only less satisfying to the appe- 
 tite than meat, but that it is also less sustaining to the 
 mental and physical strength. Herodotus tells us that 
 certain classes among the Babylonians and ancient 
 Egyptians subsi-sted mainly on a diet of fish, and' we 
 are led to believe that they belonged to the inferior 
 orders of society. The largest and most exclusive con- 
 sumers of fish in the world are.the Chinese, the Hindoos, 
 the Japanese, the savages of New Zealand, the Siberians, 
 the Icelanders, and Laplanders, the Indians of the 
 Amazon, the Greenlanders and Esquimaux, and nearly 
 all the dwellers on the northern coasts of Europe and 
 A-merica. The strongest admirers of the Japanese wiU 
 surely not presume to compare them with the beef- 
 eating Anglo-Saxons. The intellectual inferiority of the 
 Greenlanders, the Esquimaux, and the natives of New 
 Zealand, will be conceded without argument. 
 
 If maritime nations have exhibited greater vigor and 
 ability than the inhabitants of the interior, as suggested 
 
INDOLENCE AND STUPIDITY OF FISH EATEES. 65 
 
 ■ Prof. Agassiz, the cause is to be found not so much 
 any, peculiarity of their diet as in the recognized fact 
 history, that the superior races have intuitively 
 ished their way to the sea-coast on account of the 
 iportunities there afforded for commerce and coloni- 
 tion. 
 
 To all this it may be added that the greatest fish 
 ters are not always those who live near the sea. 
 •ibes who live on rivers subsist on fish, even in the 
 terior of Africa and America. 
 
 The Icelanders are notoriously indolent and phleg- 
 afcic, and stock-fish is their daily food. Travelers all 
 ;ree in these two statements, that these people have 
 h on their tables nearly every day, if not every meal ; 
 id that aU the inhabitants exhibit a lethargy, a cold- 
 iss, and a slowness of movement that to the beef- 
 ting English is astounding. Making allowance for 
 e climate in which they live, there is much in their 
 aracter, as well as in th^at of the Esquimaux, that can- 
 )t well be accounted for by any other theory than that 
 h must affect them unfavorably. 
 The character of^ the Chinese and the Hindoos for 
 -ssivity and for quietness is sufficiently known, and of 
 e Siberian fish eaters it is enough to say that they 
 liberately prefer starvation to work. Terrible famines 
 cur among them. because in seasons of abundance they 
 nnot muster the energy to store up the salted fish, 
 lich is their chief subsistence, against seasons of 
 arcity. The aborigines of the Amazon— whose great 
 pport is fish — are described by Wallace as not only 
 aceable but bashful. "They scarcely ever quarrel 
 long themselves, work hard, and submit willingly to 
 thority." This description contrasts powerfully with 
 
66 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 what African tiavelers, as Walker, Livingstone, Speke 
 and Du Chaillu give us of carnivorous tribes of that 
 equatorial continent. 
 
 Civilization is indeed but little, if any, more indebted 
 to fish than to vegetables and fruits. 
 
 "■ ^riSH EATING COMMUNITIES INTELLECTUALLY 
 INFEBIOR. 
 
 The operation of this law is just as clearly seen 
 when it is studied in its appUcation to isolated commu- 
 nities. 
 
 The stupidity and indolence of fishermen and fishing 
 "districts is proverbial. It is necessary to go no more 
 than an hour's distance from New York — the most 
 active city on this continent — along the coasts of Long 
 Island and New Jersey, to find arguments in favor of 
 the stupefying effect of a fish diet. 
 
 The inhabitants of Cape Cod and the adjacent islands, 
 Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, are probably the 
 most exclusive fish eaters on this continent; besides aUthe 
 abundant varieties of salt water fish along the coast and 
 the bays, and the finest of trout in the brooks, her- 
 rings, rightly termed "Cape Cod turkey,'' are caught by 
 thousands, and are dried and smoked, and on many 
 tables are never absent during the three hundred and 
 sixty-five days of the year. Fresh beef is scarce ; farm- 
 ing is poor enough ; poultry is not over-abundant, and 
 on their sandy soil no more than ordinary vegetables 
 or fruits can be produced. Those who have the 
 sunniest memories of the unsurpassed hospitality oi 
 the people of the Cape will surely not claim for 
 them any more than average intellectuahty, but must 
 admit that in this respect they compare unfavor- 
 
FISH DIET A SOPORIFIC. 67 
 
 ably with the bold and energetic Yankee stock of 
 which they are a part. 
 
 /Probably no class in American society have given 
 so few great men to the country as fishermen. 
 
 FISH DIET A SOPOKLFIO. 
 
 All the evidence of experience goes to show that fish 
 not only does not increase the activity of the intellect, 
 but that its effects, both temporary and permanent, are 
 distinctly the reverse. It acts like a soporific, or sedative. ' 
 
 Those who suddenly change from a generous mixed 
 diet to one where fish takes the place of meat, often- 
 times observe that they become sleepy and stupid, during 
 the day ; a sort of loginess comes over them very much 
 like that which those experience who indulge freely in 
 milk or beer. This effect is by no means constant ; but 
 it is not unfrequent. I have frequently observed it in 
 my own personal experience, and have seen many who 
 have made the same observation on themselves. 
 
 An intelligent patient of mine, an athlete, who has 
 given considerable attention to the diet of gymnasts and 
 muscle men, says that he once subsisted mainly on fish 
 for ten weeks, Hving in all other respects as usual. He 
 was troubled with drowsiness and stupor that made it 
 hard for him to go through his daily duties. When fish 
 diet is used pretty exclusively, these effects become 
 a fixed condition ; and therefore we find that fish- 
 ermen everjrwhere, and nations who, like the Ice- 
 landers, subsist on fish, are sleepy, indolent and phleg- 
 matic. 
 
 "What chemical principle in fish it is that produces 
 this calming effect I cannot say. Possibly it may be the 
 
68 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 phosphorus, for the phosphates when given as medicine 
 do sometimes aid the sleep, and are therefore prescribed 
 for insomnia. 
 
 To a far less degree fish acts like bromide of potas- 
 sium — a remedy which, when given in large doses for 
 months and years, is, by some physicians, beheved to 
 weaken the intellectual force. 
 
 Like bromide of potassium, fish may be of service to 
 a tired brain, not by making it work more, but by mak- 
 ing it work less, by compelling it to rest, and therefore 
 it may be well to spend a part of our vacations where 
 the wheels of thought should stop, or at least go very 
 slowly, where we can diminish the life current by 
 an impoverishing and calming diet of fish caught by 
 our own hand. 
 
 On the same principle it may be well for this nervous, 
 brain-working generation, to learn lessons of hygienic 
 wisdom from Iceland and Norway, from China and 
 Hindos|tan, and give the beef of the waters a more 
 prominent' position on our tables, not in order that we 
 may do more, but that we may do less. 
 
 The extemcH attractiveness or repulsiveness of the differ- 
 ent forms of animated nature that are used as food, stand 
 in no relation to their palatahUiiy and value as nutriment. 
 
 Sight and smell, and touch, and hearing, are all de- 
 ceptive guides in the selection of food. 
 
 The durion is one of the richest and most luscious 
 fruits of the tropics, but its odor is so disgusting that it 
 drives those unaccustomed to it from the room, or even 
 from the neighborhood in which it lies. 
 
 The opinion that animals which feed on repulsive 
 diet are therefore xinfit for human food is baseless. Life 
 
EEPULSIVE OBJECTS USED AS FOOD. 69 
 
 s a wonderful chemist, and in its hidden laboratories 
 ransforms the most nauseous and unsightly food into 
 iWeet and healthful flesh. 
 
 Carnivorous birds, vultures, etc., are not esteemed as 
 ood, but other animals, as pigs and domestic fowls, 
 fhose flesh is so valued, are as filthy in their diet as can 
 le imagined. Wallace, who has written the best works 
 f travel since Humboldt's day, says that " carnivorous 
 ish ar6 not less delicate eating than herbivorous 
 nes.'' 
 
 In Guatemala there is a behef that lizards eaten alive 
 ure the cancer. 
 
 That frogs are a luxury we all know, but it is said 
 hat toads are often taken to market as substitutes, and 
 ive entire satisfaction. The natives of Surinam and 
 )ominica certainly eat the toad and make soup of it for 
 lie sick. The iguana is hideous enough, but the na- 
 !ve of Jamaica would feel much wronged if he were 
 eprived of it. 
 
 Beetles were eaten by the Boman epicures in order to 
 itten themselves, and the Turkish women, it is stated, 
 )r the same purpose eat beetles in butter. 
 
 In Sweden ants are distilled with rye for brandy to 
 ive it a flavor. 
 
 In Ceylon bees are eaten ; in Australia the moth 
 a great delicacy ; among the Hottentots cater- 
 llars are as much of a luxury as sugar plums are 
 ith us. 
 
 Spiders have been craved by some intelligent and 
 iltivated people, as the stories go, and the Bushman 
 gards them as a dainty. Centipedes also, Humboldt 
 sclares, are swallowed with avidity by the children of 
 )uth America. 
 
70 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 In 1542 a cloud of locusts invaded Germany ; they 
 were broiled on a gridiron and found to be wholesome ; 
 thus they were the means of saving the lives that they 
 intended to destroy. 
 
 The armadillo and the porcupine are eaten in 
 South America, and said to be delicious even to Eu- 
 ropeans. 
 
 The alligator is far from being a favorite when alive, 
 but when well broiled its flavor is not unlike that of the 
 lobster, and makes excellent food. 
 
 The electric eel, though dreaded by man, in the region 
 where it abounds is, by gourmands, highly rated. 
 
 The Llaneros of South America prefer to eat turtles 
 in darkness, or the reason that the choicest bits would 
 not be eaten if seen. 
 
 The smell of the carcass of the hyena, is so abomin- 
 able that even the dogs turn away from it, but the Arabs 
 manage to eat it with voracity and pleasure; 
 
 Some of our most highly rated articles, of food must 
 have long gone untouched on account of their repul- 
 siveness. 
 
 Brave must have been the man who ate the first 
 shrimp, crab, frog, or oyster. 
 
 Says the poet Gay — 
 
 ' ' The man had sure a palate covered o'er 
 With steel or brass, that on the rocky shore 
 First ope'd the oozy oyster's pearly throat 
 And risked the living morsel down his throat." 
 
 Skunk is called better than pork, even in the United 
 States, by those who can get near enough to him to 
 catch him. 
 
APPETITE HEKEDITAEY. 71 
 
 [uc, describing a Tartar banquet, says that the intes- 
 es, liver, and heart of a sheep were boiled in a pot 
 'a some condiment ; " the intestines being preserved 
 ire, and arranged as they were in the stomach of the 
 maL" 
 
 V^hen we dress an animal, we take out the entrails 
 . eat the body ; but there are millions who regard 
 entrails as the greatest luxury, and if food be abun- 
 t, throw away the rest of the animal. 
 
 ''ood which is at first repulsive and disgusting to the ap- 
 ie, may, by frequent use, very readily become agreeable 
 '. 'useful, and this acquired taste may be transmitted. 
 Jot only the senses of sight, smell, and hearing, and 
 ch, but even the appetite itself — which is the best 
 de we have in the selection of our food — is by no 
 ms infallible. The system may be nourished and 
 1 nourished by substances that shock the palate and 
 iseate the stomach. 
 
 travelers agree that many of the hideous articles of 
 i in use among the savages, and the very thought of 
 ich causes fainting and sickness, may in a short time 
 ome most delightful and satisfying, 
 t is not necessary to travel to demonstrate this pro- 
 ition ; for do we not see tomatoes on all our tables, 
 I only a minority like them at first? To almost every 
 : they are disgusting, but after long practice has 
 rcome this disgust, they become a most agreeable 
 lory. 
 
 APPETITE HEREDITAET. 
 
 Everything in the human organization, good and bad, 
 .'.v.^o/>f. tn file oTfiflt la.w of inheritance, and with the 
 
72 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 reversion and other modifications which are a part of 
 the general law, are liable to be transmitted from pa- 
 rents to children. 
 
 By this law we m'Sy explain the facts already pre- 
 sented, of whole nations who eat with relish varieties of 
 food that to other nations are so repulsive ; that de(3om- 
 posed fish and flesh, sour milk, are by so many preferred 
 to these articles in a fresh and pure condition. 
 
 It is more than probable that twenty five years hence 
 "^children will love tomatoes as naturally as they now love 
 peaches or potatoes. It is hardly probable that man, 
 even in his lowest state, originally preferred putrid and 
 decomposed to fresh nutriment. The theory is more 
 plausible that on account of scarcity or negligence, they 
 were often obliged to eat food that had passed into de- 
 composition, and that by long use they learned to pre- 
 fer that flavor which at first was disagreeable, and that 
 this taste was transmitted to posterity. 
 
 This theory is re-enforced by the fact that it is mostly 
 among the savage tribes, or the wretchedly poor, that 
 these. strange tastes are found, and that under increased 
 comforts they have mostly disappeared. In the same 
 waj' I account for the preference which the Icelanders 
 and the Irish peasantry give for sour milk ; for such 
 preference, like the preference for high game, is but ex- 
 ceptionally seen among the intelligent and well-favored 
 classes of any country. 
 
 Not only taste but probably also distaste is hereditary. 
 With enlarged resources and refined cookery, enlight- 
 ened man has gradually abandoned articles of food that 
 were once his favorites, and has lost his love for them, 
 and it is surely not irrational to infer that this dislike has 
 been inherited, so that we now almost tremble at the 
 
EEJEOTION OP ABTICLES OF FOOD. 73 
 
 ght of sitting down at the tables of our ances- 
 * 
 
 urly all people reject, even under the pressure of 
 me necessity, some one or many articles of food at 
 command, and the causes for such rejection are often- 
 strange and unaccountable. 
 
 perstition and religion have much to do with the 
 tion of many articles of food, especially among cer- 
 savage nations. 
 
 le Kaifir, like the Jew, will never eat pork, and he 
 lins also from fish ; and yet he seeks the raw flesh 
 le ox, even the most disgusting portions, 
 le Pacific Islanders, like many other savages, are 
 anted by their religion from eating many valuable 
 les of food. One worships his god in the shark ; 
 lier in the eel ; another in the owl ; and so on 
 igh aU animate nature. 
 
 le. East Africans, though very fond of animal food, 
 le eggs, and consider cheese a mineral, and there- 
 denounce it. 
 
 daism prohibited pork, as all know, and the religions 
 idia compel vast millions to practice absolute or 
 oximate vegetarianism, 
 en as late as the middle of the nineteenth century 
 
 0S6 -who dosire to learn by experience liow easy it is, in a comparatively 
 ime, to acquire a taste for eating ranlt food,'and,a corresponding distaste 
 t -wUcli is pure, may have a good opportunity on long voyages. 
 IS my misfortune, during the late war, to spend fifteen months on board 
 of the steamers engaged in blockading the ports of the Western Gulf 
 For nine months we lay anchored without once going ashore. Though 
 ell supplied with canned and salted provisions, the butter was almost al- 
 incid and hideous to the taste, and tie odor was so powerful that, when 
 proposed to slush the masts with it the paymaster protested, declaring 
 it were done "the blockade runners could smell us three miles off." 
 tirning North the sweet, fresh butter, was positively Insipid. The ex- 
 
74 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 we have seen a not inconsiderable number of Pro- 
 testant Christians abstaining from wine for conscience 
 sake. On the festal days of the Roman, and especially 
 of the Greek Church, flesh of all kinds is prohibited. 
 
 "With the general advance of the race, and the evo- 
 lution of freedom in thought and action, the inter- 
 ference of religion with diet has been gradually re- 
 \duced to a minimum. 
 
 The Llaneros, a pastoral people of South America, 
 despise milk and butter, regarding them as fit only for 
 children. 
 
 In the United States we call rabbit a delicacy, but 
 a negro of the West Indies wiU go very long hungry 
 before he wiU touch it. 
 
 As a general law all varieties of food are best adapted for 
 the climate in which they are produced ; hut this law is 
 susceptible of very wide modifications. 
 
 That the train oil and blubber of Greenland are 
 better adapted for those regions than for the temperate 
 zone ; that there is a certain correspondence between 
 the fruits of the tropics and the demands of the system 
 in those regions ; that those travelers best succeed iu 
 preserving health and strength who measurably con- 
 form to the eating and drinking customs of the coun- 
 tries they visit — aU these statements are but truisms, 
 and need no detailed exhibition of authorities to make 
 them acceptable. 
 
 And yet the history of the world, and especially since 
 the recent and rapid development of modern commerce, 
 shows that civilized man can use with profit and plea- 
 sure, food gathered from aU the ends of the earth. It 
 appears Jiot to be well to live entirely-or mainly on im- 
 
)ILS AND FATS IN HOT AND COLD CLIMATES. 75 
 
 i food ; and none long try the experiment. The 
 itants of the temperate zones are the most for- 
 e in this respect, since they can draw from the 
 f zone on the one hand, and tropical on the other; 
 probably without necessary detriment to health. 
 3re is no satisfactory evidence that the fruits and 
 ments brought to us from the tropics have any 
 than a pleasurable and beneficial effect, when 
 with reasonable caution and with a due. regard to 
 [dual idiosyncrasies ; but the desire for these sub- 
 es is much less active in the temperate zone than 
 3 countries where they are produced, 
 in seems to demand and to bear wider extremes in 
 lod than the lower animals ; for we all know that 
 tropical birds and polar animals' die readily if 
 pains be not taken with their nutrition, 
 follows from this that the products of the tempe- 
 sones should have a wider applicability than the 
 icts which can be raised only in the tropical or 
 regions. 
 
 e inference is confirmed by experience, 
 tatoes, rice and the cereals, are valuable food in 
 ihmate to which they may be carried, 
 ailarly with negative food. The most Universal 
 ilants are tea and tobacco, and both are the pro- 
 I of temperate climates.* 
 
 iremely hot and extremely cold climates demand oily 
 atty food, or other carbo-hydrates, though perhaps not 
 ml quantity. 
 ibig, the father of physiological chemistry, has made 
 
 ici/-iTi r»-f -frtrtrl fVin.f. 1H n.s familifl.T a.R if. is nnsonnd. 
 
76 EATING AND DEINKING! 
 
 According to his classification the heat producers will 
 least of aU be needed in hot climates. Experience shows 
 that they supply a want in the deserts of Africa as much 
 as amid the snows of Siberia. 
 
 Raw walrus beef, Dr. Kane declares, is the best fuel 
 a man can swallow ; but what shall we say of the trav- 
 elers in the deserts of Persia and Arabia : of the herds- 
 men of the Pampas of South America, who, under a 
 butning sun, feel similar if not equal need of oil and 
 fat? 
 
 No other facts than these are needed to show the 
 difficulty and present impossibility of solving- the com- 
 plex problem of diet by physiological chemistry. 
 
 Baker tells us of an Arab sheik, who, though 
 " upwards of eighty, as upright as a, dart, a perfect 
 Hercules," had daily consumed through his hfe two 
 pounds of melted butter. - 
 
 Baker further states that "fat is the great desideratum 
 of the Arab." Not only does he smear his beard, his 
 clothes and his body with it, but he eats all he can get. 
 
 Du Chaillu states that the Bakalai tribe of Afiica 
 have more disease than the Apingi, and he attributes 
 this difference to the fact that the latter tribe consume 
 more palm oil, which, in the absence of game, constitutes 
 a considerable portion of their food. He further states 
 that this tribe are exceedingly fertile as compared with 
 other African tribes, and raises the query whether the 
 immense amount of palm oil they eat may not have 
 something to do with it. 
 
 Dr. Livingstone, speaking of the borders of the Kala- 
 hari desert, says : 
 
 "A considerable proportion of animal diet seems re- 
 quisite here. Independent of the want of salt, we 
 
HOT CLIMATES DEMAND CARBO-HYDBATES. 77 
 
 ire meat in as large quantities, daily, as we do in 
 
 Land, and no bad effects, in the way of biliousness, 
 
 w the free use of flesh, as in other hot climates. A 
 
 table diet causes acidity and heartburn. 
 
 irton says that in East Africa meat is the diet most 
 
 id, and that those who can afford it . live on flesh 
 
 ist entirely, considering "fat the essential element 
 
 )od living. " 
 
 3 states, furthermore, that although fish are abun- 
 
 in the rivers, they are despised by those who can 
 lesh. 
 le Persians live on rice and oil. 
 
 Central and Eastern Arabia the date is the food of , 
 Arab, the staff of his life, and chief commercial 
 uct. Mahomet knew its value when he com- 
 Jed : " Honor the date tree, for she is your 
 ler." 
 
 le Arab of the Desert of Sahara drinks oil as we 
 E coffee. When it is in abundance he can sustain 
 } fatigue. Says Eichardson : " An Arab will live 
 1 months on barley meal paste dipped in olive 
 
 would seem that the different varieties of the carbo- 
 ates are, to a certain degree, substitutes for each 
 •. In India, and China the leading carbo-hydrate is 
 in Central and Eastern Arabia, ihe date ; in the De- 
 )f Sahara, and in Eastern and Western Africa, Syria 
 i'alestine, palm and olive oil, and in nearly all those 
 ;ries milk and honey, and liquid butter, cocoanut 
 fround-nut oil, and fat and lean meat of various 
 I are used. 
 East Africa, where the encumber srowa wild, an 
 
78 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 the methods by which the inhabitants of extremely hot 
 regions satisfy the demand for carbo-hydrates. 
 
 In East Africa the people chew the sugar cane, and 
 " sugar attracts thorn Uke flies ; they clap their hands 
 with delight at the taste ; they buy it for its weight in 
 ivory ; and if a thimbleful of the powder happen to fall 
 upon the ground they wiU eat an ounce of earth rather 
 than lose a grain of it." 
 
 The Mussulmans of the desert cook their rice in fat. 
 
 In Chili balls of grease are sold in the markets, and 
 in Egypt nearly everything is cooked swimming in fat, 
 and in' Madagascar traveling companies say that grease 
 is mixed with all. their food. 
 
 In Chili also sugar is much eaten. 
 
 Hot oil as well as hot gravy is taken by the Arabians 
 of the desert, and is given as a medicine in certain 
 diseases. Thomson says that the principal food of the 
 inhabitants of Syria and Palestine is cheese, figs, olives 
 and sour milk, and that almost every dish is cooked in 
 oil. 
 
 In hot countries, where meat is scarce, or where it is 
 prohibited by religion, other substances, classed by 
 Liebig as heating foods, are used. The nutritive 
 power of oils and fats is several times greater than 
 that of rice, and therefore, when rice is used with- 
 out oil or sweets, large quantities are required. The 
 Hindoo eats enormous quantities of rice and but- 
 ter, eked out sometimes by a Uttle flesh ; but at 
 best this food is an imperfect substitute for meat 
 or oU, for we are told that the quantity required 
 for those who live mainly on rice is enormous, and 
 that the poor Eyots, in consequence, become "pot 
 
OILY FOOD IN HOT CLIMATES. 79 
 
 bellied," and present an appearance of chronic star- 
 vation. 
 
 On the contrary, the Arabs, who live on abundance of 
 flesh of various kinds, and oil and butter, and some of 
 the tribes of Central Africa, whose diet is similar, though 
 varied by human flesh, as well as the herdsmen of South 
 America, who rarely need to suffer for want of meat or 
 oil, are, for savages, vigorous, active, energetic and cour- 
 ageous. 
 
 Extremely hot regions not only require meat and oily 
 food, but enormous quantities of it ; probably not much 
 less in some sections than is required in regions of ex- 
 treme cold. 
 
 Of the gastronomic performances of the Hottentots 
 every one has heard. 
 
 Barrow states that they are prodigious gluttons. An 
 ox of medium size was disposed of by ten Hottentots in 
 three days. 
 
 Probably mor-e food is, on the average, eaten in ex- 
 tremely cold than in extremely hot climates, but there is 
 reason for believing that the diffierence is less than is 
 generally supposed. Like the Hottentots, the African 
 cannibals, and the Arabs, the Siberians and Greenland- 
 ers appear to be greater gluttons than they really are, 
 because they are compelled often to go hungry for many 
 days at a time. It is 'certain that the Laplanders, 
 the Norwegians, and Icelanders, are not remarkable 
 eaters. 
 
 The traveler, Vambery, says that the Persian pil- 
 . grims whom he met on his travels, were gigantic 
 eaters. ^ 
 
 The effects oi extreme heat and cold are analogous 
 in other respects.- 
 
80 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 " The drought and heat of the Llanos act like cold 
 upon animals and plants," says Humboldt. In the 
 season of extreme heat, boa constrictors and crocodiles 
 remain torpid for weeks in the mud. Travelers in Af- 
 rica confirm this observation. 
 
 Certain diseases, as leprosy and elephantiasis, seem to 
 be common to tropical and polar regions. They are 
 found in Iceland, and in Africa and Arabia. Ice and 
 hot water often have a similarly curative influence 
 when locally applied for the treatment of disease. 
 
 T'here are large numbers of people who prefer their Jiesh 
 and fish and other food, when it has passed into a slate of 
 decomposition or fermentation. 
 
 In Burmah, the gneper, a huge fish, is eaten, some- 
 times in a semi-putrid or semi-pickled state. 
 
 The 'herdsmen of South America seem to prefer de- 
 composed meat, even when the fresh is abundant on 
 every hand. 
 
 The inhabitants along the Senegal and Orange rivers, 
 prefer decomposed fish to those just taken out of the 
 water. 
 
 Even in Sweden stock fish steeped in a solution of 
 potash until decomposition takes place, is for the Chris- 
 tian's dinner what roast beef is to the Englishman. 
 
 The herdsmen of the Pampas of South America eat 
 decomposed oxen with great relish. 
 
 There are some few among us who prefer old and 
 rancid cheese to that which is fresh and newly 
 made. 
 
 Even in civilization the old taste lingers ; traces of 
 barbarism are not yet wholly worn out ; for even now 
 there are those who prefer their game high. . 
 
DISEASES CAUSED BY FOOD. 81 
 
 Fermented liquors are en'pfed by the most enlight- 
 ened equally with the most degraded ; but fermentation 
 is a species of decomposition. 
 
 Putrefaction and fermentation are seen to make some 
 alimentary substances more healthftd, and to remove 
 injurious qualities. 
 
 The juice of the mandioca is at first poisonous, until 
 fermentation has commenced. Sour miUi seems to be 
 less likely to do harm than sweet milk ; at least it is so 
 believed among certain tribes of Africa ; and the 
 world over, there are more who drink sour milk 
 than who take it fresh from the cow. 
 
 Much of the disease of the world is caused by the 
 
 food. <■ Hi 
 
 Between savagery and civilization, through all the 
 grades, this law applies ; and that the scurvy and 
 horrid diseases of " the skin, and general low con- 
 dition of many of the savage tribes are caused by 
 their abominable food, travelers weU agree. The 
 delusion that all the diseases of humanity are con- 
 fined to civilization is quickly dispelled by a careful 
 reading of works of travel. 
 
 Scurvy is caused by want of fresh vegetables and 
 fruits, and is removed by abundance of these articles. 
 
 The raw meat of the Abyssiniahs, when very freely 
 eaten, causes, it is stated, a kind of insensibiUty, not 
 imUke intoxication." 
 
 Almost the whole Abyssinian people are afflicted with 
 tape worms ; it is their most prevalent disease; and 
 is without question due to the ravj meat on which they 
 subsist 
 
 The natives of 'Polynesia sometimes eat sharks, and 
 
82 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 gorge themselves to such an extent that they vomit. 
 Their flesh is dry and acrid. 
 
 It is thought that the excessive and disproportionate 
 use of the date among the Arabs is a cause of indi- 
 gestion. An exclusive fish diet seems to cause various 
 disorders of the skin. 
 
 The experience of mankind in the selection and com- 
 bination of food, is, to a certain extent, explained and con- 
 firmed by the sciences of organic and physiological chem- 
 istry. 
 
 If man were forced to depend on his knowledge of 
 the relation of minute chemistry of food to the human 
 body, he would starve before he could prepare a single 
 meal ; and after the utmost care and skill, in which the 
 most advanced science should be brought into requisi- 
 tion, he could not tell whether the fii'st mouthful might 
 not instantly throw him into fatal convulsions. 
 
 But after experience has indicated to us the food 
 that we need, chemistry and physiology come in very 
 appropriately, to explain, in a most interesting manner, 
 the laws and principles thus ascertained, and to guide 
 in their application. 
 
 We cook some varieties of fish in oil ; others, which 
 contain sufficient fat, are eaten alone. 
 
 In our puddings, eggs, milk, suet, and butter are 
 mingled with rice, and crackers, and bread, and tapioca. 
 
 In our salads are mingled oil and eggs, with lettuce 
 and chicken. Eice is boiled with milk, and cheese is 
 eaten with macaroni, and green corn needs the addition 
 of butter and salt. 
 
 Buckwheat cakes are eaten vnth butter, milk, sugar, 
 molasses, honey, gravy and meats. Everywhere vegeta- 
 
PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY EXPLAINS EXPEBIENCE. 83 
 
 bles are eaten with meats and butter with bread, and 
 crackers with, cheese. Pork and beans is a union of op- 
 posites as scientific as it is popular. 
 
 A modem dinner, beginning with soup, and ending 
 after various courses with fruits, is, in the main, 
 consistent with what httle is known of physiological 
 chemistry. Soup is an excellent preparation for more 
 solid food, and raw oysters taken early in the meal serve 
 to stimulate rather than deaden the appetite. 
 
 
CHAPTEE V. 
 
 rOtm PRACTICAL EULES OF DIETETICS. 
 
 Dietetics is at once a science and an art. 
 
 It is a science, since it embraces a knowledge of the 
 nature and the effects of food, as variously modified by 
 soil, climate, race, season, social condition, and by 
 methods of perfection and combination. It is an art, 
 since it embraces the practical apphcation of what is 
 known of food and its uses. 
 
 Like most other sciences and arts, it is yet incomplete 
 and is progressing. 
 
 Although it is known but in part, yet it is known 
 much better than it was centuries, or even one century 
 ago ; and we have reason for the conviction that it will 
 be stiU better known in the ages to come. 
 
 Dietetics, like theology and like medicine, has ad- 
 vanced in waves rather than in a steady tide ; between 
 the periods of advance there have been periods of de- 
 pression. 
 
 Like many other sciences, also, dietetics has experi- 
 enced violent reactions and revivals. Periods of ener- 
 vating excess and luxury have been followed by periods 
 of stiU more enervating asceficism. 
 
 Mr. Proude has shown that Calvinism was a protest 
 against an age of s6lf-indulgence and vice, a reaction 
 
SENSUALITY OF OUB ANCESTORS. 85 
 
 that was necessary to recall man to his duty. Simi- 
 larly, Vegetarianism and Grahamism, that were at one 
 time so notorious in England and America, were 
 reactions from the excessive indulgence, and the 
 sensuality to which the Anglo-Saxons had for cen- 
 turies been addicted. England and America were 
 peopled by a race possessed of a strong passion for 
 food and drink such as perhaps no other race of 
 the world has ever exhibited. So far back as the 
 records carry us they were pre-eminently a food-lov- 
 ing and alcohol-loving race.* No other people — not 
 even excepting the wealthy Bomans — took such de- 
 light in their feasts, or mingled their eating with 
 such boisterousness and vulgarity. A race whose 
 gods spent their time in rioting and feasting, and 
 in the exercise of carnal pleasures, would not un- 
 naturally regard a capacious stomach with more rev- 
 erence than a capacious brain, and would estimate 
 their friends by the amount of .liquor they could take 
 at a time. 
 
 From all this sensuality came, both in England and in 
 New England, a. powerful reaction which, even now, has 
 not found its leveL What Puritanism was to religion^ 
 what the bleeding and calomel treatment was to medicine, 
 what the rigid and oftentimes cruel common school 
 system was to education, such was vegetarianism to 
 dietetics. 
 
 Among the principal laws of diet that have been 
 established by experience, and more or less explained 
 and confirmed by chemical and physiological science, 
 are these : 
 
 * See my work on " SUmulatUs and narcotics " of cbiB seriee 
 
86 EATING AND DEINKING 
 
 1. The appetite, vrith all its liabilities to error, is undt 
 the guidance of individual experience, the best guide v 
 have in determining the quality and the quantity of ou 
 food. 
 
 2. The food of all clasps should be generous, both i 
 quantity and quality ; and there should be] an agreeabi 
 variety, not only from week to week and day to day, bvi i 
 each principal meal. 
 
 3. The quantity, the quality, and the variety of foo 
 must be modified by race, climate, season, age, sex, occi 
 potion, habit, and the progress of civilization. 
 
 i. The principal meals should be taken with tolerabt 
 regularity, and in calmness and leisure, and amid agret 
 able social surroundings. 
 
 The first law is so natural that -we may well wonde 
 that it has taken us so long to find it out. If the objec 
 of food be to supply the waste of the system ; if withou 
 this supply the body grows thin and weak, and in a fei 
 days must die ; if the amount of work that the bod 
 can perform is proportioned to the food that is digested 
 and if the object of appetite is to inform us that th 
 system needs food; then surely it must be, on the wholt 
 with all its liabilities to disease and error, the bes 
 guide we have in determining what, and how much w 
 should eat. 
 
 No one should long go hungry. We should rise fror 
 the principal meals with a feeling, not of hunger or de 
 sire for more, or of satiety, but of satisfaction. 
 
 Hunger is the cry of the body for food ; and it shoul( 
 be answered with promptness and satisfaction. 
 
DIFFICULTIES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTEY. 87 
 
 DirnCULTIES OF PHYSIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY. 
 
 Whoever professes to apportion our diet by the scales, 
 must first tell us just what and how many changes of 
 tissue take place in the brain in every thought evolved, 
 just what each idea costs us in elements of phosphorus, 
 fat, and salts. He must tell us just how much fuel is 
 consumed for every process of reasoning and every 
 heat of passion. He must tell us how much nervous 
 power is expended when the will commands a muscle to 
 move, and how much protoplasm is transformed when 
 the muscle obeys. He must keep an accurate record of 
 every muscular contraction, and understand what num- 
 ber take place in the four hundred muscles of the body. 
 He liiust rigidly count every beating of the heart, and 
 every breath we draw. He must estimate and pursue 
 every glance of the eye, and every change of the coun- 
 tenance. He must photograph each image that strikes 
 the retina, and record every sound that falls upon the 
 ear. He must weigh the imagination in scales, and the 
 emotions in a balance. He must aUow for every flight 
 of fancy, for every glance of joy, for every weight of 
 sorrow. He must gauge oiir very reveries, and as 
 dreams are attended with changes -of tissue, he must 
 enter into even our night-watches, and catching our 
 visions as they fly, must teU us what they cost the brain 
 by the table of avoirdupois ; but when he has done all 
 this his duties have just begun, for except he know the se- 
 cretions and excretions, the other gigantic labors would 
 be valueless. He must measure the blood as it pours 
 through the arteries, and count the globules that are 
 borne in its tide. He should know the product of every 
 gland and the peculiar secretion of every organ. He 
 
88 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 must be able to state precisely the quantity of gastric 
 juice in the stomach, and of bile secreted by the liver. 
 He must collect and measure the watery vapor excreted 
 by the lungs and skin, and all the waste products of 
 the body. He must intimately know the actual con- 
 dition of every molecule of the system, whether it is in 
 a state of health or disease. If the body or any portion 
 of it is in any morbid phase, he must accurately know 
 the seat of the disease and all the modifications that it 
 produces on the system ; ■ and when he has arranged 
 this one side of the equation, there yet remains the 
 diiScult task of completing it by reducing to their last 
 analysis the elements of his food. 
 
 If any man were endowed with divine power to know 
 all these complex factors, it is manifest that unless a 
 great miracle were wrought to enable him to make his 
 calculations, he must starve before he could prepare a 
 single meal. 
 
 If the time ever arrives when physiological chemistry 
 is an exact science, so that by a mathematical compu- 
 tation of the changes of tissue that take place in the 
 body, we can determine precisely-the amount of nutri- 
 ment that the system deniands at each meal, it may be 
 possible to apportion our meals by the scales, as is done 
 with prisoners and paupers. Even though it were easy 
 to regulate our diet by the rule of three, yet regard for 
 comfort, and enjoyment, and economy of time, would 
 require us to fall back on the natural appetite as the 
 last and beist appeal. • 
 
 A^jpetite may_beconie-perVerted and-digeased so that 
 it-impfijfectlyrepresents the needs of the ^stemj'and 
 the powers ofHigestion^ and, as I have shown, it may 
 be educated to enjoy what is at first repulsive. But 
 
^ 
 
 APPETITE THE BEST GUIDE. 89 
 
 /mih all its liability to err, it is, on the whole, a safer 
 
 --r guide than any system of weights and measures, or any 
 
 I arbitrary laws. Those who always consult what they 
 
 believe to be their rational appetite, will sometimes, 
 
 perhaps frequently,, go wrong, judging by standard of 
 
 absolute correctness, and at times, may compit very 
 
 1 grave errors ; but in the end, and on the average, they 
 will make fewer mistakes, and achieve higher success 
 and . usefulness than those who attempt to regulate 
 the quantity and quaUty of, their nutriment by chem- 
 istry, or mathematics, or by the authority of eminent 
 iianies. 
 
 We are told to set aside, before a meal, just what we de- 
 termine to eat, and confine ourselves strictly to that and 
 no more. Such a habit will a.ssist one to develop self- 
 denial and force of will — the divine art of saying no — 
 but vdll be likely to injure the health. "We cannot tell 
 beforehand just what we need for a meal. Appetite 
 \ often grows as we eat,. and it is proper that it should. 
 \ The amount that we eat should to a certain extent be 
 / regulated by its palatabUity, but we cannot tell how our 
 \ food will taste until we hava tried it. Then again we 
 / often come to our meals so wearied and "worn, by mental 
 or other labor, that we are not in a condition to 
 \judge of the amount we need, until the meal is half 
 over. 
 
 "We are told to rise from the table as hungry as when 
 we sat down. This direction, which has been made from 
 time to time, by popular charlatans in hygiene, derives 
 its plausibility from the fact that we are better able to 
 study after a light than after a heavy meal. But those 
 who proclaim this theory, forget that man was not made 
 alone to study. He was made to eat, to drink and to 
 
90 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 digest, and to enjoy his eating, drinking and digesting 
 
 in order that the power expended by activity may b 
 
 properly supplied. The process of digestion costs some 
 
 thing. It is itself a draft on the strength. It increase 
 
 the very loss of tissue that it is designed to restore 
 
 When the digestive organs are working under fuU pres 
 
 sure, there is less strength and less disposition for men 
 
 tal labor than when the stomach is partly or ,whplb 
 
 .^mpty. But this is no reason why we should go hungry 
 
 An engine'er who should keep his engine but half sup 
 
 plied with fuel for fear that it might wear out too fast 
 
 would be regarded as a lunatic. And yet those whc 
 
 x^ystematically starve themselves, in order to rest thi 
 
 f organs of digestion, are even more unwise than -the 
 
 I engineer, because the stomach, and indeed the whqlt 
 
 I system, is injured and weakened by underfeeding. Th< 
 
 N|/body can go longer without a supply of food than th< 
 
 engine ; but with both it is a question of time inerely, 
 
 and sooner or later, if the water is not supplied, the 
 
 wheels must stop. 
 
 We are told to avoid fine bread, to confine ourselves 
 to that which is unbolted and coarse, and that in Gra- 
 hamism lies the solution of the great hygienic problem 
 of civiUzation. Now, while it is indubitably true thai 
 unbolted flour is in some respects superior to that whicl: 
 is bolted, yet that superiority is no reason why those 
 should use it who do not like it, much less depend on il 
 exclusively. In all these matters nature is wiser thai] 
 the scientists. 
 
 It is a sad and suggestive fact that those who were 
 most led astray by these pernicious heresies were men 
 of the purest ambition and ripest culture — men who in 
 other departments of thought were sensible and well- 
 
4^ 
 
 BISE AND FALL OP VEGETABIANISM. 91 
 
 informed. Co arse, unthinking nattims with sf^grnaclia 
 of . iron and brains: of wo o d, usually care little for 
 
 .-ia:gisa§j...^w^e-i2ii£rj),aad^^ im- 
 
 -K§MbM^tempe3aHi£nts,,jdiQ-^.aa:ajSfid^^ 
 Gapricious-d-igeS'ti«Br'and— a-r©~e0n-tin.ually.,ausc,eptible tp 
 nervous derangement, whose delicate machinery only 
 runs well when in perfect order, and is perpetually liable 
 to become disturbed, are compelled by the very necessi- 
 ties of their being, to study the laws of health. In de- 
 fault of proper instruction and guidance they 'are easily 
 led astray. Their love of inquiry becomes to them a 
 source of error. If they were less able they would make 
 fewer mistakes. All this comes from the ig-norance of 
 the principles of hygienic science, and from the lack of 
 scientific method of 'teaching in our schools and colleges. 
 If the very excellent men who so zealously espoused the 
 cause of vegetarianism in the days of its rising popu- 
 larity had been even moderately well taught in the true 
 philosophy of diet, if they had ever been trained to 
 scientific modes of thought — ^to the careful balancing of 
 opposing facts, and to dispassioned, accurate observa- 
 tion — they would readily have seen the theoretical folly 
 and practical absurdity of the views for which they so- 
 stoutly contended, and in defense of which some of them 
 laid down their lives. 
 
 The history of the rise and fall of vegetarianism in 
 America is exceedingly suggestive. At one time it was 
 espoused bj'-some of the ablest minds in our colleges; It 
 became a mania. It was believed that indulgence in 
 meat was the prime cause of the ill-health of stu- 
 dents, for which the only antidote was vegetarianism. ' 
 It was claimed that those who dined j on potatoes and 
 unleavened bread, were repaid for their self-denial by 
 
92 EATING AND DKINKINQ. 
 
 greater keenness of intellect and stronger powers of ap- 
 plication ; that they could go from the table to their 
 books with an ease and elasticity to which eaters of flesh 
 were utter strangers. But^ abstinence ^ from meat was 
 iHoIl by jH regarded, as .self-denial In the,, excess —of 
 
 /their enthusiasm the disciples of vegetarianism declared 
 that simple fruits and bread were as much more palat- 
 able than unclean meats, as they were less injurious to 
 the health and morals ; that they partook of their hum- 
 
 ^ble meals amid joys which the luxurious flesh-eaters 
 knew not of. I am not here describing a prehistoric 
 age, nor an ancient civilization, nor the days of our fore- 
 fathers. I write in memory of the time when the teach- 
 ings of the late Dr. Alcott, one of the most deluded and de- 
 luding writers that ever enlisted in the service of Hygiene 
 — whose amazing absurdities were only matched by the 
 ignorant sincerity and misguided industry with which 
 they were advocated — exerted a strong and practical 
 influence in many of our seats of learning. I write in 
 memory of the time when the celebrated work of Presi- 
 dent Hitchcock — "Dyspepsia Forestalled and Resisted," 
 one of the most unfortunate books on Hygiene that ever 
 proceeded from the pen of man,* was the law and the 
 gospel on the subject of diet, to a large number of in- 
 quiring minds in our academies, colleges and theologi- 
 cal seminaries — when the influence of the erratic Graham 
 was perceptibly and painfully felt wherever there were 
 in our land those who gave timfe and thought to the 
 subject of health. 
 
 * It is but justice to the memory of a good man to say that at the time when 
 President mtchcock'a work first appeared, some of the views which it con- 
 tained were received by men in the profession. 
 
OKIGIN OF YEGETABIANISM. 93 
 
 V-^A TJSE OF THE VEGETABIAN ItfJL TJSIOy. 
 
 And just here may I ask, what is the origin of the 
 wide-spread delusion that meat is more difficult of di- 
 gestion than vegetables ? It is probably due in part to 
 the influence of the vegetarian reformers, and partly 
 also to the fact of every day observation, that salted 
 meats — such as rare bacon and fried pork, and tough 
 corned beef—are very trying to a weak stomach, and 
 bring on many evil symptoms to those whom cir- 
 cumstances compel to largely subsist on them. And 
 yet it is a fact of experience that most of the fresh meats 
 are much easier of digestion than vegetables, as they 
 are more palatable and nutritious. Those who adopt 
 vegetarianism, are usually the very individuals who 
 are least able to bear it — whose temperament and 
 manner of life demand as generous a variety of meats 
 as they can obtain, whose only hope for health and use- 
 fulness and long hfe depend on a liberal supply of nu- 
 triment. There are men wjio can bear vegetarianism, 
 and for a time, even semi-starvation : but, such persons 
 rarely adopt any such rigid system of dietetics, unless 
 forced to do so by hard poverty. There are many 
 rough, wiry muscle-workers who, since they do only 
 beast's work, can well thrive on beast's food — whose 
 brains, like so much fallow ground, are simply an in- 
 cumbrance, and who therefore chiefly need that kind of 
 food which supplies the waste of the muscle. 3nt brain 
 worliers_jtre_ofa very different stamp, and those who 
 for conscience sake adopt vegetarianism are usually as 
 sensitive, dehcate, and as intellectual as they are unfor- 
 tunate and misguided. But in the light of science and 
 
94 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 experience, nothing is more absurd than vegetarianism 
 for the feeble and dyspeptic. 
 -'" I once dined ii»company with a young collegian, who, 
 out of respect for the host, so far compromised his 
 regulations as to allow himself to be helped to a dish of 
 hash. Prom this he cautiously separated the potatoes, 
 eschewing entirely the particles of meat," which were 
 left on his plate. During the meal he entei-tained us 
 with accounts of his wonderful feats at pedestrianism in 
 his vacations. He could walk twenty miles a day with- 
 out fatigue, and at that very time was on a trip to the 
 White Mountains. As I looked at hisj jale andfemiiiine 
 featiices, tinged with an unnatural flush, (which I can 
 VQever forget, though his name has passed from my 
 /memory,) I knew not whether most to admire the en- 
 /ergy, the patience and the force of-wiLl that had enabled 
 him to crucify his desires, or to pity the ignorance that 
 I to all human seeming must, if persisted in, destroy his 
 Usefulness. One year from that time he was in his 
 grave, a victim to consumption. The lamp had gone 
 out because there was no more oil in it. 
 
 I am not drawing an ideal picture. That unfortunate 
 young man represents a not unimportant class of to-day. 
 These lines may be read by some who, with all their 
 might, are zealously striving to foUow in his steps. It 
 is to save such from an untimely death, or more likely 
 from crippled usefulness, that J insist so strongly on the 
 duty of living generously ; for as I have stated, 
 dietarians are not unfrequently the choicest and ablest, 
 The sensitiveness of organization which is the basis 
 of genius is frequently the source of ill health 
 that impels to wild extremes. It -happens in hygiene 
 asjnrdigioiiJiiat_^e_bold and original wander fa rSiei 
 
EVIL EFFECTS OF , VEGETABIANISM. 95 
 
 fro m the w ays oftruth_than-il>e -stupid and indolent. 
 Althongh. in the majority of instances they return to the 
 more excellent way, yet there are some who persevere 
 to the bitter end, which is sure to come. With the 
 strongest constitution it is a question of time how long 
 the machine can be worked and wasted without nutri- 
 ment to supply the waste, how long the fire can burn 
 without liiel. 
 
 There are to be found those who might, if they 
 chose, adopt Vegetarianism or Grahamism without 
 serious detriment, who think so little and do so little 
 with brain or muscle that there is little waste of tissue 
 and consequently but little to supply. There are these 
 who iudulge so extravagantly in negative food — ^in the 
 form of tobacco, or alcoholic liquors, or coffee, that there 
 is very little desire or need for positive nutriment. But 
 such persons are the last to adopt conscientiously, or per- 
 severingly, any rigid system of dietetics. Consistent 
 dietarians are usually men of susceptible temperaments 
 and firm wiU. In this respect, their very fineness of 
 organization becomes a misfortune. They are slain 
 through their own energy and die by their own per- 
 severance. If they were far less gifted, they would be 
 more useful and more happy. 
 
 SUPEKSTITION A CAUSE OF VEGETABIANISM. 
 
 Another cause for the popularity of Vegetarianism, 
 as for many other exclusive systems of diet, was the 
 superstition of the people. 
 
 The civilized and semi-civihzed Americans abstained 
 from meat for the same reason that the savage Afri- 
 
96 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 cans abstain from certain articles of flesh or fish, be- 
 cause they supposed that.religion forbade it. 
 
 The influence of enlightened Christianity has been to 
 reform some of the worst of these superstitions among 
 those by whom it has been received. 
 
 But stUl it must be allowed that the number of con- 
 sistent- dietarians is comparatively small. There are 
 many who ar e dietarians in theory.^ Jaii fchberal feed ers in 
 practice. TbasLaiip.pQsax)3^ maintain that it isja duty to 
 ^ deny oneselfof all luxuries at the tab^ but pra ctically 
 'ffiey take the best that they can get. Sometimes they 
 •Inwardly resolve to be true to their convictions, and 
 abandon flesh and white bread, and all the other com- 
 forts of the table, but nature proves too strong, appe- 
 tite asserts and regains its mastery, and they rise from 
 every meal with a wounded conscience, until, in the 
 course of years, by long unheeding, it becomes seared 
 and silent. Consistent dietarians have this advantage 
 over temporizers or backsliders, that with alLtheir phy- 
 sical weakness and suffering, and impoverishment, they 
 yet, so long as they live true to their theories, have the 
 approval of the voice of conscience, which to them is 
 as sweet and abiding a consolation as though it were 
 based on truth and intelligence. 
 
 DBINKING AT MEALS. 
 
 In the use of hquid as of solid food, desire is the best 
 guide. We should drink when we are thirsty ; and as 
 we are usually thirsty at meals, especially when our 
 food contains little water, we should drink with free- 
 dom, and usually to the full extent of the desire. 
 
 The dogma that has been laid down that we should 
 
CONDITIONS THAT DETEBMINE QUANTITY OF FOOD. 97 
 
 suffer from thirst while we eat, and drink only at the 
 conclusion of the meal, because some of the lower ani- 
 mals do, is worthy of a system of medicine that sought 
 to make a hell of earth by denying a drop of water to 
 patients burning with fever, or hastened to the grave 
 those dying for want of blood by taking out the little 
 that remained ; or of a theology which made it a crime, 
 under any cii:cumstances, to be happy. 
 
 The quantity of food that is needed by any indivi- 
 dual, climate being excluded from consideration, de- 
 pends on these general conditions : 
 
 1. The organization. 
 
 2. The kind and amount of work done. 
 
 3. The quality of the food eaten. 
 
 Some men, and some races, with the same climate, 
 and amid the same conditions, need more food than 
 others. Large people do not necessarily eat and drink 
 more than small people, for oth-er conditions will vary ; 
 but -in the average they will certainly need more. 
 
 Small, thin people, sometimes, are very active and 
 laborious, and so consume a quantity of nutriment that 
 amazes those who think that size and a great appetite 
 go together. In small, nervous organizations the force 
 supplied by the food is expended in labor of the brain 
 or muscle instead of being stored up. The thin man ^ 
 and the fat man may both have the same income of / — P 
 food, but the one spends as he goes, and the other is \ 
 econQmiiBa,l and accumulates. 
 
 Of the difference in the quality of food enough has 
 already been said to make it evident that those who 
 subsist on potatoes and cabbages need more in bulk of 
 food — other conditions of organization, activity and 
 
98 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 climate being tBe same — than those who subsist on beef, 
 mutton, fish, and grain. 
 
 Pereira estimates that one pound of beef is equivalent 
 to ten and one-quarter pounds of potatoes ; and it has 
 been observed that those tribes that subsist exclusively 
 or largely on vegetables and plants develop larger and 
 more prominent abdomens. 
 
 The story is told of a certain well known lecturer on 
 vegetarianism, that at a country hotel where he stopped 
 he disposed of niaeteen potatoes at his breakfast. 
 
 The quantity that can be eaten by savages in cold 
 countries, after long fasting, is something stupen- 
 dous. 
 
 Bush gives the following account of the eating powers 
 of the Tungusians of Siberia : 
 
 " After pitching the tent and arranging the camp, 
 Telefont and Alexai, the two remaining Timgusians, sat 
 down to a gallon kettle of hot tea,^ and did not leave it 
 until they had emptied it of the last drop. They then 
 cooked a four quart pailful of boiled fish and soup, the 
 contents of which they also devoured. By this time 
 Zakhar, the other- Tungusian, came up cold and hungry. 
 The same pail was then cooked tmce full of boiled beef, 
 which the three emptied both times, even cracking the 
 bones for the marrow. Then, after rinsing the pail, 
 they cooked it full of ' crupa,' a kind of mush, which 
 they ate as soon as it was prepared. After aU this, 
 either their appetites were not fully appeased or else 
 they feared to break off too abruptly, for they com- 
 menced eating dried whale, even devouring the fish 
 skins, which they first broiled in the flames of the 
 fire. After this they went outside of the tent and 
 
NEED OF VAKIETY OF FOOD. 99 
 
 began the preparation of other food, and the last thing 
 heard after retiring was the cracking of beef bones for 
 the marrow." 
 
 Stories equally, if not more, amazing are told by 
 oihev travelers, tlaptain Cochrane says that five Ya 
 kuti of Siberia will eat a calf weighing two hundred 
 pounds at a single meal. Eoss estimates that the Es- 
 quimaux eat daily tvrenty pounds of flesh and oil. 
 
 The second law, that of varietyr-is as powerfully en- 
 forced by experience as the preceding. 
 
 Va riety stimula tes the ap petite.' and with it the or- 
 gans of assimilation. More food can be eaten, and with 
 greater relish, when there are many than when there 
 are only a few dishes. This fact, -vvhich aU admit, has 
 been presented against the view that there should be. a 
 variety of articles at each meal. Rightly considered, it 
 is the strongest argument in its favor ; for the dan gers- 
 and theteigpiBJiQliS_flL_overeating are nowadays far 
 lesSThanthe dangers and temptations of undereating, 
 and~whatever induces^j^^e^r Tiber ally shoulcl" "be en- 
 oo urage d;__r^ 
 
 It is a fact of observation that meals composed of a 
 number of palatable varieties, not only relish but digest 
 sooner and with more satisfaction than a full meal com- 
 posed of one or two varieties. For lunches and hght re- 
 pasts it matters httle whether the variety be small or 
 great. 
 
 The third law, that the food should be modified by 
 race, climate, season, age, sex, occupation, activity, am 
 the progress of civilization, is one that will, in general, 
 
100 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 be conceded without argument, and has already been 
 demonstrated by the facts previously presented. 
 
 The general principle involved in the law follows 
 from the explanation I have already given of the method 
 by which mankind have found out what to eat and 
 drink. 
 
 DIET MODrFIED BY KACE. 
 
 Some races, like the Germano-Scandinavians, are large 
 eaters in whatever climate they may go. The Norwe- 
 gians, the Germans, the English, Ii-ish, Scotch, and the 
 Americans, to a less degree, are devoted to the table. 
 On the other hand, the French, the Italians and the 
 Spaniards are comparatively moderate eaters. 
 
 It may be said in general that races that are hard 
 drinkers are also heavy eaters.* 
 
 DIET MODIFIED BY THE SEASON AND CLIMATE. 
 
 As the diet of the tropics and poles is different from 
 that of the temperate zones, so the diet of summer 
 should be different from that of winter. 
 
 In the wintei', therefore, we take more of meat and 
 fats ; in the summer more of fruits and cereals. The 
 appetite guides rightly in tliis as in aU other mat- 
 ters of diet. A greater quantity of food is required for 
 winter than for summer, for the very clear reason that 
 more heat must be evolved in order to keep up the 
 temperature of the body. The desire for food often 
 increases with the increasing cold of autumn and di- 
 minishes with the diminishing cold of spring. 
 
 * See tay work on " Stimulants and Narcotics " of this eeilea. 
 
DIET MODIFIED BY AGE. 101 
 
 DIET MODIFIED BY AGE. 
 
 ^^''That the young and growing need more food in pro- 
 
 / portion to th eir weight than the matured and aged, is 
 
 '/ one of the unquestioned facts of observation ; but there 
 
 1 are very few who reaHze how old we are before we stop 
 
 gTowing. \ 
 
 We dp not reach our full height and breadth until 
 twenty-five or thirty, and in some instances even later. 
 The period of most rapid growth is in the early years, 
 and during this period, and especially that portion of it 
 which is called boyhood and girlhood, the amount of 
 '"■ nutriment that can be taken is very great. Children 
 need to take food more frequently than adults, and es- 
 pecial care should be taken that they do not long go 
 hungry, for meager or. insufficient food in the days of 
 growth results in stuntedness, or dwarfiness, or disease 
 that no subsequent care can fuUy remove. 
 
 The popular t)ienrieathn,t children should not eat what 
 
 K 
 
 ^eyjaaiye^that t3ia,g^auld^Ji£eJn._a^gtate^_^ subdued 
 starvati on, that they should eat only one or two vane^ 
 Jies^at-aja£aJ,_^aLihey_,^ould_ "avoTd wEat they" like_ 
 bestjjid^on^^ejhgmsely e^ Ja whflt,.is, .^o^^g disa gree- 
 _ablejJha4iliey,^QUld jiot:4an^.witi their meaJs;^ 
 and other similar unscientific and more pernicious 
 heresies took their origin in the same soil from which\ 
 Grahamism arose — namely the reaction from the glut- 
 tony and sensuality of our Saxon ancestors. 
 
 Children need guidance in the selection of their food, 
 but they shiould be guided by wisdom and not by igno- [ 
 ranee. 
 
 The iinportanoe of the diet of children no words can 
 
 J 
 
102 EATING AND DBINKINa 
 
 food depend their future size, health, and strength of 
 muscle and brain. 
 — -""""Xlhildren bear over-feeding much better than under- 
 /leeding. The evils of repletion are evanescent ; the 
 I evils of starvation are permanent. Repletion carries 
 I with it its antidote ; starvation has no cure except in 
 (food. 
 
 The children who gorge themselves with ripe and 
 \ meUow fruits are less injured than they or their friends 
 j suppose ; and far less than those who are kept half 
 i starved. The most distressing fact connected with the 
 ! extreme poverty in our grfeat cities is the meager nutri- 
 ment of the children, as it is revealed by their wan faces, 
 I and their stunted forms. 
 
 I Everywhere, in aU countries, the poorer classes are 
 
 i smaller, thinner, and weaker than the rich ; and one 
 
 ! chief reason why they are thus more favored is that 
 
 they are more liberally nourished, especially during 
 
 the period of growth. 
 
 For infants, as aU. know and admit, the best food is 
 mUk ; and to this, according to growth and strength, 
 solid food should gradually be added. 
 1 It should furthermore be remembered, that our con- 
 ! stitutions change so radically during life, that articles 
 of food which at one time are injurious, become most 
 agreeable and beneficial 
 
 DIET MQDIFrED BY SEX. 
 
 Women are smaller and hghter than men, and there- 
 fore, other conditions being the same, would need less 
 quantity of nutriment. Other conditions are, however, 
 not the same, for in some countries woman works more. 
 
DIET OP WOMAN. 103 
 
 and in other countries less than man. In barbarous lands 
 woman is the slave of man and performs menial tasks ; 
 in civilizations a little advanced, she often shares with 
 him the labors of the field, shop, and the counting 
 room ; in the most enlightened nations woman is 
 the toy, the companion or ornamental appendage to 
 man, and in certain social states, uses her brain but 
 little and in trivial matters, and her muscles scarcely at 
 all. The brain of woman is about one tenth less iii^\ 
 weight than that of man ; and the amount of brain- C 
 work of the more severe kind, is incomparably less than J 
 that which man performs.* 
 
 As I shall presently show,. those who toil hard with 
 the brain need a Hberal supply of first-class nourish-'\ 
 ment. In proportion as woman thinks less than man, j • 
 in that proportion, so long as she uses her muscles but / 
 little, she will need less food than man. 
 yT-N^Observation shows that woman almost everywhere, in 
 civilized lands at least, eats less than man ; and in coun- 
 tries like the United States, where she is nervous, and 
 sickly, and slender, she needs a different quality of food 
 from t^at which is agreeable to the hardier sex. The 
 wives and daughters of farmers, who during the winter 
 perhaps never leave the house, and who, forgetting the 
 example of their mothers before them, with strange 
 perversity prefer the parlor to the kitchen, the piano io 
 the cooking stove and wash tub, must not only eat less, 
 but eat differently from their husbands and brothers 
 who toil from sun to sun in the open field. 
 ^ ^ . ^-.^ 
 
 ^ AccordiBg to calculatiouB that I have made, based ou the biograpliy of the | 
 most distinguiehed men and women of all ages and nations, about one JljUeth \ *- 
 of the best work of .the worJd has been done by woman. J\ 
 
104 EATING AND DKINKING. j^' 
 
 an 
 1 cis 
 
 FEMALE BOAEDING SCHOOLS. 
 
 The diet of female boarding schools is of sufficiei 
 importance to entitle it to separate and special , consic 
 eration, and a volume might well De devoted to it. 
 
 Among the manifold causes of the delicacy and nen 
 
 ousness of American women, slow starvation at scho( 
 
 is one of the most prominent. In obedience to the olc 
 
 but 'fortunately waning superstitions, that the mind ca: 
 
 be cultivated only at the injurious expense of the bod^ 
 
 that whatever is pleasant must necessarily be'perniciouf 
 
 and that the benefits of any system of diet, as of exei 
 
 cise, is exactly in proportion to its disagreeableness, th 
 
 I managers of boarding schools have prescribed diets 
 
 I ries that oftentimes more than neutralize the gooi 
 
 ^'^ffects of their teaching. 
 
 Fashion has joined hands with superstition, an< 
 through fear of looking gross or healthy, or oi incurrin 
 the horror of the disciples of Lord Byron, our youn, 
 ladies live all their growing girlhood in semi-staryatioi 
 they become -thin .and poor, their nerves become paiE 
 fully sensitive, and when they marry they give birth t 
 >/5tarvelings. 
 
 DIET MODITIED BY rNDIYrDUAL TEMPERAMENT. 
 
 All the other conditions of race, climate, season, agi 
 sex, being the same, or as nearly the same as possibl( 
 the food varies with the temperament, in a manne 
 at once striking and mysterious. 
 
 In the chapter devoted to the description of the leac 
 ing articles of food, some remarks were made on thei 
 palatability, digestibility and nutritive value. Thes 
 
DIET MODIFIED BY HABIT. 105 
 
 remarks were of necessity general in their character ; to 
 all these are individual exceptions. There are idiosyn- 
 crasies in the ma;tter of diet that defy explanation, and 
 probably can be understood only when the mystery of 
 life itself is solved. This apphes not only to positive 
 but to negative food, and to all our principal medicines. 
 
 Even, quinine has been known in a few instances to 
 produce a peculiar and disagreeable eruption on the 
 skin. Some cannot bear mutton, others are made ill by 
 a pear, or watermelon, or cucumber. 
 
 All these pecuUarities are strange enough, but no 
 more strange than' other peculiarities of appetite or 
 taste. Why it is that one likes tomatoes, or peaches, or 
 ice cream, or Uver, or melons, or brown-bread, and 
 another is indifferent to all these things, or is, perhaps, 
 disgusted at the sight of them, is a problem as unsolv- 
 able as the origin of existence. 
 
 To those who are impatient that such caprices are 
 npt explained, the. best reply is, to say that they are no 
 more mysterious than that we should exist at all. 
 
 One thing is clear, that they must, to a certain extent, 
 be abandoned ; and those articles that poison any of us 
 must be refused, even though they be food to all others. 
 
 DIET MODDFIED BY HABIT. 
 
 As by long practice one who at first is repelled by the 
 odor of tobacco, can become so accustomed to it that 
 ten pipes or cigars are a pleasure and a luxury, so many 
 varieties of ordinary nutriment can be forced on the 
 system, and the, system can be gradually adapted to it, 
 so that what originally was pernicious to it becomes 
 
106 EATIKG AND DRINKING. 
 
 demonstrated by daily experience of indiyidxials, and by 
 the experience of humanity in all parts of the globe. 
 Travelers are witnesses to the truth of this statement, 
 for they wear themselves to the dietetic habits of the 
 people among whom they reside, and are frequently 
 benefited rather than injured by these radical changes 
 of life. 
 
 It is a part of the conditions of life ; a part of the law 
 of evolution, that we should be able to adapt ourselves 
 to the diet that we find, as much as to all other condi- 
 tions of environment. 
 
 In Africa some become so accustomed to the terrible 
 mboundou poison * that they can drink it by the bowl- 
 ful without harm. 
 
 DIET MODIFIED BY THE PEOGKESS OF CIVILIZATION. 
 
 It is an essential inference from all the facts that have 
 been advanced relating to the eating customs of differ- 
 ent countries, that the food of civilization must be 
 different in quantity and quahty from that of bar- 
 barism. 
 
 The thoughtful, cultured European or American is 
 a being as different from the savage African or Austra- 
 lian, as the Africans or Australians are different from 
 the higher order of apes ; and correspondingly his food 
 must differ from that of the savage, as the food of the 
 savage differs from that of the ape. Nay, more, the. 
 gulf that separates Shakespeare and Newton from the 
 
 * This driiUE Is prepared by ecraping the mboundou root in a vesBel, and 
 pouring in about a pint of water ; fermenting at once takes place, and t]ie.li^uid 
 efferresces like cbampa^e. 
 
THE INSENSIBILITY OP SAVAGES. 107 
 
 Papuan is wider than that whicli separates the Papuan 
 from the gorilla and the chmipanzee ; and therefore it 
 is easier for the lowest order of human beings to live 
 after the manner of the apes than for the highest orders 
 of humanity to live after the manner of the savages. 
 
 The difference between the savage and the civilized 
 consists mainly in the larger, richer, and iiner develop- 
 ment of the brain and nervous system. 
 
 The advantage of the enlightened European or Amer- 
 ican over the lowest races in size of brain is great ; but 
 the advantage in quality of brain is far greater. This 
 finer quality of brain, in highly advanced races, is re- 
 vealed by the correlated conformation of the features, 
 by the fineness and softness of the skin and hair, and 
 by general sensitiveness. 
 
 The trustworthy descriptions that travelers give us of 
 the insensibility and coarseness of savage tribes are 
 amazing, and show clearly enough that all civilization is 
 purchased at the price of pain and sorrow ; that all re- 
 finement has its compensations. 
 
 When we read the accounts of the brutality of 
 savages to each other we shudder, and perhaps lay 
 aside the book with nausea and faintness. Among 
 many African tribes the feeling of love between man 
 and wife, as we understand it, is not known ; and it is 
 as customary for husbands to flog their wives, as among 
 us it is to kiss them. Whips, made of hippopotamus 
 hide, are made for this special purpose ; and if a hus- 
 band neglects to flog his wife, her relatives complain 
 that she is badly treated. This custom prevails among 
 a large number of barbarous and semi-barbarous races, 
 and in different parts of the world ; and the custom of 
 flogging or bambooing, and otherwise pounding the 
 
108 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 body for $liglit offences, is common to all except the 
 best cultured nations. 
 
 In assuming, as most of us do, that these apparently 
 cruel processes inflict anything like the amount of pain 
 on the coarse and brutal people on whom they are 
 usually employed, we make a great mistake. They 
 probably suffer less from these hideous tortures than 
 we do from reading the account of them. 
 
 Parkyns says that the coolness with which the Abys- 
 sinians receive the punishments inflicted on them by 
 their Turkish governors is wonderful. ; and he rightly 
 attributes this coolness not to mental endurance, but to 
 physical incapacity to be pained. Hundreds of blows 
 even aged culprits will receive without even crying out. 
 For a trifling reward they would be willing to take five 
 hundred blows with the lash. Still moro markedly that 
 their insensibility is proved by the voluntary treatment 
 they give themselves or each other. Their duels, which 
 are "engaged in by young men on the slightest possible 
 pretext," are conducted with a hippopotamus hide, 
 which makes furrows in the skin, and draws blood 
 with every stroke. An Abyssinian beUe gashes her 
 body in order to raise beautiful scars, which are there 
 considered ornamental. For bracelets they tie a cor- 
 rosive root around the wrist, which eats into the flesh 
 and raises a perfect band as thick as one's finger ; and 
 probably all this causes less pain to her than the mere 
 pressure of an artificial bracelet on the growing arm of 
 an American maiden. 
 
 The stolidity of the North American Indian under 
 tortures that are apparently cruel, and the coolness with 
 which the Hindoo swings by hooks in the flesh, rolls on 
 the ground for long journeys and over rough roads, 
 
ENDUBANCE OF SAVAGES. 109 
 
 and commits various and horrid acts of religious devo- 
 tion, are quite familiar, and may all be reasonably ex- 
 plained'. The tattooing so commonly practiced among 
 wild tribes, and the disgusting rites of circumcision, 
 which for immemorial ages have been practiced among 
 African tribes on little children of both sexes, probably 
 cause little if any more pain than they would on the 
 monkeys among whom thej' live, and to whom they are 
 believed to be so closely related. The African negi'o, 
 when he wishes to break a stick, breaks it over his 
 own head instead of on his knee, as is the custom with 
 us. 
 
 Then again, among many wild people, child-bearing, 
 which makes a modern woman an invalid for days, and 
 weeks, and months, is usually all over in frpm half to 
 three quarters of an hour, and is not attended with any 
 cries or tears, and the mother right away resumes her 
 menial duties. 
 
 To a less degree the same holds good of other natrons. 
 It is clear enough, also, that the ascetic- customs of the 
 early Christian and mediaeval ages ; the protracted flog- 
 gings of our navies ; the barbarous tortures of the In- 
 quisition ; and the hideous civil punishments of various 
 degrees of past centuries, caused immeasurably less ac- 
 tual pain than they would if inflicted on the present 
 descendants of those sufiSrers. 
 
 We have only to go back one hundred, or one hun- 
 dred and fifty years, to find in England lunatics treated 
 as criminals and punished with whips, and blows, and 
 chains ; women publicly flogged a.t the whipping post, 
 branded with hot irons, and driven at the cart tail ; 
 thumbs tied with whip cord ; both sexes and tender 
 ages hung for various offences so frequently and so 
 
/ 
 
 110 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 publicly that the London of the eighteenth century has 
 been rightly termed " the city of' the gallows !" duels 
 occurring continually and for the slightest pretexts ; 
 men and women taking part in public sports with the 
 cudgel and broadsword, bear and bull baiting, boxing 
 and cockfighting. 
 
 In nearly all barbarous nations, woman is the slave 
 of man, and performs the most toilsome and menial 
 tasks, but in this position her positive sufferings have 
 probably been much overestimated. The modern wife 
 not unlikely experiences keener distress, to her at least, 
 from anxiety about the servants who pretend to do her 
 work. 
 
 Even very recently a great change in methods of pun- 
 ishment have been inaugurated. A schoolmaster who 
 should flog the children of the upper circles of New 
 York, as was everywhere done in this country twenty- 
 five years ago, would be (Jismissed the first week.* 
 
 The bearing of all these facts on the question of diet 
 is sufficiently apparent. 
 
 In the evolution of humanity aU departments progress 
 together and in harmony with each other, and no one 
 can become refined much in advance of the rest. Diet, 
 like legislation, like social amusement, like reUgion, must 
 change as the race advances in the direction of refine- 
 ment. 
 
 The organization of the average European and Amer- 
 
 * The story is told of a certain teaclier in the Edinburgh High School dur- 
 ing the last century, that he was accustomed to call up twelve dunces, place 
 them in a row, and strike each one on the back in succession, so as to make 
 him cry out. The variety of musical notes thus produced by what he called 
 an " organ," was so pleasing that other teachers were invited to the entertain- 
 znent, and they returned the compliment on their own pupils. 
 
HOW SAVAGES BEAB STIMULANTS. Ill 
 
 icaii of . the cultured classes of the present day is so 
 much finer and so much more sensitive than it was one 
 century, or even one quarter of a century ago, that they 
 cannot bear the same medicine, the same stimulants or 
 narcotics, or the same ordinary food that they could 
 then. What was then appropriate and necessary and 
 right for their coarser organizations, is, for the finer 
 organization, that has developed with the intense brain- 
 \^ work of our time, suicidal or cruel. 
 
 If our better classes should persist in using alcohol 
 or tobacco, or pork, in the manner of their ancestors, 
 they would soon become exterminated. 
 
 It is astonishing how savage and semi-savage races, and 
 coarse, thick-skinned organizations everywhere, can bear 
 those stimulants and those articles of positive nutriment 
 which, by the ruling classes of, to-day, and especiajlly of 
 this country, must be used so cautiously. So far as I 
 can estimate from the many writers of travel that I 
 have consulted, there are over six hundred mUlions of 
 people — half the population of the globe — :who smoke 
 tobacco or opium, or both, through nearly all their waking 
 hours. The four hundred millions of China — men, wo- 
 men and .children — smoke almost as constantly as they 
 breathe ; even during the meals, if they stop for a mo- 
 ment, and in the night if they chance to wake, they 
 seize a pipe and take a few whiffs. They cease to 
 smoke only when they cease to live, ^nd when the sick 
 man no longer asks for his pipe, the attendants prepare 
 for his funeral. 
 
 Burton, speaking of the East African, says : 
 
 " He drinks till he can no longer stand, lies down to 
 sleep, and awakens to drink again. Drinking bouts are 
 
112 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 solemn things, to which the roost important business 
 must yield precedence. They celebrate with beer every 
 event — the traveler's return, the ' birth of a child, and 
 the death of an elephant — a laborer will not work un- 
 less beer is provided for him. A guest is received with 
 a gourdful of beer, and among some tribes it is buried 
 with their princes." " , 
 
 " The highest orders rejoice in drink, and pride 
 themselves upon powers of imbibing ; the proper diet 
 for a "king is much beer and a httle meat. If a 
 Mnyamwezi be asked, after eating, whether he is hun- 
 gry, he will reply Yes, meaning that he is not drunk. 
 Intoxication excuses crime in these lands." 
 
 Livingstone says that at Angola funerals constitute 
 one of the principal recreations, and they are attended 
 with debauchery, feasting and intemperance. If on 
 these occasions a native is reproved for being drunk, he 
 will reply, " "Why, my mother is dead," as though no 
 other apology were needed. 
 
 No longer ago than 1805 it was said of the inhab- 
 itants of certain districts of Scotland that they ex- 
 perienced dehght on hearing of the death of a man or 
 woman because of the prospect it afforded them of get- 
 ting their fiU of whiskey ; and men died, saying " they 
 would not be happy unless inen were drunk and fought 
 at their funerals." 
 
 Lewes says, in 1.800 "it was no unusual thing to be a 
 ' three bottle man ' in England or Germany." 
 
 In Austria, at the beginning of this century, it was 
 said that the dinners would sometimes last four or five 
 hours. 
 
 A few centuries ago our Anglo-Nornlan ancestors 
 
HOW OUR ANCESTORS ENDURED GLUTTONY. 113 
 
 be^n every important enterprise with banquets, many 
 of which were riotous and drunken orgies ; and of the 
 Icelanders it is said that in their feasts they indulged- in 
 the most unseemly exhibitions, and ended with throw- 
 ing the bones at each other across the room. 
 
 The ancient Grecians, according to Tacitus, never 
 undertook any great affair without a feast. In mod- 
 ern times the remains of this custom are preserved 
 in the habits of business men, who discuss their busi- 
 ness schemes in France at breakfast, and in England at 
 dinner, and in the well-known banquets of philanthro- 
 pic organizations. 
 
 The Americans of the present day, of both sexes, bear - 
 
 ^ less of alconorand less of tobacco than anj_other people 
 
 on tke'face^tEe'gEbe. "TEere are tribes in Africa who 
 
 drink theiF'"^^o5m^' or plantain wine, from early dawn 
 
 to bedtime, with a perseverance that puts the beer-drink- 
 
 I ing Germans far in the shade. But these excesses in to- 
 
 \ bacco and alcohol rarely seem to bring on diseases of the 
 
 \ mind or nervous system, such as a very small percent- 
 
 ^ age of indulgence in these articles does with us. Among 
 
 I all these coarse races, whatever their habits of eating and 
 
 \ drinking may be, insanity and paralysis are exceedingly 
 
 Vrarc affections. 
 
 The same difference of susceptibility to stimulants in 
 kind, though not in degree, is seen in contrasting the 
 present generation of Americans with their immediate 
 ancestors. Few are the matrons of our time, among "\ 
 the well-to-do orders, who could smoke their pipes, or 
 take their snuff, without immediate and serious harm ; 
 and there are few men among the same classes who 
 could take their daily and hourly drams in the manner , 
 
114 ^ EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 of their fathers.* The notion that the greater suscepti- 
 bility of the present generation to alcohoHc liquors is 
 due to the fact of adulteration, is mostly untrue, for, as I 
 have elsewhere shown, most of the adulterations of 
 wines and liquors are comparatively harmless ; and 
 whatever of harm comes from their use in these days 
 must be charged to the alcohol they contain. 
 
 THE TEEATMENT OF DISEASES HAS CHANGED. 
 
 Diseases also follow the great law of evolution, and 
 as humanity moves onward, some of the more virulent 
 and fatal inflammations and affections grow milder and 
 milder, and perhaps entirely disappear, while others, 
 especially of the nervous variety, increase and multiply. 
 The changes in the treatment of disease foUow close- 
 ly on the changes of diseases themselves. That the 
 frequent and abundant bloodlettings, and purgings, and 
 the starvation diet of the last generation were always 
 harmful, no careful student of history or of medicine will 
 claim; rather is ittoiJe believed ftiat they were on the av- 
 erage as successful as the average of human skUl could 
 expect to be ; but the physician who should now system- 
 atically, treat his patients by these methods, would be tried 
 for manslaughter. ..^^here formerly we reduced, we now 
 sustain ; where we once abstracted blood, we now trans- 
 fuse it ; where formerly we prescribed purgatives and 
 fasting, we now prescribe tonics and feasting ; and in 
 thus changing om- practice with the changes in disease 
 we do wisely and 'welL*^ 
 
 * In the reign of Uie Tudors the leading merchants transacted their bnsi' 
 nees over their cupe in tavernB, as is now done among the lower classes. 
 
DIET KEQUIBED BY THE MODEEN CONSTITUTION. 115 
 
 DIET OF THE PKESENT DAT. 
 
 Now what is true of punishments, of sports, of' stim- 
 ulants and narcotics, is just as true of ordinary food ; 
 we cannot an c Ldo not bear the coarse and ill cooke d 
 { diet of the last generatio n. The old Northmen ate 
 raw flesh, and it is. beheved that the ancient Gauls 
 were cannibals. Ijust as claret, Khine wine, and 
 cigars, and cigareHes have taken the place of port 
 and brandy, of long pipes and strong tobacco, of chew- 
 ing and snuff-taking, so the oatmeal porridge, the rye 
 and Indian bread, the salt pork and beef, the eels and 
 smoked fish on which our fathers thrived, have given place 
 to white flour bread, hght biscuit, fresh and tender beef 
 and mutton, and delicious fruits — all prepared and 
 cooked in a style that harmonizes with our capricious 
 appetites and susceptible organizations^/ ] 
 >~-~,The remains of the old customs of eating and drink- 
 / ing are yet seen among the distant rural classes, and > 
 \ among the abjectly poor of the cities, especially among 
 jcDur emigrant population. The different nations vary 
 ''m.uch in their susceptibility in this respect. The sour 
 bread, cold sausages, strong cheese and abundant lager 
 beer on which our German friends thrive, would drive 
 the average American to despair. 
 
 To what extent this refinement of organization and 
 corresponding refinement of dietetics and cookery will 
 go, no one can now well foresee. 
 
 ^ 
 
 The fourth law requires that our meals should be 
 leisurely enjoyed, at a pleasant social table. 
 
 All writers on hygiene — even the very worst— agree 
 that it is better to eat slowly than hastily ; that the food 
 
L16 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 ihould be well masticated, and leisurely swallowed. 
 This is one of the very few directions found in our 
 populpir treatises on diet, that are in accord with recent 
 icienco, and sustained by experience. There is no doubt 
 hat g^idjatiiig — and here I heartily unite with those 
 vriters whose views or theories on almost on all other 
 lubjects of hygiene I have been obHged to combat—is 
 me of the greatest evils of the American social system. 
 [t is fheTesiirfc partly of our clim'ate7 partly~of our insti- 
 ;utions', and partly of the strifes and the necessities 
 >f our pioneer life. On the continent of Europe, as all 
 xavelers know, the habits of the people are very dififer- 
 snt ; even the peasantry of Prance and Gernlany take 
 nore time at their meals than the laboring classes with 
 is. National differences are also observed in the habits 
 )f taking beverages. The custom of drinking, or rather 
 pizzling at pubhc bars, is not recognized among the 
 setter orders of foreign society, and in England is 
 illowed only to the poor and degraded. When the 
 Parisian desires a glass of .brandy, or cordial, he sits 
 iown in a cafe, and takes is time for the luxury ; mean- 
 ime reading a newspaper or chatting with a friend. 
 Che Yankee would gulp down twice the quantity of 
 iquor, while the moderate Frenchman was giving bis 
 )rder to the waiter. When an American soda-water es- 
 ;ablishment was first opened on the boulevards in Paris, 
 jrowds of Frenchmen used to stand before the doors 
 md windows, laughing and jeering at the novel sight 
 )f men pouring down a tumblerful of liquor at a swal- 
 ow. It was a long time before the French people could 
 se induced to partake of the very agreeable luxury, and 
 IS soon as they began to pationize the estabhshment in 
 arge numbers, it was found necessary to provide tables 
 
AMERICAN VS. ENGLISH HABITS OF EATING. 117 
 
 and chairs, -where they might sit and sip the foaming 
 soda-water as they were accustomed to sip their cordials 
 and liqueurs* 
 
 If the habit of pouring down fluid, even pure water, 
 into the stomach, is injurious, how much more so must 
 be the shoveUng in of soUd and half-masticated food. 
 Rapid feeding overtaxes the stomach and interferes with 
 digestion, just as a too rapid flow of ideas upon the 
 mind overtaxes the brain and interferes with the suc- 
 cessful performance of its functions. 
 
 To preach on this subject is almost idle. A man who 
 dines at a table where all his companions eat on the 
 jump, finds it as hard — and I may say. impossible — 1& 
 act independently as it is to walk slowly amid the press 
 of lower Broadway, or to saunter at ease in the ranks 
 of a flying army. Haste is as contagiows as some of our 
 worst diseases, and very few can suffer long exposure to 
 it without showing the effects of the poison. 
 f--,i_The only hope of a reform in the dietetic habits of the 
 J Americans lies in the gradual development of a better 
 I fashion of dining that now prevails among us: The differ- 
 Xence between the habits of the English and Americans in 
 this respect, is as wide as the Atlantic. An English 
 dinner, to the American who partakes of it for the first 
 time,^ is an event in his history. The courses are so ar- 
 ranged and subdivided that it is impossible to eat more 
 than a little at a time, and at the end of the meal — 
 which usually occupies from one to two hours — he 
 hardly knows whether he has been eating at all. The) 
 time passes agreeably in social converse, and the stomach 
 receives its burdens so gradually and imperceptibly that 
 
 * See my work on Stimulants and l^areotiis,- where the relation of American ' 
 climate to American nervousness- is fully diBciissed. 
 
118 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 it has full time to marshal its forces as they are needed, 
 and thus digest with ease an amount of food which, if 
 hastily swallowed, would cause the direst distress. 
 
 Savages, who eat with their Jingers, are always greedy 
 and rapid eaters. The introduction of forks in the 17th 
 century has contributed much towards a more calm and 
 refined habit of dining. 
 
 EATING CLUBS. 
 
 The poorest club conceivable is better than solitiide. 
 Those whom circumstances force to board themselves, 
 do weU to keep each other company. Two or three, 
 or even more, can join their forces, thus providing lar- 
 ger variety, greater comfort, better appetites, and more 
 prosperous digestion. For many organizations, solitary 
 digingis slow death. There are those who can beaFit, 
 just as there are those who can bear vegetarianism, ab- 
 stinence from muscular exercise, or confinement in im- 
 pure air ; but the suggestions here given must be for 
 the average, and not for the exceptions. And yet we 
 should bear in mind that those who survive long-con- 
 tinued violations of hygienic laws, might perhaps have 
 been even more sturdy, and achieved even larger suc- 
 cess, had they lived more in conformity vyith those 
 laws. 
 
 EESTATJRAOTS. 
 
 A disadvantage of restaurants is that they compel 
 their patrons to select. dishes by the names on the carte, 
 and not by their appearance and flavor when brought 
 upon the table. 
 
 The great objection to dining by a bill of fare is, that 
 we cannot tell what we most desire until we see the 
 
TIMES OP EATING. 119 
 
 articles of food, and inhale their savory fragrance. 
 French names, with high prices annexed, are at best 
 poor appetizers. This ia the philosophical explanation 
 of the fact thaj, in sitting down to a public table, we 
 often stiidy over the schedule in nervoiTS despair, and 
 then decide upon a dish, which, as soon as it is placed 
 before us, we find we have no reUsh for. N ^hing ca n 
 r edeem the lif a_at_a_ pub]io table but a p jeasantcirele 
 ofverj_ d£ar__£dfiiids,-to^ share our jaegl_with_us, as k 
 the custom, in Paris. The maxim. '^Chatted food is ill- 
 digested3^^_needs only the substitution of one word — 
 well ios Jll — to make it thoroughly true ^^J 
 
 The three best digesters are, sound health, a good 
 --table, and -Rle asant conversation ; but the greatest of 
 
 f these is conversation, for it can divert the mind even 
 when the health and food are both unsatisfactory. In 
 the charming biographj' of Charlotte Bronte, by Mrs. 
 Gaskell, we are told that the father of the accomplished 
 authoress, on account of a weakness of digestion,- was 
 accustomed to take his meals by himself, apart from the 
 rest of the family. If that*had been his habit long, it 
 is no wonder that he was often compelled to give vent 
 to his attacks of hypochondriasis by " firing pistols out 
 of the back door.'' 
 
 TIMES OF EATING. 
 
 The frequency with which food should be taken de- 
 pends on various conditions. It varies with different 
 races, and in different climates ; and according to the 
 amount of labor performed, and the quality of the 
 food. 
 
 This, as well as other questions of diet, must be 
 answered by experience. 
 
120 EATING AND DEINKINa. 
 
 The custom of taking three meals daily, which is so 
 generally observed in the United States, is, on the 
 whole, a wise one, since it has taken its origin in the 
 accumulated experience of many years. 
 
 It is not well, however, to observe this custom too 
 arbitrarily, for a fourth meal is oftentimes a positive 
 advantage, even in our climate, where less food is re- 
 quired than in Northern Europe. 
 
 The Germans eat four and five times daily, and in 
 England very many take four meals as regularly as we 
 take three, the fourth consisting of a Ught supper, on 
 thin slices of teead and butter and a small cup of tea, 
 and among the country people of substantial pastry 
 and meat. 
 
 This fourth meal is taken between nine and ten 
 o'clock. 
 
 Since among the middle and upper classes of England, 
 the late dinner, which begins at 7 or 8, is prolonged to 
 9 o'clock, the supper and dinner come very closely to- 
 gether. In the United States a fourth meal is taken 
 much more frequently than is believed, both in city and 
 country ; but unfortunately the materials of our even- 
 ing entertainments are too often both unpalatable and 
 indigestible. 
 
 On the ocean steamers four or five meals are the or- 
 der of the day, and except by the sea-sick, are weU pa- 
 tronized, without discomfort or injury. 
 
 I should add that in rural districts a lunch in the mid- 
 dle of the forenoon is oftentimes expected, and in the 
 haying season milk is drunk instead of water. Our 
 customs are not so utterly difierent from those of Europe 
 as might be thought. While the English eat so largely, 
 the French, who are separated by only a narrow chan- 
 
TIMES, OP MEALS HATE CHANGED. 121 
 
 nel, are very moderate at the table, and do not take 
 more than two full meals daily. In the morning, on 
 rising, a eup of coffee mth a very little bread satisfies 
 them until about 11 o'clock, -when they take breakfast, 
 and at 6 o'clock comes their well cooked and delicately 
 served, but not over abundant dinner. 
 
 TIMES OF MEALS HAVE CHANGED WITH THE 
 PBOGRESS OP CiyiLIZATIGN. 
 
 The custom of having regular hours for meals, is pe- 
 culiar to civilization. It is only possible where food is 
 tolerably abundant and accessible, and it is most neces- 
 sary among those who are most sensitive, delicate and 
 nervous. 
 
 The savage can go for days without anything to eat, 
 and then can, without injury, gorge himself like a boa- 
 constrictor. 
 
 The old Highlanders originally had but one meal, and 
 afterwards two meals daily. 
 
 In England several centuries ago, among the " great 
 families," there were four meals daily : breakfast at 
 seven, dinner at ten, supper at four, and "livery," cor- 
 responding to modem "tea," at eight or nine o'clock. 
 They sat at dinner three hours, from ten till one in the 
 afternoon. 
 
 In Thibet there are no regular meals. The family 
 never assemble, but " eat when they are hungry, drink 
 when they are dry." Like the North American Indians 
 they eat out of a huge pot in which the meal is boiled, 
 and each one snatching what he wants. 
 
 The Kisawahili has no words to express breakfast, 
 dinner, and supper. 
 
122 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 Savages seem to care much less for the gratification 
 of the taste of food, than for the appeasing of the hun- 
 ger. "With them the pleasure of eating is of a negative 
 rather than of a positive kind ; hence they eat rapidly, 
 voraciously, in order to fill up the stomach as soon as 
 possible. The relics of this habit can be seen readily 
 enough in any cheap eating-house of New York. 
 
 Eating for the refined gratification of the taste per se~ 
 is pecuhar to high culture. 
 
 The civilized man who undertakes to imitate the sav- 
 age in these alternations of fasting and feasting, would 
 soon bring his wretched existence to an end ; for no fact 
 of hygiene is better recognized than that after very long 
 abstinence, food must be taken slowly and in small quanti- 
 ties. The longer and the harder we have worked on an 
 empty stomach, the greater the necessity of caution at 
 the next meal. Just as it is possible for the brain to 
 get so tired that we cannot sleep, just so it is possible 
 for the stomach to get so tired that it cannot digest. 
 
 MEALS OF THE E0MA2IS. 
 
 The ancient Romans had but two meals daily — din- 
 ner and supper. The dinner, or prandium, was taken 
 In a standing position, at nine o'clock, and usually con- 
 sisted of the remnants of the supper of the previous 
 day. The supper, or ccena, the great meal of the day, 
 was taken about three or four o'clock in the afternoon. 
 This consisted of three parts : a gustus, to sharpen the 
 appetite, as raw oysters on the shell are used in our 
 iay ; the caput ccence, made of a variety of courses ; and 
 the mensa secunda, or dessert, consisting of pastry and 
 fruits. On these dinners enormous and fabulous sums 
 
THE BEST HOUK FOK DINING. 123 
 
 were expended. Heliogabalus spent $20,000 for a single 
 dish. CElius Verus wasted $250,000 on a single enter- 
 tainment to which only twelve guests were invited, or 
 ovei- $20,000/or- each individual. It is stated that Vitel- 
 lius spent over $16,000 daily for his supper. 
 
 The dinner became gradually later and later in the 
 day, and then the morning meal, or breakfast, was intro- 
 duced. King Canute, it is said, first established the 
 custom of four regular meals daily. 
 
 THE BEST HOUE FOE DINING. 
 
 The oft asked question whether it is better to dine at 
 the middle of the day or in the evening, must be an- 
 swered by the occupation and circumstances of the in- 
 dividual. 
 
 It is of all importance that the principal meal of the 
 day should be taken leisurely and without harassment; 
 and if the hour of leisure that is required for a com- 
 fortable dinner cannot be found in the middle of the 
 day, it is better to wait until later. 
 
 In this respect the present customs are just about 
 what they should be. Business men in the large cities 
 dine at five or six o'clock, for the two-fold reason that 
 the middle of the day is the busiest hour, and because 
 most of them are so far from home that they must take 
 their meals in restaurants. In the olden time, when 
 business was carried on quietly and on a small scale, 
 and merchants lived over their stores, it was easy and 
 natural to dine at twelve o'clock ; but under the new 
 dispensation, the custom has been necessarily aban- 
 doned. In the country, where toil is easier and calmer, 
 where even in the haying season a good round hour is 
 
124 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 allowed for " nooning," and where they rise so early that 
 twelve o'clock is about as late as four or five is for the 
 residents of the city ; where they go to bed with the 
 chickens, and where, furthermore, there is comparatively 
 little to harass the mind, in the morning, at noon- 
 day, or at night, it would be absurd, and to many in- 
 jurious, to postpone the principal meal much beyond 
 midday. 
 
 MIDDAY LUNCHES. 
 
 There are very few civilized beings who can go from 
 morning till night with nothing to eat and not suffer. 
 Such prolonged fasting is the prerogative of savages. 
 There can be found now and then a business or pro- 
 fessional man in whose arteries the blood of his 
 pagan ancestors is so little diluted that he only feels 
 hungry twice a day, and there are others who abstain 
 from midday lunches because they beUeve it to be a 
 virtue to go without eating. For the majority of 
 Americans this mistake is a most fearful one, and has 
 caused innumerable woes. Dyspepsia in all its phases, 
 nervous diseases of all kinds, and death itself, are the 
 rewards that nature is continually bestowing on those 
 who thus refuse her bounties. 
 
 Abstinence from regular meals in health is a vice 
 which only professed gluttons should indulge ; but if 
 one must lose a meal let it be the last one of the day, 
 and not the breakfast or lunch. It is not always neces- 
 sary that the lunches should be hberal or varied ; for 
 many, a few mouthfuls suffice— or at least, stay the 
 stomach until evening ; but, as a rule, it is well for 
 those who dine late in the day, to take a substantial Iwioh, 
 
EATING BETWEEN MEALS. 125 
 
 in which meat, cold or warm, or fish of some kind, or 
 nourishing soup, as well as bread and butter, shall be 
 represented. 
 
 The danger of spoiling the appetite for, dinner is in- 
 finitely less, than the danger of so weakening the stomach 
 by long abstinence that a good dinnfer cannot be well 
 assimilated. It is far better to overeat at lunch than 
 not to eat at all. 
 
 EATING BETWEEN MEALS. 
 
 I am often asked whether it is weU to eat between 
 meals. I usually reply somewhat in this wise*: To take 
 something between, meals, is better than to go long 
 hungrj" — better than to overload the stomach at the 
 table, and b.etter than to waste precious hours in set- 
 tling our doubts on the subject ; but it is better still to 
 make oiir ordinary meals so complete and so satisfac- 
 tory that there will be neither desire nor necessity for 
 taking anything substantial during the intervals. Those 
 who are most tempted to indulge the appetite at other 
 than the regular seasons are dietists and vegetarians 
 who live in a kind of chxoBa«-Bemi=^afvation, in which 
 the need of the system is never fully met, and conse- 
 quently the appetite never thoroughly appeased — -who 
 are ever hankering for something to eat, because the 
 waste of tissue or nerve is not fully repaired. Siich 
 persons are never at peace. With them duty and dis- 
 ease are ever in perpetual guerrilla warfare, in which 
 both sides by turns are victors. An intelligent, ambi- 
 tious, industrious man, who daily enjoys three agreeable 
 meals, needs no such warfare as this. It is. wrong to 
 suppose that we should always keep ourselves on a war 
 
L26 EATIKG AND DEINKING. 
 
 'ooting, in the matter of diet.^~Eight habits should be 
 brmed under thegiudaBee-T3f--seJeBce aii4 experience, 
 md calmly, patiently strengthened until they become 
 lutomatic. 
 
 EATING BEFORE EETIKING. 
 
 Again, I am often asked whether it is well to eat just 
 lefore retiring. My reply is very simple. It is better 
 eat than to retire very hungry. Ncrthing is gained 
 y keeping the stomach so long empty that hunger 
 mounts to positive pain, ^rcdgnge^ji^nence weak- 
 ns^J^»-.;svhole_systeiBr-ey,eftniore than^Rittony~and 
 itemp eranc e. When our mealS~ are^wEat they should 
 e,'''and when we retire at the proper time, we do 
 ot usually need or desire anything substantial at 
 ed-time ; but when the supper is very light and the 
 uties of the evening prolonged and arduous, the mid- 
 ight hour will often find us in greater need of food 
 lan at any other time of the day. To deny ourselves 
 nder such circumstances, and retire hungry because 
 . is not our accustomed hour for eating, is both cruel 
 ad injurious, for excessive hunger is a foe to sleep . 
 
 Some authors and public speakers are iu the habit of 
 folding the principal meal of the day until their even- 
 Lg labors are over. I cannot find out that they are 
 ijured thereby. The disadvantage of taking a full 
 eal at so late an hour is more than compensated by 
 le greater freedom from care that is enjoyed at that 
 our, for food taken with a heavy heart or overburdened 
 rain weighs painfully in the stomach and is digested 
 L sorrow. 
 
 But the general rule should be to make an evening 
 eal — if we indulge it~of food that is readily digested, 
 ich as oysters, or crackers, or bread and butter. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE DIBT OF BBAIN-WOKKEES. 
 
 Beain-wobkees — ^whether literary, professional, or bu- 
 siness men — ^need the best of food, served in the most 
 agreeable manner, and in variety and abundance, and 
 for the following reasons : 
 
 (TT) Labor of the brain exhausts the system more 
 
 than labor of the muscles. According to the estimates 
 
 of Prof. Houghton, three hours of hard study produce 
 
 more important changes of tissue than a whole day of 
 
 , muscular labor. 
 
 Whether this statement is mathematically accurate or 
 not, we do certainly know by experience that a few 
 hours of mental labor is more exhausting than a whole 
 day of muscular labor to those who . are accustomed to 
 such toil. No literary man can spend as many hours 
 at his work as the day laborer. While the mason, the 
 carpenter and the haymaker work their ten hours a 
 day, with only moderate fatigue, the professional man 
 is wearied by three or four hours of severe, consecutive 
 thought. This exhaustion that we feel after hard study 
 is the result and concomitant of the waste of tissue. 
 This waste of tissue is supplied by food. 
 
 If the theory of the correlation and conservation of 
 
128 EATING AMU DEINKINw. 
 
 forces be carried to its logical conclusion, it would seem 
 that for every mental act there is a corresponding ex- 
 penditure of force which bears a dh-ect ratio to the 
 thought evolved, and that unless the proper force is 
 supplied, thought becomes impossible, just as steam is 
 ^impossible without heat, or motion without some force 
 to produce that motion. 
 
 Phosphorus, which is a prominent ingredient of the 
 brain, is deposited in the urine after mental labor, and 
 recent experiments have shown that by the chemical ex- 
 amination of these phosphates deposited, it is possible 
 to determine whether an individual has been chiefly 
 using his brain or his muscles. 
 
 That the brain is the organ of mind is now as well 
 established as any fact of science. The brain, being 
 the noblest organ of the body, receives a greater pro- 
 portional amount of blood than any other part, and is 
 of course correspondingly affected by the quantity and 
 quality of the nutrition. It has been estimated that 
 one fifth of the blood goes to the brain, though its 
 average weight is not more than fifty ounces, or about 
 one fortieth of the weight of the body. 
 
 2. Brain-workers as a class are more active than 
 mechanics or laborers. The literary man need never 
 be idle, for his thinking powers — ^the tools of his trade 
 — are always at hand. Bulwer, in his Caxtoniana, 
 mentions this fact as a great advantage that the literary 
 man has over all others. The mechanic has a definite 
 task, assigned for certain hours, and when that is over, 
 he feels free to rest. On the other hand, the powers of 
 thought and composition are only interrupted by sleep, 
 and the intensity of the labor is measured by our men- 
 tal discipline and powers of endurance. 
 
KIND OF FOOD EEQUIEED BY BEAIN-WOBKEES. 129 
 
 3. Brain-workers exercise more or less all the other 
 organs of the body as well as the brain. Even the 
 most secluded book-worm must use his muscles, to a 
 gi-eater or less extent, and the great majority of literary 
 and professional men are forced to take systematic and 
 vigorous exercise, in order to keep their brains in. good 
 working order. On the other hand, the uneducated 
 and laboring classes, while they toil with their hands as 
 their daily necessities require, are apt to let their brains 
 lie idle, -and thus the most important part of their 
 nature undergoes comparatively little change, except 
 that which comes from time and disuse. 
 
 KLND OF FOOD BEQUIEED BY BEAIN-WOKKEES. 
 
 If the brain could be used exclusively, without any 
 exercise of the muscles, then the diet of brain- workers 
 might be pretty exclusively confined to those articles 
 which contain the fat, salts, and phosphorus, of which 
 the brain is composed. But it is impossible to live by 
 brain alone ;. hence the necessity of a wide variety of 
 food for the brain-working classes, of a quantity and 
 quality adapted t6 nourish the whole body, with special 
 reference to the nervous system. 
 
 The best food for the brain is fat and lean meat, 
 eggs, and the cereals. 
 
 Is it now a matter of fact that brain-workers eat a 
 better quality and larger quantity of food than me- 
 chanics and laborers. How is it with the different 
 nationalities ? 
 
 "We have seen that the ruling people of the world, 
 who have from time to time shaped the destiny of hu- 
 
130 EATING AND DliTNKING. 
 
 liberal feeders. This remark applies, of com-se, only to 
 the ruling classes in these nationalities, and not to the 
 slave or peasant class, who lived with them, but were 
 not of them. But of the patrician or governing orders 
 of society^ — the leaders of the world in legislation, in 
 war, in commerce, in science and literature- — it is pre- 
 eminently true. The dominant classes among the 
 Babylonians, the Persians, and especially the Eomans, 
 were free and luxurious in their habits of eating, 
 although, in those days, there was less variety of food 
 than at present. The Greeks, the most intellectual of 
 ancient nations, were formidable eateirs ; and their re- 
 pasts were greatly prolonged. Of the Eomans it has 
 been said, that no people were ever so devoted to the 
 pleasures of the table. Among modern nations the 
 greatest eaters are the English, the Germans, and the 
 Americans — the ruling people of our civilization. — 
 The diet of the Spaniards and Italians is notably less 
 substantial than that of the English and Germans, just 
 as their brains are less active and original. 
 
 Our standards, by which we measure nations and 
 individuals, are too low and too narrow. I protest 
 against the degrading spirit of materialism that would 
 estimate a man by his weight on the scales, or by the 
 number of years that it takes him to rust out. As if 
 the human mind, with all its wondrous capacities, were 
 created only to be imprisoned as long as possible, in a 
 gross tabernacle of flesh, and nations were to be esti- 
 mated, not by the thoughts they evolve, or the deeds of 
 glpry and usefulness they accomplish, but by the amount 
 of adipose tissue their indolence enables them to hoard, 
 or by tbe length of time that it takes them to die ! 
 Even the most ignorant hog-raiscrs studiously consider 
 
GBEAT THINKEES USUALLY LIBEBAL EATEBS. 131 
 
 the quality as well as the quantity of pork that the 
 different kinds of feed produce. And shall hygienists, 
 in their estimate of the effects of diet on humanity, only 
 look at the number of pounds ayoirdupois that result 
 from the different systems, or the number of years that 
 the body can endure them ? We argue that because the 
 porters of the East, the native Hindoos, the Chinese, 
 and the Irish peasantry, eat little or no meat, and are 
 well, and muscular, and capable of a good measure of 
 physical endurance ; therefore, all people, in all cli- 
 mates, and at aH seasons of the year, should be vege- 
 tarians, and thus the world would be much better than 
 it now is. The flaw in this reasoning is, that it takes 
 too low and material a view of humanity, and ignores 
 entirely the fact that, although the body can be sus- 
 tained and kept from dissolution for a considerable 
 period on simple fruits, cereals/ and the like, yet in the 
 history of the world nothing very great or good has 
 ever been bequeathed to humanity by a nation of vege- 
 tarians. 
 
 GEEAT THINKEBS USUALLY LIBEBAL EATEBS. 
 
 With some exceptions the same facts will apply to 
 individuals. The great majority of the leading thinkers 
 and actors of the world — ^the philosophers, writers, 
 orators, legislators, warriors, inventors, and creators of 
 new eras in every department of human thought — have 
 fed their brains with a greater or less abundance and 
 variety of animal as well as vegetable food. We have, 
 in biography and general observation, sufficient data 
 from which to form a satisfactory and reliable opinion. 
 Goethe was a vigorous performer at the table, and even 
 
132 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 to an actiYe old age retained his fondness for good 
 dishes. Says Lewes, his biographer : 
 
 " His appetite was immense. Even on the days when 
 he complained of not being hungry, he ate much more 
 than most men. Puddings, sweets and cakes were always 
 welcome. He was fond of his wine and drank daily his 
 two or three bottles." 
 
 On this diet, and amid great literary activity pro- 
 longed to extreme age, he lived to see his eighty-third 
 year. 
 
 Of Peter the Great, Marmontel says that "he dined 
 at eleven o'clock, and supped at eight ; an astonishing 
 eater and drinker — two bottles of beer, the same quan- 
 tity of wine, half a bottle, and sometimes a whole one, 
 of brandy, at each of his two meals were scarcely sufS.- 
 ciciit for him, without reckoning the liquors and refresh- 
 ments that he swallowed in the intervals." 
 
 I have studied with greater or less minuteness the 
 biographies of nearly one thousand of the greatest think- 
 ers of all nations and ages, and I find that aside from 
 religious enthusiasts and some of the ancient philoso- 
 ]Dhers who led very calm inactive hves, very few were 
 known to be abstemious. 
 
 Dr. Johnson was a gormandizer, and when indulging 
 in his favorite dishes this Great Mogul of literature dis- 
 played his eagerness by manifestations of satisfaction 
 that we supposed to be peculiar to children and some 
 of the lower animals. 
 
 When Charles Lamb was boarding, he sometimes in- 
 vited friends to dine with him, paying the landlady a 
 small sum. He observed that when Wordsworth dined 
 with him, the landlady charged a sixpence more, and 
 one day remonstrated with her on the injustice of such 
 
STUDENTS LARGE EATEES. 133 
 
 discriminations, at the same adding that Wordsworth 
 was a great poet. " Don't know about the great poet," 
 replied the landlady, " but I know he is a great eater." 
 
 The popular conception that those who think much, 
 eat httle, is derived from the twofold fact that some of 
 the great philosophers have been cojnparatively abste- 
 mious, and from the fact that nearly all hard brain work- 
 ers care little for their meals when they are in the midst 
 of severe tasks. In great crises they abstain perhaps 
 for several days, as did Elliott, the defender of Gibral- 
 tar, but pay day comes, and they must replenish their 
 wasted tissues or suffer the penalty. There is little 
 doubt that some authors have shortened their Hves by 
 habitual underfeeding. 
 
 We can best arrive at the truth in this matter by 
 comparing different bodies or classes of men, and not 
 by selecting individual cases. Students in academies 
 and colleges, provided they are in good health, study 
 faithfully, and do not exhaust themselves by vices, eat 
 more, according to my observation, than young men of 
 similar ages, in ships, and behind the plow, and far 
 more heartily than mechanics and artisans. None 
 who board studen-ts, whether academical, collegiate, or 
 professional, ever regard them as light eaters. Those 
 exceptions who worry or fret themselves into nervous 
 debility, or who destroy themselves by vices, only prove 
 the rule. 
 
 Clergymen are also large eaters. Whatever their 
 theories may be, they practically acknowledge that 
 those who work with their brains need better nourish- 
 ment than those who allow their intellects to lie idle. 
 
 I know very well that it is possible for some tempera- 
 ments to study hard, for a limited season, on a 
 
134 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 spare diet. There hare been,- and are now, hard 
 students in our colleges, who, either from necessity 
 /■] or more likely from mistaken notions of hygiene, 
 [ restrict themselves to a meager and unsatisfying allow- 
 ! ance. With all such persons the evil result that 
 must follow such a course, as surely as the night follows 
 the day, ig sur^y a question of time. There are those 
 whose constitutions are so hardy, whose reserve powers 
 are so abundant, that they can hve, for a considerable 
 time, on their capital. They can rise early and sit up 
 late, and toil hard and long over their books, achieving 
 the highest success in scholarship and literature, oxl an 
 insufficient and unnutritious diet.' But the pay day 
 must come with them just as sUrdy as with the poorest 
 and feeblest, only it may be longer deferred. 
 
 To recapitulate in a few words : the diet of brain- 
 workers should be of a large variety, delicately served, 
 abundantly nutritious, of which fresh meat lean and fat, 
 should be a prominent constituent. In vacations, or 
 whenever it is desired to rest the brain, fish may, to a 
 certain extent, take the place of meat. We should se- 
 lect those articles that are most agreeable to our indivi- 
 dual tastes, and, so far as possible, we should take our 
 meals amid pleasant social surroundings^ In great crises 
 that call for unusual exertion, we should rest the stomach, 
 that for the time the brain may work the harder ; but 
 the deficiency of nutrition ought always to be supplied 
 in the first interval of repose. 
 
CHAPTER Vn. 
 
 THE DIET OF ATHLETES. 
 
 In. athletic training the object is to reduce the fat, 
 increase the size and hardness of the muscles, and the 
 power of endurance. 
 
 Trainers h&ye experimented with a variety of systems 
 of diet in order to see what was best adapted to co-op- 
 erate with severe muscular exercise, and regular habits 
 to secure their ends. It has been found that the best 
 bill of fare for athletes of all kinds^ — gymnasts, oars- 
 men, etc., during training, contains the following arti- 
 cles : 
 
 Lean and rare beef or mutton. 
 
 Stale flour bread. 
 
 Potatoes and other vegetables in moderate quantities. 
 
 Tea, ooflfee, and beer or ■wine in very moderate quantities. 
 
 This diet-table, it will be observed, contains little or no 
 fet, and little starch or sugar, and therefore is not cal- 
 culated to feed the fatty tissue. Its leading element is 
 nitrogen, which is contained in the beef and mutton. 
 Between beef and mutton there is little to choose. 
 The quantity of tea and coffee allowed is always limited 
 — usually not more than a single cup at each meal — 
 and of the two, tea seems to be generally preferable to 
 
136 EATING AND DRINKING. 
 
 coffee. Of ale or wine, a glass or two are all that is 
 allowed. 
 
 Weston, in his great walk, ate those article that best 
 suited him, but used no alcohol. 
 
 The query may be raised whether the vertigo from 
 which he sufl'ered, and which caused his failure, might 
 not have been prevented if he had taken some wine or 
 beer, instead of so much tea and coffee. 
 
 King, an Enghsh athlete, in training, took for his 
 Ireakfasl two lean, rare mutton-chops, stale bread, and 
 one cup of tea without sugar ; for dinner one, or one 
 and a quarter pounds of beef or mutton, toast or stale 
 bread, a very little potato or other vegetables, half a 
 pint of old ale, or a glass or two of sherry, or one cup 
 of tea without sugar, or eggs and dry toast ; for supper 
 half a pint of oatmeal porridge or half a pint of old ale. 
 
 The effect of this exclusive diet is to reduce the fat 
 in some cases quite rapidly, and thus it answers the 
 purpose ; but if continued too long, it becomes weari- 
 ' some and injurious. 
 
 When athletes return to the usual habits of eating 
 they sometimes rapidly increase in weight. 
 
 In their experiments in dieting, athletes have made 
 most serious blunders. I was in London at the time 
 of the International Boat-race between Harvard and 
 . Oxford, and ascertained from Mr. Blaikie that the 
 American crew ate largely of vegetables, and relatively 
 less of meat than the English crew. If the Americans 
 had allowed their rivals to prescribe a dietary for them 
 they could scarcely have made a worse selection. There 
 is in my mind little question that the race was lost to 
 the Americans on account of their unfortunate system 
 of athletic training. 
 
DIET OE ATHLETES, OARSMEN, PUGILISTS, ETC. 137 
 
 They failed not for lack of native strength, in which 
 they were superior to their rivals ; but from lack of 
 staying power.* 
 
 On what principle our oarsmen persisted in confining 
 themselves to a diet which all experience has shown is 
 unfitted to sustain amid the severest muscular exertion, 
 in our climate at least, I never could well understand. 
 I suspect, however, that it was inspired by some of the 
 many popular treatises on diet by which ignorant writers 
 in our country have wrought so much evil. 
 
 * 1 formed this opinion from my own observation of the appearance of the 
 Americans near the end of the race, at Barnes' Bridge. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 OBJECTS AND METHODS OP COOKEKY. 
 
 The objects of cookery are manifold, and cannot be 
 completely defined. 
 
 The changes produced in food by the processes of 
 cookery we know only in part, and therefore we cannot 
 determine with precision the advantages and disadvan- 
 tages derived from these processes. 
 
 We may, however, study at this question and may 
 reach conclusions which, though very general, are yet 
 in the main correct. 
 
 First of aU, we must admit the premise that cookery 
 of any kind is a luxury rather than a necessity. Food 
 of all kinds — animal, vegetable^ mineral, Uquid and 
 solid — can be and is eaten by man, as by other animals, 
 without any preparation at all. 
 
 Those who ride on the topmost wave of civilization 
 do not fear to eat raw beef at times, and very rare beef 
 habitually, raw turnips, and radishes, and onions if 
 they are so inclined, as well as the ordinary fruits. 
 
 On the other hand, savages sometimes cook what we 
 prefer raw, for travelers say that in some tropical re- 
 gions fried banana is njuch prized. 
 
 If we now address ourselves to the inquiry, why we 
 
OBJECT OF COOKERY. 139 
 
 cook our food, we shall find it possible to give an an- 
 swer not entirely unsatisfactory, as follows : 
 
 1. Cooking makes our food more attractive to the senses. 
 Not only the appetite, but the eye and the sense of 
 smell are gratified by the processes of baking, and 
 roasting, and stewing, and thus the food becomes more 
 longed for, and consequently more gratifying than it 
 possibly could be in a raw state. 
 
 The process of cooking develops the osmazome on 
 which its flavor so much de.pends. 
 
 2. The process of cooking is attended or preceded by pro- 
 cesses of cleaning, by which much in food that is repulsive 
 and useless is cast aside. 
 
 Fish and animals are usually dressed before they go 
 to the gridiron or frying-pan, and it is by this process 
 of dressing that most meats and fish are made fit food 
 for refined humanity. Similarly, but to a less degree 
 with fruits and vegetables, nearly all of which need 
 more or less of lopping ofi', and scraping, and cleaning 
 before they are put into the oven or stew-pan. 
 
 3. It makes food more digestible. 
 
 BoUing, stewing, and roasting, make flesh and fish 
 softer and more juicy, and consequently they are more 
 easily assimilated. 
 
 The abstract nutritive value of food is not necessarily 
 incroased with increase . of its digestibility, but on the 
 contrary, is sometimes diminished. The process of 
 boiling especially reduces very materially the actual 
 nutritive value of meats. 
 
 4. The combinations made in the processes of cookery 
 
140 BATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 enhance the attractiveness, consequently thevaliie of natural 
 food. 
 
 Light and luscious pastry, and cakes, and puddings, 
 creams, and sauces, and gravies, succotash, gruel and 
 bread— these are some among many combinations by 
 which our tables are made pleasing to the eye and to 
 the appetite, and to the organs of digestion. 
 
 5. Cookery destroys the parasites with which some 
 meats are infested. 
 
 The trichina of pork is sure to be destroyed if the 
 meat be thoroughly cooked at a high temperature. 
 Savages who live on raw meat suffer from parasites 
 more than the civilized. 
 
 As man advances in refinement, and becomes more 
 and more nervous and susceptible and exacting in his 
 taste, cooking becomes more and more necessary, and 
 dishes improve in value and increase in variety. 
 
 Fhying. — This is a method of cooking meat which 
 has no other recommendation than convenience. It 
 is a rude method, adapted for coarse natures, and dis- 
 appears before civilization. 
 
 Boiling. — Boiling is a method of cooking meat, that 
 is considered more economical than frying, baking or 
 roasting. To boil meat in the best possible manner a 
 large piece should be put into boilirig water and kept 
 there for a few minutes untU the albumen of the sur- 
 face is coagulated, so that the juice may be retained. 
 Then cold water may be added until the temperature 
 is somewhat relieved, and the meat cooked until it is 
 tender. 
 
KOASTINtI — BEOIUNG — BEEA&-MAKING. 141 
 
 Soups. — In making soups it is desired to extract as 
 much nutriment of the meat as possible into the water; 
 therefore the meat shouM be chopped into fine pieces 
 and put to soak in cold water, which is gradually in- 
 creased in temperature until it reaches the boihng 
 point. 
 
 Boasting. — In roasting meat, .the heat should be 
 greatest at first, so as to coagulate the albumen on the sur- 
 face, and prevent the juice from flowing out. 
 
 Bkoiling. — ^The method . of . cooking beef-steak and 
 some varieties of fish by broiling has manifest advantages 
 to all who have been compelled to hve where steak is 
 always fried in " spiders." The gridiron is the ther- 
 mometer of civilization. In proportion as men become 
 cultured and well-to-do, in that proportion do they give 
 up frying and substitute broiling. . In wild, ignorant 
 and unsettled portions of our country, especially in the 
 West and Southwest, and in distant rural districts 
 everywhere, meat is almost always fried ; the gridiron 
 is little known.* In broiling the heat should be very 
 strong at first, and for the same reasons as in roast- 
 ing. 
 
 -Beead-making. — The leading principle involved in 
 bread-making is to diffuse through the dough carbonic 
 acid gas so as to press against the elastic gluten of the 
 flo\u-, and make it hght and spongy. This is accom- 
 
 * Mr. Horace Greeley complained of this quite feelingly, as though he had 
 suffered thereby, alter his return from his late visit to Texas. He stated, 
 furthermore, that among other oivilizing influences, an army of twenty thou- 
 sand good cooks were needed in that section. 
 
142 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 plished in various ways, the best known of wMch. is by 
 fermentation with yeast. 
 
 Baking powders composed of carbonate -of soda and 
 tartaric acid are much used. 
 
 When mingled with the dough they effervesce Hke 
 soda water, through the evolution of carbonic acid. 
 These baking powders, when properly made are not 
 harmful, and the bread made from them can be eaten 
 hot even by those of delicate digestion. In fermented 
 bread the process of fermentation goes on for some 
 hours after the bread is baked, and withal fermented 
 bread is at first moist and a little heavy. 
 
 For these two reasons fresh fermented bread is difficult 
 of digestion, and not because it is warm. 
 
 Aebated Bread is made by forcing into the dough the 
 carbonic acid gas, which is generated by the action of 
 sulphuric acid or marble dust. This process can only 
 be satisfactorily performed on a large scale, and by the 
 aid of powerful machinery. Bread thus made is very 
 light and quite palatable, especially when it is toasted. 
 
 Phosphoeated Beead, by Prof. Hanford's process, is 
 made by mixing with the dough phosphate of lime and 
 bi-carbonate of soda, so as to form neutral phosphate of 
 lime and phosphate of soda. Bread prepared in this 
 way contains some phosphorus, which is of undoubted 
 advantage. The fact that the phosphorus is not organized 
 is no objection, since the experience of mankind in gen- 
 eral, of the earth-eaters in particular, and of physicians 
 who use phosphorus, iron etc., in their practice, show 
 conclusively that life may be sustained and health im- 
 proved by the use of inorganic substances. 
 
PASTBY — ^PUDDINGS. 143 
 
 Pastry. — ^Light crisy pastry is to be recommended, 
 ■while hea-yy sodden crust, so-called, is to be avoided by 
 all civilized beings. 
 
 Puddings. — ^When puddings are light and palatable 
 they are valuable food, and are not injurious when 
 eaten as warm as the temperature of the body. 
 Heavy, sodden " sailor's duff," and very hard and ugly 
 plum puddings, are condemned alike by the palate and 
 the stomach. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 DIETAEIES. 
 
 The object aimed at in the construction- of dietaries 
 for prisons, work-hoiises, and for soldiers and sailors, is 
 to obtain the best possMe variety of nutriment for the 
 character and duties of the class for whom it is designed, 
 at the least possible expense. 
 
 For those who are their own masters in all respects, 
 and have tolerably abundant means, dietaries are use- 
 less. Let them select, of all the wide range, what suits 
 them in quality and in quantity, and they cannot go 
 far wrong. But for the classes I have mentioned, diet- 
 aries of some kind — good or bad — are essential ; and it 
 is the part of science to search out the lessons derived 
 from experience, and apply them to the wants of the 
 poor, the unfortunate, and the dependent. 
 
 It is almost needless to say, in view of the facts pre- 
 viously given, that the range of sustaining diet is ex- 
 ceedingly wide, and that any dietary based on an ave- 
 rage of this kind must be much too little for some, and 
 a little, or perhaps a good deal, too much for others. 
 
 Experiment shows that in prison men cannot live on 
 one. pound of bread a day ; and that the poor needle- 
 women can bafely keep from dying on a diet of one 
 and a half pounds of bread and one ounce of dripping- 
 daily. 
 
DIETAEIES, 145 
 
 It is fomid by experiment, that in prisons those who 
 work must have more to eat than those who are idle. 
 Dr. Edward Smith has shown that for the adult male 
 operatives of Lancashire, two pounds and four ounces 
 of bread sustains life ; but he regards this as a famine 
 diet. 
 
 In regard to the quality of food for dietaries, it has 
 been demonstrated by Playfair, Voit and Pettenkofer, 
 that an average adult, at work, requires : 
 
 Of nitrogenous matter, 5.22 oz. 
 Of carbonaceous matter, 22.38 oz. 
 
 When perfectly idle, about half of this may suffice. 
 
 In regard to the proportion of the nitrogenous to 
 the carbonaceous matter, it has been estimated that one 
 part of the former to five or six of the latter is about 
 correct ; but this proportion is open to great modifica- 
 tions, and for a limited period it is possible to work 
 hard, with brain or with muscle, on a diet that is exclu- 
 sively carbonaceous — starch, sugar, oils, and fat ; or on 
 one that is exclusively nitrogenous, as meats. But the 
 appetite, which knows more and better than any of us 
 about these matters, soon calls for variety, and will have 
 it if it can be obtained. 
 
 In the construction of dietaries, where it is not de- 
 signed to punish by starvation, it is necessary to adopt 
 a very liberal estimate, so that every individual shall be 
 sure to have enough of both departments of food. 
 
 Women require one tenth less than men for the 
 threefold reason that they weigh less, that their brains 
 are about one tenth less than that of man, and because 
 they do less work. 
 
14:6 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 DIETAEY OF BRITISH SOLDIEES IN TIME OF PEACE. 
 
 The dietary of the British soldier on home service 
 very fairly represents the military dietaries of Europe 
 and America. It is as follows : 
 
 Meat 12 oz . Tea 0. 16 oz. 
 
 Bread 24 oz. Sugar 1.33 oz. 
 
 Potatoes 16 oz. Milk 3.25 oz. 
 
 Other vegetables 8 oz. Salt 0.25 oz. 
 
 Coffee #e.33oz. — 
 
 Total, 65.32 oz. 
 
 A MODEL DIET. 
 
 A model diet for this cUmate, and for adult males 
 of average health, should contain, — 
 
 1. About thirty-five ounces of dry food, composed of 
 about one half or one third water ; three or four ounces 
 of flesh-forming, and twelve or fifteen ounces of heat- 
 giving material. 
 
 In the so-called heat-giving materials the proportion 
 of carbo-hydrates to fat should be about three to 
 one. 
 
 The amount of carbon should vary between five and 
 ten ounces, according to the season, labor, etc. Vege- 
 tables and fruits are here included. 
 
 2. "Water, to the extent of about fifty to one hun- 
 dred ounces, according to season, etc. 
 
 It has been estimated that the body, on the average, 
 needs nine parts of fat, twenty-two parts of flesh-form- 
 ing substances, and sixty-nine parts of sugar and starch. 
 
 Experience shows that this proportion is not far 
 from correct. 
 
AN ATEKAGE DIET. 147 
 
 The intuitions of mankind have long ago discovered 
 this fact and acted upon it. 
 
 When any article of food is deficient we supplement 
 it by something that will compensate for these defi- 
 ciencies if we can get it. 
 
 An Englishman in his own country will take about 
 fi'om one twenty-sixth to one twentieth of his weight in 
 solid or liquid food ; that is, from 80 to 120 ounces by 
 weight. The proportion of solid to liquid is 1 : 2, or 
 1:1; but varies exceedingly. 
 
 In all sohdfood there is a greater or less percentage of 
 water. Eliminating this we find that the average Eng- 
 hshman takes : 
 
 Of dry food, from 22 oz. to 23 oz. 
 Of water, from 60 oz. to 90 oz. 
 
 Dr. Dobell has prepared the following normal diet 
 tables, that are, perhaps, as reliable as any. They are 
 reHable so far as they accord with experience ; and 
 must, of course, be greatly varied by season, temperature, 
 occupation, etc.: 
 
 It has been estimated that the average consumption 
 of dry food for EngUshmen, in health, is from 700 to 
 750 pounds a year ; or about two pounds daily, with 
 five or six pounds of water. 
 
 rOOD FOK TWENTY-raUE HOURS. 
 
 Oz. No. 1. Oz. No. 2^ 
 
 6 Meat, poultry, or game. 18 Bread. 
 
 4, Fish. 3J Cheese. 
 
 10 Bread. 3 Bacon. 
 
 8 Potatoes. IJ Sugar. 
 
 2 Eice. 6 Milk. 
 
 ^ Sugar. 20 Chooolate. 
 
148 
 
 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 2k Butter. 
 5 Milk, (Uquid). 
 16 Coffee, " 
 
 16 Tea, " 
 
 17 Water, " 
 
 89 ounces. 
 
 21 Tea. 
 20 Water. 
 
 92 ounces. 
 
 Oz. No. 3. 
 16 Oatmeal. 
 22 Milk. 
 If Butter. 
 I Sugar. 
 49 Water. 
 
 Oz. No. 4 
 25 Bread. 
 
 3i Cheese. 
 
 2 Butter. 
 60 Water. 
 
 90^ ounces. 
 
 It will be obserTed that all of these tables contain 
 all the necessary variety and quantity of food. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 HOW FOOD MAY BE ADUTEBATED. 
 
 The object of adulterating food is threefold. 
 
 1. To increase its weight or size. 
 
 2. Tp lessen the expense of manufacture. 
 
 3. To give it attractive color, and taste. 
 
 When a dealer adds a substance to food for any of 
 these purposes, the main objecit is the same — to make 
 money by fraud. 
 
 Bakebs' Bread is adulterated with potatoes, beans, 
 rice, rye meal, and corn meal, — all of which are both 
 harmless and nutritious, — and with alum to give it 
 superior lightness and whiteness. Flour is also adul- ■ 
 terated with clay, bone dust, and carbonate of mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 Aebow Boot of the first quality is adulterated with 
 cheaper roots and starches. 
 
 Milk is chiefly diluted with water, but sometimes 
 burnt sugar, salt, bi-carbonate of soda, gum, flour, 
 sugar, or starch, are added. 
 
 Butter is adulterated with lard, water, and with a 
 larger quantity of salt than is needed to preserve it ; 
 
150 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 and lard itself is in turn adulterated with water and 
 salt. 
 
 SuGAK is adulterated for weight with lead and iron, 
 and refined sugar by wheat flour. 
 
 The adulterations that are most injurious are those 
 used in giving color and taste to confectionery. 
 
 Our popular candies are adulterated for bulk and 
 weight with starch and flour — which are harmless 
 enough — and with clay, chalk, and plaster of Paris. 
 Among other substances used for giving color and so 
 forth to fancy confectionery, are cochineal, Prussian 
 blue, indigo, ultramarine, carbonates of copper amd lead, 
 cobalt, red lead, and the chromate of lead or chrome 
 yellow, verdigris, gamboge, Brunswick green, arsenite 
 of copper, ochre powders. 
 
 Among the condiments, vinegar is adulterated with 
 water, spirits of nitre, burnt sugar, fusel oil, and acetic 
 acid ; ginger with Cayenne pepper, turmeric, and corn 
 meal ; Cayenne pepper with brick dust; salt, red ochre, 
 corn meal, red lead, and Venetian red, rice and cinna- 
 bar ; mustard with flour, salt, and turmeric ; cinnamon is 
 adulterated with cassia, ^nd this in its turn with sugar 
 and wheat flour, and arrow-root ; curry with lead, mer- 
 cury, iron, salt, rice, and potato flour. 
 
 Pickles. Salts of copper are sometimes added to 
 pickles to improve their color. 
 
 It will be seen that aside from the coloring mat- 
 ter of confectionery, most of the adulterations of 
 positive food, as of stimulants and narcotics, are 
 comparatively harmless, and do more injury to the 
 
POISONOUS WATfiE. 151 
 
 noral sense of the trader than to the health of the 
 !onsumer. 
 
 POISONOUS WATER. 
 
 Probably no article of food is so frequently poisonona 
 10 individuals as water. Analysis of the principal drink- 
 ng waters shows that most of them contain poison, 
 hat indeed perfectly pure water, in which no poison can 
 )e found, is usually unpalatable. Whether the earthy 
 ngredieuts of our drinking waters exert a poisonous 
 nfluence depends on the individual temperament, the 
 labits and the state of the health. Waters which con- 
 rain a variety of mineral poisons are oftentimes regarded 
 IS medicinal ; and nearly all the popular springs derive 
 heir popularity from the mineral substances which they 
 iontain. 
 
 The chief ingredient of, water that exerts a markedly 
 )oisonous etfect in our large cities, is lead, which comes 
 rom the pipes ; there is little doubt that the use of lead 
 )ipe is always attended with more or less danger, but a 
 ;ertain amount of lead can be habitually taken without 
 njury. In susceptibility to the poison of lead, individ- 
 lals widely vary. Dr. Angus Smith says that some per- 
 ons are affected by one fortieth of a grain, others by 
 me tenth. Dr. Parkes regards any quantity above one 
 wentieth of a grain as unsafe. 
 
 Experiments have shown that the Cochituate water is 
 lever free from lead ; that the pipes which convey hot 
 ?ater are more rapidly corroded than those that convey 
 old water, and yet " no well authenticated case of bad 
 .oisoning" from the Boston water has come to the 
 inowledge of the State Board of Health, " although 
 
152 EATING AND DBINKING. 
 
 lead pipe is almost universally used for distribution." 
 It is not improbable, however, that many obscure cases 
 of nervous diseases are caused by the slow action of 
 lead taken daily into the system in the water. 
 
 Water may also acquire poisonous properties from 
 the contents of sewers, cess-pools, and so forth, or from 
 substances that are thrown into weUs and cisterns, or 
 from animals that fall into and are drowned in them. 
 
CHAPTEE XI. 
 
 now FOOD MAY BE DISEASED. 
 
 Not only is food liable to cause disease through excess 
 or deficiency, or bad combination, but it may be actually 
 diseased, and so injure more than it benefits the system. 
 
 DISEASES OF AIOTMAL FOOD. 
 
 The meat of animals that have died of disease is not 
 always or usually injurious as food, and we have already 
 seen that putrid and decomposed flesh is eaten without 
 apparent harm by millions of the human race. During 
 the prevalence of the rinderpest in England, in 1863, 
 " enormous quantities of meat from the diseased ani- 
 mals were sent to market, and sold and eaten." It has 
 been estimated that one fifth of the meat sold in England 
 is the meat of diseased animals. Animals that have died 
 from pleuro-pneumonia, have been eaten without doing 
 any harm. 
 
 On the other hand diseased sausages have been known 
 to produce- diarrhoea and debility, and Dr. Livingstone 
 says that in Africa, the flesh of animals suffering from 
 pleuro-pneumonia causes malignant carbuncles, even 
 when it is thoroughly cooked. The probabihty is that in 
 the process of assimilation, the injurious diseased meats, 
 
154 EATING AND DEINKING.- 
 
 like the poison of snates, in some way loses its injurious 
 character, becoming an entirely different substance. 
 
 PAEASITES IN MEAT. 
 
 The most famUiar form of parasite in food is the 
 trichina spiralis, which is found in pork. It causes ter- 
 rible symptoms, the nature of which was not discovered 
 until 1860. This worm is sometimes found in other 
 animals besides the hog — as dogs, sheep, rats, mice, 
 foxes, and frogs — and carnivorous birds. None of 
 these animals seem to be worried by the presence of 
 these parasites ; only man is a sufferer. 
 ' Other parasites are the cysticerci or measles, found in 
 beef, and veal, and pork, which form tape worms ; and 
 the hydatid, which is found in sheep and in man, and 
 which comes from a little tapeworm. This parasite in- 
 fests the dogs of Iceland, and the hydatid of the Hver 
 which it produces is the cause of jnany deaths in that 
 country. The fiuhes, in sheep, come from the snails 
 that they eat, and tp which they are attached. 
 
 The only way to save ourselves from the visitation 
 of these parasites is to kill them by cooking our meat 
 thoroughly at a high temperature. 
 
 Meat may sometimes become unfit for food by the 
 diet of animals. Partridges become poisonous at cer- 
 tain seasons in this country, by eating the laurel. Hares 
 and prairie hens sometimes become poisonous through 
 some food that they eat, and cattle, in some districts, 
 obtain substances that make their flesh and their milk 
 injurious. 
 
poisoNoias FISH. 155 
 
 DISEASED FISH. 
 
 Certain varieties of fish are always, or almost always 
 poisonous. It is perhaps no more strange that such 
 should be the case than that some varieties of fish 
 are poisonous at certain seasons, or to certain individ- 
 uals. That oysters,- lobsters, clams, and especially mus- 
 sels, may be harmful, especially in the summer season, 
 everybody knows, and some have learned the fact by 
 personal experience. The causes of this poisonous 
 character of fish, are, it may be supposed, various. It 
 may be due to the food they eat, to their not being prop- 
 erly cooked, or to some indefinable and mysterious pe- 
 culiarity in the character of the fish that unfits it to 
 become nutriment for a human being. One thing is 
 certain, that it is usually impossible to distiaguish 
 poisonous fish either by their appearance or by their 
 taste. 
 
 There is much fear of oysters and clams during the 
 summer months, and yet only in exceptional cases do 
 they harm any one at this season ; but that the risk is 
 greater in warm than in cold weather, there is no 
 doubt. 
 
 Lobsters sometimes cause cholera morbus and diar- 
 rhoea, especially when they are not thoroughly cooked, 
 and yet they act capriciously enough, for when at pubUo 
 dinners several hundred partake freely of them, only a 
 small percentage will be attacked during the following 
 night, but those few may suffer enough for aU the rest. 
 
 In the West Indies, and in other hot cHmes, there are 
 fish that are always, or almost always, poisonous to al- 
 most all who eat them. Among them are the bladder 
 fish, the yellow hilled sprat and the grey^snapper. 
 
156 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 When tlie latter is eaten by the dolphin, or congor 
 eel, or globe-fish, it causes them also to be poisonous. 
 
 It is said the yellow-billed sprat is so poisonous that 
 men have been known to die with the fish in the mouth 
 unswallowed. • • 
 
 In Mauritius the parrot fishes are unwholesome at 
 certain periods, because they eat the coral polyps. 
 
 The familiar Portuguese-njan-of-war — a fish which I 
 have seen in great numbers in the Gulf Mexico — ^is said 
 to poison the fish that eat it. 
 
 Some fish are wholesome in one place and poisonous 
 at another. Thus the barracouta at Trinidad can be 
 eaten, but at Granada, an island quite near it, causes 
 sicfcuess. 
 
 In Ha-pana there is a fish called carana .fallax, which 
 is wholesome when, small, and poisonous when large, and 
 therefore it is unlawful to expose for sale those that ex- 
 ceed two pounds three ounces in weight. It has been 
 affirmed that the same rule applies to many other poison- 
 ous fish. It is said of the barracouta that when the roots 
 of the teeth are black, it should not be eaten ; if this 
 be true, it is the only case where there is known any 
 definite external sign of the healthfulness or unhealth- 
 fulness of fishes. 
 
 At the period of spawning some fish are poisonous. 
 It is said that there are about seventy species of fish that 
 are known to be poisonous to a greater or less degree. 
 Of these, twenty-three have a particularly bad reputation, 
 and many of these are found in the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 It is true of most poisonous fish, as of poisons in 
 general, that they act very differently with different in- 
 dividuals. Thus the anchovy of the Indian Ocean is 
 very injurious, unless in dressing it the head and intes- 
 
DISEASED HONEY, GEASSES, ETC. 157 
 
 tines are carefully and thoroughly removed ; but one 
 half of a family that partake of it may suffer, while the 
 other half are unaffected. 
 
 DISEASED AND POISONOUS CEKEALS, ETC. 
 
 Honey is sometimes poisonous, owing to the flowers 
 on which the bees fed. Mould seriously affects some 
 constitutions when it is found on meat, fish, cheese, 
 sausages, or bread. Mouldy food of all kinds should be 
 eaten only by those who are very hungry and very 
 poor. 
 
 Poisonous grasses sometimes get mingled vrith wheats 
 and are ground with the flour. 
 
 Urgot of ryt is a famous poison that is best known in 
 certain districts of France and Germany ; but fortu- 
 nately in this country it is never heard of. 
 
CHAPTEE Xn. 
 
 HOW FOOD MAY BE EBESEBVED. 
 
 Veex much of the food of the world is lost through 
 decay, and everywhere meat and fruits are much 
 dearer than they would be if the art of preserving food 
 for an indefinite period, without impairing its taste and 
 nutritive value, were revealed to man. All known 
 methods are imperfect. 
 
 FOOD PBESEKVED BX DEYING. 
 
 In hot chmates, fish and meat are cut into strips and 
 exposed to the air to dry ; and the dried beef of our 
 own country is famiHar to all. Dried meat is tough, 
 hard to digest, and not very palatable. 
 
 Dried herbs, fruits, and vegetables are abundantly 
 known ; but no method yet devised can make dried 
 apples or desiccated potatoes equal to fresh apples an^ 
 potatoes. The life goes out with the hquid. 
 
 FOOD PEESEBVED BY EXCLXJDING AIK. 
 
 Air may be excluded from food by covering it with 
 some impervious, substance, as bladder ; by exhausting 
 
FOOD PEESEEVED BY FEEEZING. 159 
 
 it from the vessel containing the food ; by heating the 
 food in the vessel, so as to destroy the oxygen ; by 
 filling the vessel with hot fat, or syrup, or water, and 
 by steam. The latter method is the one that is most 
 employed ; and food preserved in this way — as meats 
 and canned fruits — will last for many yeai's. It has in- 
 deed been shown that for nearly j^iy years food pre- 
 served by this method has been kept pixre. 
 
 FOOD PKESEKVED BY FEEEZING. 
 
 Extreme cold is a powerful antiseptic, and will pre- 
 serve animal substances for years. In very cold cli- 
 mates, as in Norway, Siberia, and Iceland, it is custom- 
 ary to preserve fish and meat by freezing. 
 
 FOOD PEESEKVED BY CHEMICAL SUBSTANCES THAT 
 PEEVENT DECOMPOSITION— ANTISEPTICS. 
 
 Among the agents that preserve food by their chem- 
 ical action, the best known are 
 
 Common Salt ; Smoke ; Alcohol and vinegar. 
 
 The use of all these agents is so familiar that it need 
 not be described in any detail. At best they are aU 
 imperfect methods. Salted beef is not as digestible, as 
 palatable, or as nutritious as fresh beef ; and the same 
 is true of fish. 
 
 Fresh herrings make good eating ; but the smok-ed 
 herring — the " Cape Cod turkey," — are popr eating for 
 those who can get anything better ; although, like 
 " dried beef " and smoked ham, they may, in moderate 
 
160 EATING AND DKINEING. 
 
 quantities, go well as a relish, or as a relief from long 
 subsisting on unsalted food ; or, perhaps, to make us 
 better appreciate first-class diet. 
 
 None of the salted and smoked meats or fish are as 
 healthful as fresh meats and fish. They are less nutri- 
 tive, less digestible, and more Hkely to cause diseases of 
 the skin. Soldiers and sailors suffer everywhere from 
 excess of salted and smoked food, although, as a rule, 
 their stomachs are about as tough as the salt junk 
 itself. 
 
 With the progress of civilization, salted and smoked 
 food is gradually disappearing, for the reason that 
 nervous brain-workers do not like it, nor does it hke 
 them. Among the comfortable classes of our cities where 
 fresh meats and fish are always in the market, salt pork, 
 or beef, or fish, (excepting codfish and salmon,) are 
 rarely eaten, and even ham is ignored unless it be very 
 sweet and tender. 
 
 Fifty years ago salted and smoked food was the 
 nutriment of nearly all classes, and even now there are 
 large sections in the country where fresh meat and 
 fresh fish are rare luxuries. 
 
 Pickles, of various kinds, furnish good examples of 
 what may be done in the way of preserving food by 
 vinegar. They are, as the expression is, a "mere 
 relish," stimulating the appetite for other food, but con- 
 taining little nutriment themselves. 
 
 Other chemical substances used in preparing food 
 are : 
 
 Muriate of ammonia. Sulphurous acid fumes. 
 
 Sulphate of soda. Acetate of ammonia. 
 
 Sulphate of potash. Saltpetre. 
 
PBEPAKATIONS OF FOOD. 161 
 
 Tke last substance is usually combined with salt in 
 preserving meat. 
 
 It should be remarked that the preserving power of 
 smoke is mainly due to the creosote contained in the oil 
 evolved from the burning wood. 
 
 Gamgee's Peocess. — Prof. Gamgee has introduced a 
 modification of an old process of preserving meat, 
 causing the animal to breathe carbonic oxide gas until 
 it is nearly dead. It is then killed in the ordinary 
 manner. "When dressed the animal is hung in an air- 
 tight chamber, which, after the air is exhausted, is filled 
 with carbonic oxide gas, mingled with sulphurous acid. 
 After being exposed to these gases for one or two days 
 it can be hung up in dry air and will keep for months. 
 
 PEEPAEATIONS OP FOOD. 
 
 Pemmican. — Arctic voyagers have depended on pem- 
 mican, which consists of powdered meat, to, which 
 sugar and spices have been added. 
 
 Liebig's Exteact of Beef. — This preparation, the nu- 
 tritive value of which has been considerably over- 
 estimated, is yet an excellent substitute for fresh meat : 
 and in soup fulfills a desirable purpose. 
 
 Condensed Milk. — ^For coffee, condensed milk is pre- 
 ferable, in the opinion of many, to cream, or the milk 
 uncondensed. 
 
 It is prepared by evaporating the water from the 
 miUr. 
 
162 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 Liebig's Food foe iNrASTS. — This popular preparation 
 consists of 
 
 Malt. Milk, and 
 
 Wheaten flour. Bi-earbonate of potash. 
 
 The malt changes the starch to sugar ; the bi-car- 
 bonate of potash aids this change, and neutralizes the 
 acids. 
 
CHAPTER XTTT, 
 
 HOW THE LEAN MAX BECOME FAT, AND THE PAT LEAN. 
 
 The size or weight, the fatness or leanness, shortness 
 or tallness, of races or of individuals depend on a va- 
 riety of conditions, none of which are fully understood. 
 Race and cUmate, which, in indefinite periods of time. 
 May be regarded as the great causes of the differences of 
 race, diet, external conditions of wealth or poverty, 
 education, and the numberless social influences of civil- 
 ization ; all these elements together find their resultant 
 in man ; and whether he is to be light or heavy, fat as 
 a porpoise or lean as a rail, depends on all of these fac- 
 tors in their combination. 
 
 Some of these factors, and the more important ones 
 — organization and climate — are certainly beyond our 
 control ; and even our diet and external conditions are 
 only to a limited extent subject to our will. 
 
 That the quantity of food eaten does not determine 
 the fatness or leanness of individuals is well known, and 
 is a matter of superficial observation ; for some who 
 are large as barrels ai'e light eaters, while others who 
 seem to be almost transparent are mighty performers at 
 the table. 
 
164 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 It is the quality rather than the quantity of food that 
 makes us fat or lean. The more we eat of some va- 
 rieties of food the leaner we shall become. 
 
 It appears from the researches of Gould, during 
 the late war, that a residence in the Western States 
 during the period of growth was favorable to stature, 
 and that the Kentuokians are taUer than the natives of 
 some of the Eastern States has long been believed. It 
 has been supposed that the inhabitants of regions 
 where limestone abounds in the water become taller 
 thereby. 
 
 It is for these reasons in their combination, I sup- 
 pose, that almost everywhere, the lower orders are 
 smaller, shorter and Hghter on the average than the 
 higher orders. This distinction will apply- to both 
 sexes and to all ages. Take at random one thousanfl 
 merchants, professional men, or freeholding farmers, 
 and they will outweigh an equal number of mechanics 
 and laborers in this or in any other country. 
 
 The muscles of the laboring class are large and firmly 
 knit, and they are capable of severe toil ; but it takes 
 fewer yards to clothe them. 
 
 Much more than is credited, toil either of the brain 
 or of the muscle works off the adipose tissue and keeps 
 us thin, hence we often find that cadaverous, nervous 
 and active organizations are vigorous eaters, while the 
 phlegmatic, indifferent and iadolent may be very spar- 
 ing in their diet. It is not the money that we receive 
 but what we save that makes us rich; it is not what we 
 eat and digest but what we hoard up in ihe body that 
 makes us fat. 
 
 I am told that in Norway, the rich people are almost 
 always fat, and travelers in Siberia have remarked that 
 
SUBSTANCES THAT PRODUCE FAT. 165 
 
 adipose tissue and dollars seem to have some mysterious 
 connection. 
 
 The only explanation that can well be put for this 
 phenomenon is that the rich have less depressing anx- 
 iety, more and better food to eat, and more time to eat 
 it in, and have less severe muscular labor. I am in- 
 clined to think that the difference in respect to weight 
 between the so-called higher and lower classes is less 
 marked in this country than in Europe, for it is certain 
 that not a few of our wealthy and cultured citizens could 
 be weighed on light scales, and some of the poorest of 
 the poor are heavy and pursy, as weU as muscular. 
 
 The foods that produce fat are : 
 
 1. Sugar and sweet Bubstanoes, as sugar, molasses, honey, etc. 
 
 2. Saccharine f mils— ^weet apples, peaches, etc.- 
 
 3. Starchy substances — ^bread, potatoes, puddings, cakes, etc. 
 
 4. Fats and oils — fat meat, butter, milk, cream and oil. 
 
 Those who wish to grow fat should live as much as pos- 
 sible on these substances. A very frequent mistake is to 
 suppose that lean m.eat is fattening. 
 
 Liebig, in experimenting on grease, found that a lean 
 goose, weighing four pounds, gained five pounds in 
 thirty- six days on maize only ; of these five pounds, 
 three and a half were pure fat: He obtained similar 
 results by his experiments with sugar. 
 
 It is said that in the Seraglio at Trip^, the ladies''^\ _ 
 are fattened on time by flour, honey, rich soups and J 
 frequent bathing. Fifteen days is all that is necessary 
 to make them as plump as an ortolan. 
 
 Humboldt says the negroes and the free people of 
 South America who work on the plantations, drink the 
 milk of the cow-tree and grow sensibly fatter during the 
 season when it is most abundant. 
 
166 EATINa AND DRINKING. 
 
 The Tonaricks of the desert of Sahara live four 
 months on nothing but camel's milk, and on this diet 
 the children grow like hons. 
 
 The sisters of Kamraisi, an African chieftain, were 
 kept confined in the palace, and fed each on the pro- 
 duce of from ten to twenty cows. They grew so fat they 
 could not walk. It required eight men to lift one of 
 them on a litter. The negroes of the West Indies and 
 of the Southern States grow fat during the sugar 
 making season. 
 
 Many persons find by experience that when they live 
 entirely at ease, and change their diet from meats to 
 saccharine fruits, cakes, pastry, mUk, cream, etc., that 
 up to a certain point they gain in weight quite rapidly. 
 Often have I observed this in my own experience. 
 During my summer vacations in the country, a daily 
 increase in weight of from half' to three quarters of a 
 pound for a week or so never surprises me, especially 
 when living on fat-producing food ; but the Umit is 
 soon reached, and on returning to hard work and, ordi- 
 nary fare, the surplus fat disappears as rapidly as it 
 came. 
 
 Pat bears no necessary or constant relation to health, 
 
 for the best of health is possible for those who are, as 
 
 well as those who are not, provided with a large amount 
 
 of adipose tissue. 
 
 ; / There is, however, a point of extreme leanness on the 
 
 / one hand, and extreme corpulency on the other, that 
 
 I the body, when in perfect health, does not pass. This 
 
 \ point varies with individuals, and, of course, with age 
 
 \ and sex. The sweets, oUs, fats, starches, which make 
 
 ^ fat are not the lest adapted for brain-workers or athletes as 
 
 an exclusive diet ; and those who adopt this fattening 
 
HOW THE FAT BKCOME LEAN. 167 
 
 process must not be surprised to find that both brain 
 and muscle lose something of their vigor in proportion 
 as the body increases in weight. 
 
 In order for lean persons to become fat it is necessary 
 to reverse the process by which the fat become lean. 
 
 1. They should Uve as exclusively as possible on sub- 
 stances that contain little starch, sugar, fat,— as lean 
 meat and dry bread. 
 
 2. They should sleep little and work hard with brain 
 or muscle, or with both. 
 
 By this process it is possible for the corpulent, even 
 the extremely corpulent, to reduce their weight to an 
 extent that will afford them great relief. 
 
 A most remiarkable illustration of the efficiency of 
 this method of treatment was afforded in the person of 
 Mr. [ panting, of England, the author of a little pam- 
 phlet on corpulence, which a few years since created 
 such an excitenient in (jrpfiit Fritair.^, 
 
 Mr. Banting was five feet five inches in height, and 
 weighed 202 pounds. At the end of twelve months he 
 had reduced his weight to 150 pounds. 
 
 His daily solid diet was about 3.21 ounces of nitro- 
 genous matter and 4.06 ounces of carbonaceous matter. 
 The average man in health and at work requires five or 
 six times as much carbonaceous matter, and decidedly more 
 of the nitrogenous. 
 
 The special articles of diet of Mr. Banting were beef, 
 mutton, fish, bacon, dry toast and biscuit, poultry, game, 
 tea, coffee, claret and sherry in small quantities, and a 
 night-cap of gin, whiskey or brandy, or wine. 
 
 He abstained from the following articles : pork, veal, 
 salmon, eels, herrings, sugar, milk, and all sorts of vege- 
 
168 BATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 tables grown underground, and nearly all fatty and far- 
 inaceous substances. He daily drank 43 ounces of 
 liquids. 
 
 On this diet lie kept himself for seven years at the 
 weight of 150 pounds. 
 
 He found, what other experience confirms, that sugar 
 was the most powerful of all fatteners. If he took but one 
 ounce a day it increased his weight a pound in seven 
 days. 
 
 Temperaments differ in their ability to bear this rigid 
 and exclusive system of dieting, and some of the fol- 
 lowers of Banting have regretted that he was ever 
 born. On the other hand, not a few have derived sug- 
 gestions from his experience for which they have reason 
 to be grateful. The doctrine he advocates is a sound 
 one ; but then those who embrace it should keep firm 
 hold of their common sense at the same time, and study 
 /diligently their own constitutions. 
 
 work like^at-QfJBaetiBg^would hardly have ex- 
 
 (cited a wide interest _in this _country, for tbe reason 
 phat com^^ti^lyfew AmgdcanJlSellS^^^fSened 
 vitTUatJ-A. thousand iSi^shmen would weigh coii- 
 /siderably more than a thousand Americans of the same 
 social station, and if some American retired manufac- 
 turer shall succeed in making a cadaverous body fat as 
 Banting did in making a fat body thin, his name will 
 become a household word. 
 
 In this country, the first part of this chapter will 
 probably be of greater practical value than the last. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THE DIET OF THE DYSPEPTIC, THE NEEVOTJS AND THE 
 CONSUMPTIVE. 
 
 T^E diseases of the last generation usually required 
 fasting, bleeding and purging ; the chronic diseases of 
 the present generation usually require feeding, stimu- 
 lants and tonics. 
 
 The majority of the chronic invaUds of our time -will 
 come under one of these three classes — the nervous, the 
 dyspeptic and the consumptive. 
 
 The dyspepsia of our day is largely a nervous disease, 
 and is essentially different from the indigestion of coarse 
 nations, and among savage races, where bad food or the 
 lack of -food may produce an inflamed condition of the 
 nervous membrane of the stomach, giving rise to symp- 
 toms of dyspepsia. 
 
 The dyspepsia of our times is usually a disease of 
 debility, and must be treated by measures that tend to 
 raise the tone of the system. 
 
 The nervous and dyspeptic need as generous a diet as can 
 be digested without great pain. 
 
 The four practical rules of dietetics apply in all their 
 force to chronic nervous invalids, whether dyspepsia be 
 one of their symptoms or nofe For the weak as for the 
 
170 EATING AMD DBINKING. 
 
 strong the appetite is the best guide that nature has 
 given us, although it may itself become diseased, espe- 
 cially in dyspepsia, and so deceive us. 
 
 But the sensations following immediately, or within a 
 few hours after, meals will inform us if the appetite has 
 been guilty of treachery, and has allowed us to take 
 more food than we can digest without severe distress. 
 
 A moderate amount, of pain or uneasiness after meals, 
 especially after the principal meal of the day, dyspep- 
 tics should be willing to endure — for they have a choice 
 of three evils : to abstain entirely from eating and die 
 of starvation ; to eat less than the system requires and 
 thus gradually grow weaker and lose still more of the 
 power of digesting, or to eat as much as can be digested 
 without severe distress, and thus to supply the system 
 with the means of recovery. Of these three evils the 
 last is certainly the least, and is the one which should 
 be chosen. 
 
 Digestive organs that have long been nervously weak 
 become very sensitive and capricious, and will not tole- 
 rate even a mouthf ulof stale bread or of cracker, or a tea- 
 spoonful of milk or water, without entering a xsainful 
 protest, and perhaps wiU at once proceed to eject the 
 intruder. Such cases are to be managed with studied 
 caution, gentleness and firmness combined. The object 
 kept in view should be to give the stomach as much to 
 do as it can bear, not without pain, for there wUl be 
 pain whether it does infinitesimally little or hes idle, but 
 without exhausting it beyond ready recuperation. 
 
 Those who like the taste of Graham or Indian bread, 
 and have stomachs strong enough to digest it, may 
 very properly indulge that taste as opportunity offers, 
 but should not allow themselves to become slaves to it, 
 
EREOKS OF DYSPEPTICS. 171 
 
 nor to be annoyed if tliey are by circumstances deprived 
 of it. The disciples of Grahamism usually forget that 
 bread made from unbolted flour or from Indian meal, 
 though in some respects more nutritious than bread 
 made of fine flour, is much less easy of digestion, and to 
 many temperaments decidedly injurious. It usually 
 happens that the most strenuous advocates of coarse 
 diet are those who are least able to bear it, whose 
 stomachs rebel against it and only receive and digest it 
 under protest. It is better for such to cast aside ^11 
 questions of chemistry and eat what they like best, even 
 at the sure risk of committing some grave errors, than 
 to spend life in perpetual worry. It is true of diet as 
 of exercise, that what is best enjsyed is best digested. 
 
 A cheerful spirit covers a multitude of sins. He who 
 takes his meals joyously, even though he eat forbidden 
 fruit, will be more edified thereby than he whose food 
 fulfills every requirement of chemistry but is swallowed 
 in disgust or apprehension. The life of a man who 
 honestly strives to fulfill every jot and title of an arbi- 
 trary gospel of health, at all hazards and at absolute 
 cost, is very apt to be exceedingly dreary. To the 
 physical exhaustion and pain that results from insuffi- 
 cient nutrition is Ixequently added the greater agony of 
 a worried conscience. 
 
 Dyspeptics should with all their might avoid the 
 following errors : 
 
 1. They should not weaken the organs of digestion by 
 giving them too little to do. 
 
 The digestive organs are largely composed of muscles, 
 and are supplied freely with nerves, and are very inti- 
 mately connected with the sympathetic nervous system, 
 
172 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 and the brain and spinal cord, and in their exercise 
 they should be governed by the same laws as the mus- 
 cular system in general. If, therefore, the stomach be 
 not supplied with food sufficient to give it needful 
 employment, it becomes flabby, like an arm that has 
 been tied in a shng or a leg- that has been fastened 
 in a fracture box. A radical mistake with dyspeptics 
 is to make their weak digestive organs still weaker 
 by giving them too much rest. The tables of Dr. 
 Beaumont, showing the relative digestibility in the 
 stomach of the different articles of food, have wrought 
 much evil in various ways, especially to dyspeptics, 
 who are prone to select from the hst those articles 
 that are most rapidly changed into chyme in the 
 stomach. Therefore men have tried to hve on rice, 
 raw eggs, tripe and other comparatively innu'tritious sub- 
 stances, which, according to Beaumont, remained in the 
 stomach of Martin, . on whom he experimented, only 
 about an hour or one hour and a half.* 
 
 A secondary and still more serious result of living on 
 food that is digested in a very short time, is that the 
 body becomes badly nourished and grows weaker, and 
 this weakness reacts on the digestive organs and makes 
 them BtUl more incapable of performing their functions. 
 
 2. They should not allow the stomach to go long 
 empty. 
 
 Their motto should be to eat little and often; if neces- 
 sary, four or five times a day ; but at no time to load 
 the delicate organs with a burden that they cannot bear. 
 
 * To generalize from a series of experiiaents on a single individual in regard 
 to the relative digesfibility of different articles of food is manifestly nnscien- 
 tilic, and for that reason, as well as for the reason mentioned above, I have 
 depaiied from the umversal custom of writers on diet, aud refrained from pub- 
 Uabing the tables of Dr. Beaumont. 
 
CONSTIPATION A RESULT OP DISEASE. 173 
 
 The law is that the weaker and more nervous the indi- 
 vidual, the less able he is to bear fasting, and it is the 
 weak and nervous who are most exhorted to fast. To 
 go over a meal is a bad policy for the dyspeptics of this 
 generation, however good the treatment may have been 
 for the gluttons of the middle ages. 
 
 3. They should not confine themselves to exclusively 
 coarse and loosening food. - 
 
 Next to not eating at all, or eating too little, is the 
 cruel habit of living on bran bread, grits, and fruits, in 
 order to cure the constipation that is so often associated 
 with dyspepsia. 
 
 Constipation is a result of indigestion and ill health, 
 in general, far more than it is the cause. The alimentary 
 canal is a barometer indicating the condition of the sys- 
 tem ; if the indications are bad,, we should seek to right, 
 not the barometer, but the system. If the health every 
 way be good, and the digestion what it should be, the 
 bowels will take care of themselves, with only a reasonable 
 and unvarying attention to the regular performance of 
 their functions. 
 
 A great objection to miich of the coarse food that 
 dyspeptics, so often take is that it is unpalatable, which 
 is objection enough ; but more than that, it is often- 
 times so hard of digestion that it overtasks the feeble 
 stomach, and makes the whole process of assimilation 
 still more faulty, and so aggravates the very constipation 
 it was designed to cure. 
 
 It is a dreary business to take food as medicine. 
 
 The notion that coarse food, grits, etc., are so very 
 more nutritious than fine flour, which has. been so in- 
 dustriously circulated by writers, is as untrue as it is 
 ■widely believed. 
 
174 EAa?ING AMD DRINKING. 
 
 4. They should not over-exercise brain or muscle so 
 long as the organs of digestion are unable to assimilate 
 a fair quantity of nutriment. 
 
 If the engine is old and worn out, and in danger of 
 exploding, we must carry less steam. Gradually and 
 with the increase of digestive power, there should be 
 increase of muscular activity. For the nervous and 
 delicate, especially if they are' ambitious and energetic, 
 there is more danger that they will do too much rather 
 than too little — that they will exceed their strength 
 rather than fall below it^hat they will continually draw 
 on their slender capital instead of wisely living within 
 their little income and making their expenses always a 
 little less than their profits. 
 
 Next to starving themselves, the greatest mistake of 
 the nervously dyspeptic is to over-exercise, especially 
 before breakfast, on an empty stomach. Better occasion- 
 ally overeat than habitually eat too little. Better do nothing 
 than do too much. 
 
 A UlrtVEESAL BILL OP FAEE. 
 
 To assign a definite diet for the dyspeptic would be 
 inconsistent with the system of hygiene taught in this 
 work. I have everywhere insisted that every individual 
 must study his own experience. There are, however, 
 some articles of diet, which, like some medicines, are 
 less capricious and uncertain in their action than others 
 and therefore more likely to suit the average constitu- 
 tion in health and chronic disease. 
 
 If I were forced, under penalty of my hfe, to indicate 
 a short bill of fare that would be suited to all climates 
 and seasons, to both sexes and all ages except infancy, 
 
A UNIVEKSAL BILL OF FAEE. 175 
 
 wliieh with least liability to overtax or undertax the 
 organs of digestion, should diminish the delicacy of the 
 weak and increase the strength of the strong, which 
 should contain all the needful elements of nutrition, 
 and be equally adapted for breakfast, dinner, tea or 
 lunch, which should sustain the brain-worker alike with 
 the muscle-worker, and be the longest to paU on the 
 taste of any, I should name the following : 
 
 Tender beef steak, fat aud lean, broiled, 
 
 Eoast potatoes. 
 
 Bolted wheaten flour bread, stale and light. 
 
 Butter. 
 
 A cup of weak tea. 
 
 DIET OP NEEVOUS INVALIDS. 
 
 The diet of nervous invalids of all kinds, should be 
 regulated on the general principles already laid down 
 for dyspeptics and for those in health. It should 
 always be remembered that the majority of nervous 
 patients are underfed ; that they need building up and 
 not puUing down. Nervous patients suffer not from 
 excess but from deficiency of nervous force. Almost 
 always they have too little rather than too much blood ; 
 feeble and capricious appetites and delicate digestioil 
 that needs to be tenderly and wisely treated, so that the 
 system may obtain as much as possible of nutriment, 
 without overtasking the organs of assimilation. 
 
 THE DIET OP CONSUMPTIVES. 
 
 Nearly all' medical observers now agree that coa- 
 eumption is a disease of debility, and that it is to be 
 
176 EATING AND DKINKING. 
 
 relieved and cured — if relieved and cured at all — by 
 measures calculated to raise the general tone of the 
 system — and that among these tonic measures a nu- 
 tritious diet takes the first rank. 
 
 Consumption, like nervousness, is largely though not 
 entirely a disease of civilization, for although it is found 
 in nearly aU. parts of the globe, and among the wild 
 and uncultured races, its worst ravages are made among 
 the best people. It is very natural to inquire whether 
 the evolution in diet, that, as we have seen, has kept 
 pace with the evolution of humanity, has not something 
 to do with this increasing aud fatal frequency of con- 
 sumption among us, — whether it does, indeed play as 
 important a part in producing this disease as over-toil 
 and heavy and impure air or vicious habits. 
 
 It is one of the discoveries of recent years that the 
 majority of consumptives dislike fat meat, cut it off from 
 the lean when it is served out to them, and find diffi- 
 culty in eating or digesting oily food of any kind. 
 From my own researches, I thould Judge that at least 
 three out of five consumptives, and consumptively disposed 
 persons, have a natural repugnance to fat meat. Large 
 families in whom the tendency to consumption is inher- 
 ited, can be found, all of whose members reject not only 
 pork, but the fatty portions of beef and mutton. It 
 does not f oUow that all those who dislike fat are des- 
 tined to die of consumption, but such dislike is, to 
 say the least, not a very favorable symptom, and indi- 
 cates a type of constitution that is probably not of the 
 strongest. 
 
 The more closely I study this subject the more and 
 more thoroughly I become convinced that distaste for 
 fat in adults is both an effect and a cause of modern de- 
 
INCEEASING DISTASTE FOE FATS. 177 
 
 bility, and that it aggravates if it does not originate 
 chronic diseases of the nervous system. 
 
 There are facts enough ah-eady given in this volume 
 to make this view very plausible. Both in the regions 
 of extreme heat and extreme cold, fats and oils are 
 used with every meal, and to a degree which, at the 
 very mention, almost sickens us ; and among nearly all 
 wild races everywhere, and among our early ancestors 
 in Germany and Great Britain, and even by our fathers 
 of the past generations, fat pork and gravy were used 
 with a freedom which very few in our large cities would 
 now attempt to imitate.* The modern constitution can 
 not digest fat as our ancestors could, and the distaste 
 for it which is now so prevalent, and I believe increas- 
 ing, is a sign of this inability. It is in obedience to 
 this peculiarity of the modern temperament that pork 
 has so generally given way to beef, sweet butter and 
 cream to oUs and gravies, the gridiron to the frying 
 pan. 
 
 This distaste for fats, and corresponding inability to 
 digest them, operates as a cause of debility by depriving 
 the body of a means of nourishment which, in all ages 
 and nearly all climes, has been found to be indispen- 
 sable to the highest health and activity. 
 
 Bearing in mind that fats enter into the composition 
 of brain and all nervous tissue, and that the brain-toU 
 of modern life causes vast expenditure of the brain and 
 nervous,system^ — which expenditure must be supplied 
 partially, if not entirely, by the food— we can see readily 
 enough that debility of any kind, or of all kinds, might 
 be the logical result of long abstinence from fatty and 
 
 * Tlie Greeks and early Eomajis were great oonsiimerB of fet, and among 
 thein pork was held in great esteem. 
 
178 EATING AND DRINKING, 
 
 oily food ; and when we consider that this distaste for 
 necessary nutriment is transmitted from parent to child, 
 the nervousness and debility of modern life loses very 
 much of its mystery. 
 
 Very powerfully this reasoning is reinforced by the 
 undeniable fact that the women of our land, who are 
 vastly weaker than the men, are also more afraid of fat 
 meats, and more sparing in the use of fatty food of 
 every sort. Children, too, in their early years of de- 
 bility, while the question whether they are to live or 
 die is yet undecided, often reject fats and gravies, or 
 eat them only under compulsion ; and any exhibition 
 of fondness for them is, I believe, a good sign. 
 
 In children, and in adults, excess in, or a dispropor- 
 tionate use of, fat may cause eruptions on the skin, and 
 very likely other bodily evils, but it does not cause 
 nervous -debility. 
 
 The remedy for this vast evil suggests itself : it is to 
 prepare fatty and oily food in such a ivay that the modern 
 palate can relish or endure, and the modern stoinach can 
 digest it 
 
 Cod liver oil is a step in the right way ; and cream 
 is becoming more popular than it ever was, and can be 
 taken by many who never cease to dishke cod liver oil. 
 Sweet oil, and sweet butter, and elegant gravies may 
 be experimented with ; and the fatty portions of beef, 
 when combined with farinaceous substances, may in 
 kirn become quite palatable. Already we have seen 
 that the appetite, and with it the digestive capacity, 
 can be gradually trained so that articles originally re- 
 pulsive and indigestible, can become attractive and 
 easy of assimilation. 
 
 In all our experiments in this direction, common 
 
THE DIET OF THE SICK ROOM. 179 
 
 sense should never be laid aside. To overeat, to force 
 down repulsive food that rises in rebellion as soon as 
 swallowed, will only defeat our purpose. The appetite 
 and stomach should be led, and not driven j educated, 
 and not commanded. 
 
 Consumption, as well as nervous diseases, should be 
 taken in time, and combated by scientific and generous 
 dieting before the disease develops, itself ; for after the 
 deposit in the lungs becomes fully and easily recognized, 
 the battle is hard and the issue doubtful. 
 
 In the use of the stronger stimulants and narcotics, as 
 alcoholic liquors, tobacco, and coffee, the dyspeptic, and 
 the nervous, and the consumptive, can never be eman- 
 cipated from the law which requires every man to work 
 out his own salvation. 
 
 There are consumptives who owe their lives to a right 
 use of negative food ; there are others now in their 
 graves, who, if they had never tried it, might now be 
 Uving. 
 
 THE DIET OF THE SICK EOOM. 
 
 The laws of dietetics are in force in disease as well as 
 in health, and in acute as well as chronic diseases. In 
 sickness as in health, the appetite, with all its liability 
 to go astray, is the best guide that nature has given us. 
 In the incipient and early stages of acute disease there 
 is usually little desire for food, and httle ability to 
 digest it. When fever enters, appetite departs, and 
 then nothing is gained by compelling the stomach to 
 receive food. 
 
 When convalescence begins, appetite, and with it the 
 power to assimilate, reappears, and with proper judg- 
 
180 EATING AND DEINKING. 
 
 ment can be studiously gratified. In sickness as in 
 health, the system requires a variety of nutriment, -which 
 must be modified and adapted to the climate, season, 
 age, sex, and individual temperament. In sickness, as 
 in health, the, Httle that is eaten should be taken, not 
 as a medicine, but joyously and for the pleasure of it. 
 
 The special indications of diet for the sick must be 
 met as they arise, and under the direction of a medical 
 attendant. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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 13 
 
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 cess, those principles of investigation, which can alone place this highest formof knowledge in its 
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 from the same Author. Lectures delivered before the Lowell Insti- 
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 Introduction. By Hon. John Bigelow. i2mo, $1.50. 
 
 N. K. — ^Both books are published under Father Hyacinthe's sanction, and he receives a copy- 
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f'Ifcl 
 
 ^Mm