i w 
 
 ..■ 
 
 ALBERT R 
 
 MANN LIBRARY 
 
 New York State Collepes of 
 
 Agriculture and Home Economics 
 
 AT Cornell University 
 
 . 
 
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 1 
 
 3w 
 
 
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 Gift from the 
 
 CLIVE M. 
 
 McCAY LIBRARY 
 
 
 OF 
 
 Nutrition 
 
 AND Gerontology 
 
Cornell University Library 
 RM 216.T47 1902 
 
 Diet in relation to_age&ac«vity:with 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924003500323 
 
DIET 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 AGE & 
 ACTIVITY 
 
Ftcr>vu6j^£l^ 
 
^ DIET ^ 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 AGE & ACTIVITY 
 
 WITH HINTS 
 CONCERNING HABITS CONDUCIVE TO 
 
 LONGEVITY 
 
 BY 
 
 SIR HENRY THOMPSON, Bart. 
 
 F.R.C.S., M^., LOND., ETC. 
 
 REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION 
 ■WITH APPENDIX 
 
 LONDON 
 FREDERICK WARNE AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 1902 
 
 (All rightt nstrved) 
 
PRINTED BT 
 
 WILLIAM CLOWBS AND SOHS> LIMITED 
 
 LONDON AND BECCLBS 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This little work, first published in 1886, 
 had a very large sale both in this country 
 and America for about nine or ten 
 years, and is still inquired for occasion- 
 ally, in the latter country especially, but 
 has been for some time out of print The 
 recommendations and advice respecting 
 diet and habits which it contained were 
 the result of very large experience which 
 an extensive practice, during at least 
 twenty-five or thirty years at the date of 
 its publication, compelled me to regard as 
 much needed by men of all ranks and 
 occupations among the well-to-do classes 
 of society, who had reached, or perhaps 
 had passed^ the prime of life ; whether 
 engaged in business or professional pur- 
 suits or in varied public services, etc 
 
 I was mysfelf, at that time, sixty-five 
 years of age, and may perhaps be per- 
 mitted to add, belonged to one of the 
 
6 PREFACE 
 
 categories indicated, being certainly not 
 one of its least active or occupied members. 
 
 It has recently occurred to me that, 
 having now entered my eighty-second 
 year, I may be able to offer many useful 
 hints suggested by an increased experience 
 respecting the subject defined by the title, 
 and also concerning other more or less 
 allied matters relating to the habits of 
 those who are advancing in years, and 
 who desire still to maintain fair health 
 and activity, without which prolonged life 
 is scarcely to be regarded as a boon. 
 
 In the present edition I print the original 
 work, unaltered, as Part I., and I have 
 added about an equal amount of matter 
 as Part II., in the hope that the additional 
 portions may prove useful and acceptable. 
 Naturally, certain subjects require to be 
 treated in each of the two parts, but relat- 
 ing in the former to the sixth and seventh 
 decade of human life, and in Part II. to 
 the eighth and ninth decade. 
 
 September, igoi. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Alcohol and Evils of Improper Feeding — Cause of 
 Chionic Disease in Advancing Years — Vegetari- 
 anism — Food in Early Years — Result of Over- 
 feeding in Middle Life — P&ti de foU gras and its 
 Lessons — Reduced Activity, less Nutriment re- 
 quired — Advertised Nostrums — Nutritious Drink — 
 Artificial Teeth .... pp. 13-54 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Comaio's Writing and Experience — Reserve Force in 
 Health — ^Training for Athletic Exploits— Difference 
 in Constitutions and Circumstances — Value of 
 Light Dietary to Brain-vrorkers — Force of Habit — 
 Flesh Diet adopted too Early in Life — Indigestion 
 —No Food " Wholesome in itself " — Closing 
 Remarks to Part I. . . . pp. 55-85 
 
8 CONTENTS 
 
 PART II 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Simplicity in Diet — Corpulence to be avoided — Pre- 
 vention of Corpulence — The Proper Mode of 
 Eating — Water a True Food — Early Morning Tea 
 — Temperature at which Hot Liquids are and 
 should be taken — Exercise — System for Meals 
 
 pp. 89-108 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Alcoholic Liquors — Cold and Hot Baths — Turkish 
 Baths — ^The Air-bath — Hats to be dispensed with 
 when possibte — Indoor Warmth — ^Hints on Self- 
 command — Hints relative to Opinion and an Open 
 Mind pp. 109-126 
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 Sugar in Relation to Diet — Increased Use of Sugar — 
 Two Forms of Sugar — Digestion of Sugar — Sugar 
 and Obesity — Sugar a Valuable Food pp. 127-130 
 
PART I 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE FIRST EDITION OF PART I 
 
 This paper on Diet appeared originally in 
 the Nineteenth Century, of May, 1885. 
 
 It is now republished by permission of 
 the Editor — with some slight additions — 
 chiefly in response to very numerous 
 demands made both to the publishers and 
 to myself for its re-issue in a separate and 
 easily accessible form. There is another 
 motive for the reprint, and this is my own : 
 viz. a profound conviction of the impor- 
 tance of the subject, enhanced as it is by 
 increasing experience of the soundness of 
 the doctrine here set forth in relation 
 thereto. 
 
 H.T. 
 
 WiMPOLB Street, Londo:*, 
 May, 1886. 
 
 B 2 
 
DIET 
 
 IN RELATION TO 
 
 AGE & ACTIVITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 Alcohol and evils of impropei feeding— Cause of chionia 
 disease in advancing yeais — V^etarianism — Food in 
 early years — Results of over-feeding in middle life — 
 P&ti defoiegras and its lessons — Reduced activity, 
 less nutriment required — Advertised nostrums — 
 Nutritious drink — Artificial teeth. 
 
 Enough, and more than enough perhaps, 
 
 has been uttered concerning the prejudicial 
 
 effects on the body of habitually 
 
 using alcoholic beverages. It is ^y^niuch*" 
 
 rare now to find any one, well ac- about evils 
 ' of alcohol, 
 
 quainted with human physiology, 
 
 and capable of observing and appreci- 
 ating the ordinary wants and usages of 
 life around him, who does not believe 
 
14 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 that, with few exceptions, men and women 
 
 are healthier and stronger, physically, 
 
 intellectually, and morally, without such 
 
 drinks than with them. And confessedly 
 
 there is little or nothing new to be said 
 
 respecting a conclusion which has been 
 
 so thoroughly investigated, discussed, and 
 
 tested by experience, as this. It is useless 
 
 and indeed impolitic, in the well-intentioned 
 
 effort to arouse public attention to the 
 
 subject, to make exaggerated statements 
 
 in relation thereto. But the important 
 
 truth has still to be preached, repeated, 
 
 and freshly illustrated, when possible, in 
 
 every quarter of society, because a very 
 
 natural bias to self-indulgence is always 
 
 present to obscure men's views of those 
 
 things which gratify it. While, in addition 
 
 to this, an exceedingly clever commercial 
 
 interest, of enormous influence and 
 Value of . . . , ^ 
 
 alcoholic proportions, never ceases to vaunt 
 
 ■ ^"a^ ^^ power to provide us with "the 
 
 asserted by soundest," "purest," and — most to 
 
 be suspected of all — with even 
 
 " medically certified " forms of spirit, wine, 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY is 
 
 and beer; a suggestion that these alco- 
 holic products are specially adapted to the 
 requirements of some physiological law 
 supposed to demand their employment, 
 and thus insinuating the semblance of a 
 proof that they are generally valuable, or 
 at least harmless, as an accompaniment of 
 food at our daily meals. 
 
 It is not, however, with the evils of 
 " drink " that I propose to deal here : they 
 are thus alluded to because, in „ .. 
 makmg a few observations on the improper 
 kindred subject of food, I desire to ** ^' 
 commence with a remark on the com- 
 parison, so far as that is possible, between 
 the deleterious effects on the body of erro- 
 neous views and practice in regard to drink- 
 ing, and in regard to eating, respectively. 
 
 I have for some years past been com- 
 pelled by facts which are constantly 
 coming before me, to accept the 
 conclusion that as much mischief in in"die^"tef 
 
 the form of actual disease, of im- equal to evils 
 
 01 alcohoL 
 paired vigour, and of shortened life, 
 
 accrues to civilized man, so far as I have 
 
1 6 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 observed in our own country and through- 
 out almost every part of Europe, from 
 erroneous habits in eating, as from the 
 habitual use of alcoholic drink, consider- 
 able as I know the evil of that to be. I 
 am not sure that a similar comparison 
 might not be made between the respective 
 influence of those agencies in regard to 
 moral evil also ; but I have no desire to 
 indulge in speculative assertion, and suspect 
 that an accurate conclusion on this subject 
 may be beyond our reach at present. 
 
 It was the perception, during many 
 
 years of opportunity to observe, of the 
 
 extreme indifference manifested by 
 
 ^puWwrJ the general public to/ any study of 
 
 food and its food, and want of acquaintance with 
 preparation. ^ 
 
 its uses and value, together with a 
 growing sense on my own part of the vast 
 importance of diet to the healthy as well 
 as to the sick, which led me some years 
 ago to write a work on the subject of 
 " Food and Feeding." * And since that 
 
 • The Eleventh Edition of this work has just appeared 
 (1901). 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 17 
 
 date fresh experience has, I confess, only 
 enhanced my estimate of the value of such 
 knowledge, which indeed it is impossible 
 to exaggerate, when regarding that one 
 object of existence which I suppose all 
 persons desire to attain, viz. an ample 
 duration of time for enjoying the healthy 
 exercise of bodily and mental functions. 
 Few would, I presume, consider length of 
 life a boon apart from the possession of 
 fairly good health; but this latter being 
 granted, the desire for a prolonged term 
 of existence is natural, indeed almost 
 universal. 
 
 I have come to the conclusion that a 
 proportion amounting at least to more 
 than one-half of the chronic com- 
 plaints which embitter the middle Half the 
 *^ chrome 
 
 and latter part of life among the disease in 
 
 middle and upper classes of the years due to 
 population is due to avoidable errors errors 
 in diet. Further, while such disease 
 renders so much of life, for many, dis- 
 appointing, unhappy, and profitless — a 
 term of painful endurance, for not a few 
 
 C 
 
i8 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 it shortens life considerably. It would 
 not be a difficult task — and its results, if 
 displayed here, would be striking — ^to 
 adduce in support of these views a 
 numerical statement showing causes which 
 prematurely terminate life among the 
 classes referred to in this country, based 
 upon the Registrar-General's reports, or 
 by consulting the records of life-assurance 
 experience. I shall not avail myself of 
 these materials here, although they would 
 form an interesting theme of study for the 
 purpose. My object is to call the attention 
 of the public to certain facts about diet 
 which are insufficiently known, and there- 
 fore inadequately appreciated. And I 
 shall assume that ample warrant for the 
 observations made here is within my reach, 
 and can be made available if required. 
 At the outset of the few and brief re- 
 marks which the space at my disposal 
 to ifmiuhe permits me to make, I shall intimate, 
 sources of speaking in general terms, thaisl have 
 no sympathy with any dietary system 
 which excludes the present generally 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 19 
 
 recognized sources and varieties of food. 
 It is possible, indeed, that we may yet add 
 considerably to those we already possess, 
 and with advantage ; but there appears to 
 be no reason for dispensing with any one 
 of them. When we consider how varied 
 are the races of man, and how dissimilar 
 are the climatic conditions which affect 
 "liim, and how in each climate the occupa- 
 tions, the surrounding circumstances, and 
 even the individual peculiarities of the 
 inhabitants, largely differ, we shall be 
 constrained to admit that any one of all 
 the sources of food hitherto known may 
 be made available, and may in its turn be- 
 come desirable, and even essential to life. 
 
 To an inhabitant of the Arctic Circle, 
 for example, a vegetarian diet would be 
 impracticable, because the elements 
 of it cannot be produced in that ments'vatT 
 region ; and were it possible to ^^J^ ™*'* 
 supply him with them, life could 
 not be supported thereby. Animal food 
 in large quantity is necessary to sustain 
 existence in the low temperature to which 
 
20 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 he is exposed. But I desire to oppose 
 any scheme Tfor circumscribing the food 
 resources of the world, and any form of a 
 statute of limitations to our diet, not 
 merely because it can be proved inapplic- 
 able, as in the instance above named, 
 under certain local and circumscribed con- 
 ditions, but because I hold that the prin- 
 ciple of limiting mankind to the use of 
 any one class of foods among many is in 
 itself an erroneous one. Thus, for ex- 
 
 „ . . ample, while sympathizing to a large 
 Vegetarian- ^ * o « 
 
 ism useful to extent myself with the practice of 
 what is called "vegetarianism" in 
 diet, and knowing how valuable the ex- 
 clusive or almost exclusive use of the 
 products of the vegetable kingdom may 
 be for a considerable number of thp adult 
 population of our own and of other countries 
 in ^ the temperate zones, and for most of 
 that which inhabits the torrid zone, 
 takmSS". I object strongly to a dogmatic 
 
 tion for the assertion that such limitation of their 
 many. 
 
 food is desirable for any class or 
 body of persons whatever. Moreover, an 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 21 
 
 exclusive or sectarian spirit always creeps 
 in sooner or later, wherever an " ism " of 
 any kind leads the way, which sooner or 
 later brings in its train assertions barely 
 supported by fact, the equivocal use of 
 terms, evasion — in short, untruthfulness, 
 unintended and unperceived by the well- 
 meaning people who, having adopted the 
 " ism," at last suffer quite unconsciously 
 from obscurity of vision, and are in danger 
 of becoming blind partisans. 
 
 Thus the term "vegetarian," as used to 
 distinguish a peculiar diet, has no meaning 
 whatever unless it implies that all 
 the articles of food so comprised are meant by 
 to be products of the vegetable '^^^^7, 
 kingdom ; admitting, of course, the 
 very wylest scope to that term. In that 
 sense the vegetable kingdom may be held 
 to embrace all the cereals, as wheat, barley, 
 rye, oats, maize, rice, and millet ; all the 
 leguminous plants — beans, peas, and lentils; 
 all the roots and tubers containing chiefly 
 starch, as the potato, yam, etc. ; the plants 
 yielding sago and arrowroot ; the sources 
 
22 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 of sugar in the cane and beet, etc. ; all the 
 garden herbs and vegetables ; the nuts, 
 and aU the fruits. Then there are the 
 olive and other plants yielding the im- 
 portant element of oil in great abundance. 
 An admirable assortment, to which a few 
 minor articles belong, not necessary to be 
 specified here. A large display of ex- 
 cellent foods, which suffice to support life 
 in certain favourable conditions, and which, 
 moreover, may be served in varied and 
 appetising forms. And to those who find 
 their dietary within the limits of this list 
 the nahie of vegetarian is rightly applic- 
 able. But such is by no means the 
 by^fo means practice of the self-styled vegetariansj 
 **^^to ^^ usually meet with. Not long 
 vegetable ago, , it happened, in a crowded 
 ' drawing-room, that a handsome, 
 well-developed, and manifestly well- 
 nourished girl — " a picture of health " and 
 vigour — informed me with extreme satis- 
 faction that she had been a " vegetarian " 
 for several months, and how thoroughly 
 that dietary system agreed with her. She 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 23 
 
 added that she was recommending all her 
 
 friends (how natural !) to be vegetarians 
 
 also, continuing, " And do you not believe 
 
 I am right ? " On all grounds, one could 
 
 only assure her that she had the appearance 
 
 of admirably illustrating the theory of her 
 
 daily life, whatever that might be, adding, 
 
 " But now will you tell me what your diet 
 
 consists of?" As happens in nine- . ^ 
 
 ^'^ but consume 
 
 teen cases out of twenty, my young the choicest 
 , , , . . . ,. J animal foods, 
 
 and bloommg vegetarian rephed 
 
 that she took an egg, and milk in quantity, 
 besides butter, not only at breakfast, but 
 again in the form of pudding, pastry, fritter, 
 or cake, etc., to say nothing of cheese at 
 each of the two subsequent meals of the 
 day ; animal food, it is unnecessary to say, 
 of a choice, and some of it in a concen- 
 trated form. To call a person thus fed a 
 vegetarian is a palpable error ; to proclaim 
 one's self so almost requires a stronger term 
 to denote the departure from accuracy in- 
 volved. Yet so attractive to some, pos- 
 sessing a moral sense not too punctilious, 
 is the small distinction, the warrant for 
 
34 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 assuming superiority, obtained by becoming 
 sectarian and partisans of a quasi-novel 
 and somewhat questioned doctrine, that an 
 equivocal position is accepted in order to 
 retain the term " vegetarian " as the ensign 
 of a party, although its members consume 
 abundantly strong animal food, and abjure 
 it only in its grosser forms of flesh and 
 fish. And hence it happens, that milk, 
 butter, eggs, and cheese are now desig- 
 nated in the language of " vegetarianism " 
 by the term "animal froduets" which is 
 simply an evasive expedient to avoid the 
 necessity for speaking of them as animal 
 food ; which, indeed, I have heard them 
 stoutly denied to be on high vegetarian 
 authority ! 
 
 Let us, for one moment only, regard 
 milk, with which, on Nature's plan, we 
 have all been fed for the first year, or 
 thereabout, of our lives, and during which 
 term we made a larger growth and a more 
 important development than in any other 
 year among the whole tale of the life 
 which has passed, however long it may have 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY as 
 
 been. How, in any sense, can that year 
 of plenty and expansion, which we may 
 have been happy and fortunate enough 
 to owe — an inextinguishable debt — to 
 maternal love and bounty, be said to be 
 a year of "vegetarian diet"? Will <.o j, •• 
 any man henceforward dare thus to a vege- 
 distinguish the source from which 
 he drew his early life ? Unhappily, in- 
 deed, for want of wisdom, the natural 
 ration of some infants is occasionally 
 supplemented at an early period by the 
 addition of vegetable matter; but the 
 practice is almost always undesirable, and 
 is genercdly paid for by a sad and pre- 
 mature experience of indigestion to the 
 helpless baby. Poor baby! who, unlike 
 its progenitors in similar circumstances, 
 while forced to pay the penalty of erro- 
 neous feeding, has not even had the 
 satisfaction of enjoying a delightful but 
 naughty dish beforehand. 
 
 The vegetarian restaurant at the Health 
 Exhibition in 1888, supplied thousands 
 of excellent and nutritious meals at a 
 
 O 
 
26 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 cheap rate, to the great advantage of its 
 customers ; but the practice of insisting 
 with emphasis that a " vegetable diet " 
 was supplied was wholly indefensible, since 
 it contained eggs and milk, butter and 
 cheese, in great abundance. 
 
 At about the same time might have 
 been observed in a well-known weekly 
 journal a list of some half-dozen recipes 
 for dishes recommended on authority as 
 specimens of vegetarian diet. All were 
 savoury combinations, and every one con- 
 tained eggs, butter, milk, and cheese in 
 considerable quantity, the vegetable ele- 
 ments being in comparatively small pro- 
 portion ! 
 
 It is incumbent on the supporters of 
 this system of mixed diet to find a term 
 which conveys the truth, that truth being 
 that they iabjure the use, as food, of all 
 animal flesh. The words "vegetable " and 
 " vegetarian " have not the remotest claim 
 to express that fact, while they have a 
 distinct meaning of their own in daily 
 use — ^namely, the obvious one of desig- 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 27 
 
 nating products of the vegetable kingdom. 
 It may not be easy at once to construct 
 a simple term which differentiates clearly 
 from the true vegetarian the person who 
 also uses various foods belonging to the 
 animal kingdom, and who abjures only 
 the flesh of animals. But it is high time 
 that we should be spared the obscure 
 language, or rather the inaccurate state- 
 ment to which milk and egg consumers 
 are committed, in assuming a title which 
 has for centuries belonged to that not in- 
 considerable body of persons whose habits 
 of life confer the right to use it. And 
 I feel sure that our friends, soi-disant 
 " vegetarians," living on a mixed diet, will 
 see the necessity of seeking a more ap- 
 propriate designation to distinguish them ; 
 if not, we must endeavour to invent one 
 for them. Flesh abstainers, rejecters, or 
 avoiders they may be, but vegetarians 
 they are not. 
 
 But why should we limit by dogma or 
 otherwise man's liberty to select his food 
 and drink? I appreciate the reason for 
 
38 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 abstaining from alcoholic drinks derived 
 from benevolent motive or religious prin- 
 ciple, and entertain for it the highest 
 respect, although I cannot myself claim 
 the merit of self-denial or the credit of 
 setting an example — abstaining, like many 
 others, solely because experience has 
 taught that to act otherwise is manifestly 
 to do myself an injury. 
 
 This brings me to the point which I 
 desire to establish, namely, that the great 
 practical rule of life in regard to human 
 diet will not be found in enforcing limita- 
 tion of the sources of food which Nature 
 has abundantly provided. On the con- 
 trary, that rule is fulfilled in the perfect 
 development of the art of adapting food 
 of any and every kind to the needs of 
 the body according to the very varied cir- 
 cumstances of the individual, at different 
 ages, with different forms of activity, with 
 different inherent personal peculiarities, 
 and with different environments. This 
 may read at first sight, perhaps, like a 
 truism ; but how important is the doctrine, 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 29 
 
 and how completely it is ignored in the 
 
 experience of life by most people, it will 
 
 be my object here to show. 
 
 I have already alluded to the fact that 
 
 the young and rapidly growing infant, 
 
 whose structures have to be formed _ , ... 
 
 Cow's milk 
 
 on the soil and slender lines laid the best food 
 , 1 /• 1^ • ^1 1 for children, 
 
 down before birth, whose organs 
 
 have to be solidified and expanded at 
 
 one and the same time, in which tissues 
 
 of all kinds are formed with immense 
 
 rapidity and activity, requires animal food 
 
 ready prepared in the most soluble form 
 
 for digestion and assimilation. Such a 
 
 food is milk; and if the human supply 
 
 is insufficient, we obtain in its place that 
 
 of the cow, chiefly; and during the first 
 
 year of life milk constitutes the best form 
 
 of food. Only, let it be always sterilized 
 
 — say boiled — under no circum- ,, 
 
 ^ . Never to be 
 
 stances to be used as it comes used by any 
 
 /- i-L • • -J. J- unless boiled, 
 
 from the cow, t.e. m its raw condi- 
 tion. After the first year, other kinds of 
 nourishment, mostly well-cooked wheaten 
 flour in various shapes, begin to be added 
 
30 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 to the milk which long continues to be 
 a staple source of nourishment to the 
 young animal. Eggs, a still more con- 
 centrated form of similar food, follow, and 
 gradually the dietary is enlarged by addi- 
 tions of various kinds, as the growing pro- 
 cess continues through youth to puberty, 
 when liberty arrives more or less speedily 
 to do in all such matters " as others do." 
 
 On reaching manhood, the individual, 
 in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. 
 Food in acquires the prevailing habit of his 
 early years, associates, and he feeds after that uni- 
 form prescription of diet which prevails, 
 with little disposition to question its suita- 
 bility to himself. A young fellow in the 
 fulness of health, and habituated to daily 
 active life in the open air, may, under the 
 stimulus of appetite and of enjoyment in 
 gratifying it, often largely exceed both 
 in quantity and variety of food what is 
 necessary to supply all the demands 
 of his system, without paying a very ex- 
 orbitant price for the indulgence. If the 
 stomach is sensitive or not very powerful. 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 31 
 
 it sometimes rejects an extravagant ration 
 
 of food, either at once or soon after „ , ,. 
 ' Usual result 
 
 the surfeit has been committed ; but of improper 
 if the digestive force is considerable, 
 the meals, habitually superabundant as they 
 may be, are gradually absorbed, and the 
 surplus fund of nutrient material unused 
 is stored up in some form. When a certain 
 amount has been thus disposed of, the 
 capacity for storage varying greatly in 
 different persons, an undesirable balance 
 remains against the feeder, and in young 
 people is mostly rectified by a "bilious 
 attack," through the agency of which a 
 few hours of vomiting and misery square 
 the account. Then the same process of 
 over-feeding recommences with renewed 
 appetite and sensations of invigorated 
 digestion, until in two or three, or five or 
 six weeks, according to the ratio existing 
 between the amount of food ingested and 
 the habit of expending or eliminating 
 it from the body, the recurring attack 
 appears and again clears the system, and 
 so on during several years of life. If the 
 
32 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 individual takes abundant exercise and 
 Exercise expends much energy in the business 
 and food, ^f ijfg^ ^ large quantity of food can be 
 properly disposed of. Such a person enjoys 
 the pleasure of satisfying a healthy appetite, 
 and doing so with ordinary pjrudence not 
 only takes no harm, but consolidates the 
 frame, and enables it to resist those mani- 
 fold unseen sources of evil which are prone 
 to affect injuriously the feeble. On the 
 other hand, if he is inactive, takes little 
 exercise, spends most of his time indoors 
 in close air and in a warm temperature, 
 shaping his diet, nevertheless, on the liberal 
 scheme just described, the balance of un- 
 expended nutriment soon tells more or 
 less heavily against him, and must be 
 thrown off in some form or other, more or 
 less disagreeable, and somewhat unfairly, 
 perhaps, be regarded as a visitation of 
 disease. 
 
 After the first half or so of life has 
 passed away, instead of such periodical 
 attacks of sickness, the unemployed ma- 
 terial may be relegated in the form of 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 33 
 
 fat to be stored on the external surface 
 of the body, or be packed among 
 the internal organs, and thus he or errorsofover- 
 she may become corpulent and heavy, ^^?j]?^.^ 
 if a facility for converting appropriate 
 material into fat is consistent with the con- 
 stitution of the individual ; for some consti- 
 tutions appear to be without the power of 
 storing fat, however rich the diet or inactive 
 
 their habits may be. When, there- „ . . 
 
 ' Varied ac- 
 
 fore, this process cannot take place, cording to 
 
 J . . ^ , 1 -i constitution, 
 
 and m many mstances, also, when it 
 
 does, the over-supply of nutritious elements 
 
 ingested must go somewhere, more or less 
 
 directly, to produce disease in some other 
 
 form, probably at first interfering with the 
 
 action of the liver, and next appearing as 
 
 gout or rheumatism, or as the cause of 
 
 fluxes and obstructions of various kinds. 
 
 Thus recurring attacks of gout perform 
 
 the same duty, or nearly so, at this period 
 
 of life that the bilious attacks accomplished 
 
 in youth, only the first-named process is 
 
 far more damaging to the constitution, and 
 
 materially injures it. 
 
 E 
 
34 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 As an example of the relation between 
 
 over-feeding and liver derangement, with 
 
 inordinate fat production, witness the 
 What .,, r ' , 
 
 happens process, rapidly performed before our 
 
 'positionto ^y^^ ^^ ^^ ^° desire, in the cellars of 
 
 corpulence Strasburg. For the unfortunate goose 
 exists 
 
 who is made by force to swallow 
 
 more nutritive matter than is good for him 
 
 in the shape of food which, excellent in 
 
 appropriate conditions, is noxious to the 
 
 last degree when it cannot be utilized by 
 
 the consumer — I mean good milk and 
 
 barleymeal — falls a victim in less than a 
 
 month of this gluttonous living to that 
 
 form of greatly enlarged and fatty liver 
 
 Pate de foie which, under the name of foie gras, 
 
 gras. offers an irresistible charm to the 
 
 gourmet at most well-furnished tables,* 
 
 * In passing, I would strongly commend the con- 
 dition of those poor beasts to the consideration of the 
 Antivivisection Society, since more disease is artificially 
 produced among them in order to furnish our tables 
 with the " ■pixi," than by all the physiologists of Europe 
 who, in the interest, not of the human palate, but of 
 human progress as affected by therapeutic knowledge, 
 sometimes propagate and observe certain unknown forms 
 of disease among a few of the lower animals. 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 35 
 
 The animal being thus fed is kept in a 
 close, warm temperature, and without 
 exercise, a mode of feeding and a kind of 
 life which one need not, after all, go to 
 Strasburg to observe, since it is not difficult 
 to find an approach to it, and to watch the 
 principle carried out, although only to a 
 less considerable extent, anywhere and 
 everywhere around us. Numerous audits 
 individuals of both sexes, who have 'essons. 
 no claim by the possession of ornitholo- 
 gical characteristics to consanguinity with 
 the animal just named, may be said never- 
 theless to manifest signs of relation in 
 some sort thereto — not creditable, perhaps, 
 to the goose, the Strasburg dietary being 
 an enforced one — by their habit of absorb- 
 ing superfluous quantities of nutriment 
 while living a life of inactivity ; and of 
 course, sooner or later, become invalid in 
 body, unhappy in temper, and decrepit in 
 regard of mental power. 
 
 For let us observe that there are two 
 forces conce^fned in this matter of boun- 
 tiful feeding which must be considered a 
 
36 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 little further. I have said that a hearty, 
 active young fellow may for a considerable 
 time consume much more than he requires 
 for the purpose of meeting the expenditure 
 of his life, and to repair the loss of the 
 machine in its working, yet without much 
 inconvenience. He, being robust and 
 young, has two functions capable of acting 
 at the maximum degree of efiSciency. He 
 has a strong digestion, and can convert a 
 large mass of food into fluid aliment suit- 
 able for absorption into the system : that 
 is function the first. But besides this, he 
 has the power of bringing into play an 
 active eliminating force, which rids him of 
 all the superfluous materials otherwise 
 destined, as we have seen, to become 
 mischievous in some shape : and that is 
 function the second. To him it is a matter 
 of indifference for a time whether the 
 quantity of material which his food sup- 
 plies to the body is greater than his 
 Thequesbon '^ , ., ,. 
 
 of income ordmary daily expenditure demands, 
 and outpu j^gj-j^ygg jjjg energy and activity fur- 
 nish unstinted opportunities of eliminating 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 37 
 
 the surplus at all times. But the neglect 
 to adjust a due relation between the "in- 
 come" and the "output" cannot go on 
 for an indefinite period without signs of 
 mischief appearing in. some quarter. A 
 tolerably even correspondence between the 
 two must by some means be maintained 
 to ensure a healthy condition of the body. 
 It is failure to understand, first, the im- 
 portance of preserving a near approach to 
 equality between the supply of nutriment 
 to the body and the expenditure produced 
 by the activity of the latter ; and, secondly, 
 ignorance of the method of attaining this 
 object in practice, which give rise to various 
 forms of disease calculated to embitter and 
 shorten life after the period of prime has 
 passed. 
 
 Let it be understood that in the matters 
 of feeding and bodily activity a surplus of 
 unexpended sustenance — ^here re- income and 
 ferred to as "the balance"— is by expenditure, 
 its nature exactly opposite to that which 
 prudent men desire to hold with their 
 bankers in affairs of finance. In these 
 
38 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 latter engagements we desire to augment 
 the income, and endeavour to confine ex- 
 penditure within such limits as to maintain 
 a cash balance in our favour J;o meet 
 exigencies not perhaps foreseen. But in 
 order to preserve our health when that 
 period of blatant, rampant, irrepressible 
 vigour which belongs to youth has passed 
 away, it is time to see that our income of 
 food and our expenditure through such 
 activity as we have constitute a harmonious 
 equality, or nearly so. A well-hoarded 
 balance of nutritive material now becomes 
 a source of evil, telling against its pos- 
 
 . . sessor, and by no means in his 
 The balance , , .^ . , , , . . 
 
 too often favour. And it is a balance which 
 
 s ore up, .^ jg g^ agreeable and so easy to 
 form, and which often so insidiously aug- 
 ments, unless we are on our guard against 
 the danger. The accumulated stores of 
 h'chmen ^'^*™^"t — ^^^ unspent food, so to 
 have to get speak — which saturate the system 
 rid of by , ., , . , , , 
 
 special are happily often got rid of by those 
 
 exercises, gpg^-j^i exercises to which so large a 
 portion of time and energy is devoted by 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 39 
 
 some people. It is to this end that men 
 
 at home use dumb-bells or heavy clubs, 
 
 or abroad shoot, hunt, and row, or perform 
 
 athletic and pedestrian feats, or sweat in 
 
 Turkish baths, or undergo a drench ^y baths at 
 
 at some foreign watering-place — all '"""^t 
 
 useful exercises in their way, but pursued 
 
 to an extent unnecessary for any other 
 
 purposes than to eliminate superfluous 
 
 nutrient materials, which are occa- 
 
 or annual 
 sioning derangements in the system, visits to 
 
 for which these modes of elimination 
 
 are sometimes an efficient cure, and thus 
 
 are often ordered by the medical adviser. 
 
 But as we increase in age-^when we 
 
 have spent, say, our first half-century — 
 
 less energy and activity remain, and 
 
 less expenditure can be made ; less in^^needed 
 
 power to eliminate is possible at °'^Sio 
 ^ *^ decline of 
 
 fifty than at thirty, still less at sixty activity 
 
 by age. 
 and upwards. Less nutriment, there- 
 fore, must be taken in proportion as age 
 advances, or rather as activity diminishes, 
 or the individual will suffer. If he con- 
 tinues to consume the same abundant 
 
40 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 breakfasts, substantial lunches, and heavy 
 dinners, which at the summit of his power 
 he could dispose of almost with impunity, 
 he will in time certainly either accumulate 
 fat or become acquainted with gout or 
 rheumatism, or show signs of unhealthy 
 deposit of some kind in some part of the 
 body, processes which must inevitably 
 empoison, undermine, or shorten his re- 
 maining term of life. He must reduce 
 his " intake," because a smaller expenditure 
 is an enforced condition of existence. At 
 seventy, the man's power has further 
 diminished, and the nutriment must corre- 
 spond thereto, if he desires still another 
 term of comfortable life. And why should 
 he not ? Then at eighty, with less activity 
 there must be still less " support." And 
 on this principle he may yet long continue, 
 provided he is not the victim of some in- 
 herited taint or vice of system too powerful 
 to be dominated, or that no unhappy 
 accident inflicts a lasting injury on the 
 machine, or no unfortunate exposure to 
 insanitary poison has shaken the frame by 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 41 
 
 long exhausting fever ; and then, with a 
 fair constitution, he may remain free from 
 serious troubles, and active to a right good 
 old age, reaching far beyond the conven- 
 tional seventy years which were formerly 
 supposed to represent the full limit of 
 man's fruitful life and work on earth. 
 
 But how opposed is this system to the 
 favourite popular theory. Have we not 
 all been brought up in the belief _ 
 that the perfection of conduct con- popular 
 sists, truly enough, in temperate 
 habits in youth and middle life, such 
 duty, however, being mostly enforced by 
 the pleasant belief that when age arrived 
 we might indulge in that extra "support" 
 — seductive term, often fruitful of mischief 
 — ^which the feebleness of advancing years 
 is supposed to deserve ? The little sensual 
 luxuries, hitherto forbidden, now suggested 
 by the lips of loving woman, and tendered 
 in the confidence of well-doing by affec- 
 tionate hands, are henceforth to be grace- 
 fully accepted, enjoyed, and turned to 
 profit in the evening of our declining 
 
 F 
 
42 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 years. The extra glass of cordial, the 
 
 superlatively strong extract of food, 
 
 due to age ^^^ ^°^ ^^ become delicate and 
 
 "entreated appropriate aids to the enfeebled 
 
 by "more frame. Unhappily for this doctrine, 
 support." 
 
 it is, on the contrary, precisely at this 
 
 period that concentrated aliments are not 
 advantageous or wholesome, but are to be 
 avoided as sources generally prolific of 
 trouble. If the cordial glass and the rich 
 food are to be enjoyed at any time, 
 whether prudently or otherwise, like other 
 pleasures they must be indulged when 
 strength and activity are great — in other 
 words, when eliminating power is at its 
 maximum, assuredly not when the circu- 
 lation is becoming slow and feeble, and 
 the springs of life are on the ebb. For 
 the flow of blood cannot be driven into 
 any semblance of the youthful torrent by 
 the temporary force of stimulants, nor is 
 it with impunity to be overcharged by the 
 constant addition of rich elements which 
 can no longer be utilised. 
 And thus it is impossible to deny that 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 43 
 
 an unsuspected source of discomfort, which 
 in time may become disease, sometimes 
 threatens the head of the household — a 
 source which I would gladly pass over, if 
 duty did not compel me to notice it, owing 
 as it is to the sedulous and tender care 
 taken by the devoted, anxious partner of 
 his life, who in secret has long noted and 
 grieved over her lord's declining health 
 and force. She observes that he is now 
 more fatigued than formerly after the 
 labours of the day, is less vigorous for 
 business, for exercise, or for sport, less 
 energetic every way in design and execu- 
 tion. She naturally desires to see 
 him stronger, to sustain the en- n^tn^ 
 
 feebled power which age is neces- "^^ ^ 
 
 *^ *" suggestions, 
 
 sarily undermining ; and with her 
 
 there is but one idea, and it is practically 
 embodied in one method — ^viz. to increase 
 his force by augmenting his nourishment ! 
 She remonstrates at every meal at what 
 she painfully feels is the insufficient por- 
 tion of food he consumes. He pleads in 
 excuse, almost with the consciousness of 
 
44 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 guilt, that he has really eaten all that 
 appetite permits, but he is besought with 
 plaintive voice and affectionate entreaty 
 "to try and take a little more," and, partly 
 to stay the current of gentle complaint, 
 partly to gratify his companion, and partly, 
 as with a faint internal sigh he may con- 
 fess to himself, "for peace and comfort's 
 sake," he assents, and with some violence 
 to his nature forces his palate to comply, 
 thus adding a slight burden to the already 
 satiated stomach. Or if perchance en- 
 dowed with a less compliant nature he is 
 churlish enough to decline the proffered 
 advice, and even to question the value of 
 a cup of strong beef-tea, or egg whipped 
 
 . . up with sherry, which unsought has 
 So varied ^ ' ° 
 
 and so pursued him to his study, or been 
 persis e ^^^^ j^ j^.^ ^fg^-g between eleven 
 
 and twelve of the forenoon, and which he 
 knows by experience must, if swallowed, 
 inevitably impair an appetite for lunch, 
 then not improbably he will fall a victim 
 to his solicitous helpmeet's well-meaning 
 designs in some other shape. There is 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 45 
 
 the tasteless calf s-foot jelly, of which a 
 portion may be surreptitiously introduced 
 into a bowl of tea with small chance that 
 its presence will be detected, especially 
 if accompanied by a good modicum of 
 cream ; or the little cup of cocoa or of 
 coffee masking an egg well beaten and 
 smoothly blended to tempt the palate — 
 types of certain small diplomatic exercises, 
 delightful, first, because they are diplo- 
 matic and not direct in execution ; and, 
 secondly, because the supporting system 
 has been triumphantly maintained, * her 
 lord's natural and instinctive objections 
 thereto notwithstanding. 
 
 But the loving wife — for whom my 
 sympathy is not more profound than is 
 my sorrow for her almost incurable error 
 in relation to this single department of 
 her duty — is by no means the only source 
 of fallacious counsel to the man whose 
 strength is slowly declining with age. We 
 might almost imagine him to be the object 
 of a conspiracy, so numerous are the temp- 
 tations which beset him on every side. 
 
46 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 The daily and weekly journals display 
 Advertised column after column of advertise- 
 nostrums. ments, enumerating all manner of 
 edibles and drinkables, and loudly trumpet- 
 ing their virtues, the chief of which is 
 always declared to be the abundance 
 of some quality averred to be at once 
 medicinal and nutritious. Is it bread that 
 we are conjured to buy? Then it is 
 warranted to contain some chemical ele- 
 ment ; let it be, for example, " the phos- 
 phates in large proportion " — a mysterious 
 terra which the advertising tradesman has 
 "The for some time past employed to 
 phosphates." signify a precious element, the very 
 elixir of life, which somehow or other he has 
 led the public to associate with the nutri- 
 ment of the brain and nervous system, 
 and vaunts accordingly. He has evidently 
 caught the notion from the advertising 
 druggist, who loudly declares his special 
 forms of half-food, half-physic, or his medi- 
 cated preparations of beef and mutton, to 
 contain the elements of nutrition in the 
 highest form of concentration, among which 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 47 
 
 have mostly figured the aforesaid "phos- 
 phates" — as if they were not among the 
 most common and generally prevalent of 
 the earthy constituents of all our food ! 
 
 Then, lest haply a stomach, unaccustomed 
 to the new and highly concentrated mate- 
 rials, should, as is not improbable, find 
 itself unequal to the task of digesting and 
 absorbing them, a portion of gastric juice, 
 "pepsin," borrowed for the occasion, mostly 
 from the pig, is associated therewith to 
 meet, if possible, that difficulty, and so to 
 introduce the nourishment by hook or by 
 crook into the system. I do not say the 
 method described may not be useful in 
 certain cases, and on the advice of the 
 experienced physician, for a patient ex- 
 hausted by disease, whose salvation may 
 depend upon the happy combination re- 
 ferred to. But it is the popular belief in 
 the impossibility of having too much of 
 that or of any such good thing, provided 
 only it consists of nutritious food, that the 
 advertiser appeals to, and appeals suc- 
 cessfully, and with such effect that the 
 
48 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 crednloos public is being gulled to an enor- 
 mous extent A matter of small conse- 
 quence to many, but fraught with mischief 
 to not a few, already the pitiable victims 
 of over-feeding. 
 
 Then even our drink must now be 
 nutritious! Most persons might naturally 
 Nutritions be aware that the primary object of 
 ^™*- drink is to satisfy thirst, which means 
 a craving for the supply of water to the 
 tissues — the only fluid they demand and 
 utilize when the sensation in question is 
 felt Water is a solvent of solids, and is 
 more powerful to this end when employed 
 free from admixture with any other solid 
 material It may be flavoured, as in tea 
 and otherwise, without impairing its solvent 
 power, but when mixed with any concrete 
 matter, as in chocolate, thick cocoa, or 
 even with milb^ its capacity for dissolving 
 — ^the very quality for which it was de- 
 manded — ^is in great part lost So plentiful 
 is nutriment in solid food, that the very 
 last place where we should seek that 
 quality is the drink which accompanies 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 49 
 
 the crdinaiy meal. Here at least we 
 might hope to be free from an exhortation 
 to nourish ourselves, when desirous only 
 of allaying thirst or»oistening our solid 
 morsels with a draught of fluid. Not so ; 
 there are even some persons who must wash 
 down their ample slices of roast beef with 
 draughts of new milk ! — an unwisely devised 
 combination even for those of active habit, 
 but for men and women whose lives are 
 little occupied by exercise it is one of the 
 greatest dietary blunders which can be 
 perpetrated. 
 
 One would think it was generally known 
 that milk is a peculiarly nutritive fluid, 
 adapted for the fast growing and fattening 
 young mammal — admirable for such, for 
 our small children, also serviceable to those 
 whose muscular exertion is great, and, 
 when it agrees with the stomach, to those 
 who cannot take meat For us who have 
 long ago achieved our full growth, and can 
 thrive on solid fare, it is often superfluous 
 and even mischievous as a drink. 
 Another agent in the combination to 
 
 G 
 
50 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 maintain for the man of advancing age his 
 Artificial career of flesh-eater is the dentist, 
 teeth, Nothing is more common at this 
 period of life than to hear complaints of 
 indigestion experienced, so it is affirmed, 
 because mastication is imperfectly per- 
 formed for want of teeth. The dentist 
 deftly repairs the defective implements, 
 and the important function of chewing the 
 food can be henceforth performed with 
 comfort. But without any intention to 
 justify a doctrine of final cailSes, I would 
 point out the significant fact that the dis- 
 appearance of the masticating powers is 
 mostly coincident with the period of life 
 when that species of food which most 
 requires their action — viz. solid animal 
 fibre — is little, if at all, required by the 
 individual. It is during the latter third of 
 his career that the softer and lighter foods, 
 such as well-cooked cereals, some light 
 mixed animal and vegetable soups, and also 
 fish, for which teeth are barely necessary, are 
 particularly valuable and appropriate. And 
 the man with imperfect teeth who conforms 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 51 
 
 to nature's demand for a mild, non-stimu- 
 lating dietary in advanced years, will 
 mostly be blessed with a better digestion 
 and sounder health than the man who, 
 thanks to his artificial machinery, can eat 
 and does eat as much flesh in quantity 
 and variety as he did in the days of his 
 youth. Far be it from me to under- and their 
 value the truly artistic achieve- "^^®" 
 ments of a clever and experienced dental 
 surgeon, or the comfort which he affords. 
 By all means let us have recourse to his 
 aid when our natural teeth fail, for the 
 purpose of vocal articulation, to say nothing 
 of their relation to personal appearance : 
 on such grounds the artificial substitutes 
 rank among the necessaries of life in a 
 civilized community. But it must be also 
 understood that the chief end of teeth, so 
 far as mastication is concerned, is still 
 necessary in advancing age for all the 
 food which has to be taken, whatever it 
 consists of. But I cannot help adding 
 that there are some grounds for the belief 
 that those who have throughout life, from 
 
52 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 their earliest years, consumed little or no 
 
 flesh, but have lived on a diet chiefly or 
 
 wholly vegetarian, will be found to have 
 
 preserved their teeth longer than those 
 
 who have always made flesh a prominent 
 
 part of their daily food. 
 
 Then there is that occasional visit to the 
 
 tailor, who, tape in hand, announces in 
 
 „. , .. , commercial monotone to the listen- 
 The tailor's 
 
 iniorant ing clerk the various measurements 
 
 attery. ^^ ^^^ girth, and congratulates us on 
 
 the gradual increase thereof. He never 
 
 in his life saw you looking so well, and 
 
 "Fancy, sir, you are another inch below 
 
 your armpits " — a good deal below — " since 
 
 last year ! " insidiously intimating that in 
 
 another year or so you will have nearly as 
 
 fine a chest as Sandow ! And you, poor 
 
 deluded victim, are more than half willing 
 
 to believe that your increasing size is an 
 
 equivalent to increasing health and strength, 
 
 especially as your wife emphatically takes 
 
 that view, and regards your augmenting 
 
 portliness with approval. Ten years have 
 
 now passed away since you were forty, 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 53 
 
 and by weight twelve stone and a half — 
 
 a fair proportion for your height and ^eigj,t . 
 
 build. Now you turn the scale to corpulence 
 
 and Its 
 one stone more, every ounce of disastrous 
 
 which is fat : extra weight to be 
 carried through all the labours of life. If 
 you continue your present dietary and 
 habits, and live five or seven years more, 
 the burden of fat will be doubled ; and 
 that insinuating tailor will be still con- 
 gratulating you. 
 
 Meantime, you are " running the race of 
 life" — a figure of speech less appropriate 
 to you at the present moment than it for- 
 merly was — handicapped by a weight which 
 makes active movement difficult, upstair 
 ascents troublesome, respiration thick and 
 panting. Not one man in fifty lives to a 
 good old age in this condition. The typical 
 man of eighty or ninety years, still retain- 
 ing a respectable amount of energy of body 
 and mind, is lean and spare, and lives on 
 slender rations. Neither your heart nor 
 your lungs can act easily and healthily, 
 being oppressed by the gradually gathering 
 
54 DIET IN RELATION TO AGE, ETC. 
 
 fat around. And this because you con- 
 tinue to eat and drink as you did, or 
 probably more luxuriously than you did, 
 when youth and activity enabled you to 
 dispose of that moiety of food which was 
 consumed over and above what the body 
 required for sustenance. Such is the import 
 of that balance of unexpended aliment 
 which your tailor and your foolish friends 
 admire, and the gradual disappearance of 
 which, should you recover your senses and 
 diminish it, they will still deplore, half 
 frightening you back to your old habits 
 again by saying, " You are growing thin : 
 what can be the matter with you f " Insane 
 and mischievous delusion 1 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Comaro's writiiig and experience — Reserve force in 
 health — Training for athletic exploits— Difference 
 in constitutions and circumstances — ^Value of light 
 dietary to brain-workers — Force of habit — Flesh 
 diet adopted too early in life — Indigestion — No food 
 " wholesome in itself* — Closing remarks. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the prin- 
 ciple I have thus endeavoured to illustrate 
 and support, little as it is in accordance 
 with the precept and practice of modern 
 authority, was clearly enunciated so long 
 ago as the sixteenth century. The writings 
 
 of Luigi Cornaro, who was bom of _ 
 
 ° Cornaro s 
 
 noble family in Venice soon after writings and 
 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, ^**"®°**' 
 
 and was contemporary for seventy years 
 
 with Titian, wrote his first esssay on the 
 
 subject of regimfen and diet for the aged 
 
 when eighty-three years of age, producing 
 
 three others during the subsequent twelve 
 
S6 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 years.* His object was to show that, with 
 increasing age and diminished powers, a 
 corresponding decrease in the quantity of 
 food must be taken in order to preserve 
 health. He died at Padua, " without any 
 agony, sitting in an elbow-chair, being 
 above an hundred years old." 
 
 Thus he writes : " There are old lovers 
 of feeding who say that it is necessary they 
 should eat and drink a great deal to keep 
 up their natural heat, which is constantly 
 diminishing as they advance in years ; 
 and that it is, therefore, their duty to eat 
 heartily, and of such things as please their 
 palate, be they hot, cold, or temperate ; 
 and that, were they to lead a sober life, it 
 would be a short one. To this I answer 
 that our kind mother, Nature, in order that 
 
 • "Discorsi della Vita Sobria," del Signor Luigi 
 Cornaro. An English edition, with translation, was 
 published by Benjamin White, at Horace's Head, in 
 Fleet Street, London, 1768. Comaro's first work was 
 published at Padua in 1558. In his last, a letter written 
 to Barbaro, Patriarch of Aqvdleia, he gives a description 
 of his health and vigour when ninety-five years old. A 
 paper in the Spectator yiis one of the first notices of him 
 in this country. See vol. iii. No. 195. 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 57 
 
 old men may live still to a greater age, has 
 contrived matters so that they should be 
 able to subsist on little, as I do, for large 
 quantities of food cannot be digested by 
 old and feeble stomachs. ... By always 
 eating little, the stomach, not being much 
 burthened, need not wait long to have an 
 appetite. It is for this reason that dry 
 bread relishes so well with me ; and I know 
 it from experience, and can with truth 
 affirm, I find such sweetness in it that I 
 should be afraid of sinning against tempe- 
 rance, were it not for my being convinced 
 of the absolute necessity of eating of it, 
 and that we cannot make use of a more 
 natural food. And thou, kind parent 
 Nature, who actest so lovingly by thy aged 
 offspring, in order to prolong his days, hast 
 contrived matters so in his favour, that he 
 can live upon very little ; and, in order to 
 add to the favour, and do him still greater 
 service, hast made him sensible, that, as in 
 his youth he used to eat twice a day, when 
 he arrives at old age he ought to divide 
 that food, of which he was accustomed 
 
S8 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 before to make but two meals, into 
 four ; because, thus divided, it will be more 
 easily digested ; and, as in his youth he 
 made but two collations in a day, he should, 
 in his old age, make four, provided, how- 
 ever, he lessens the quantity as his years 
 increase, 
 
 " And this is what I do, agreeably to my 
 own experience ; and, therefore, my spirits, 
 not oppressed by much food, but barely 
 kept up, are always brisk, especially after 
 eating, so that I am obliged then to sing a 
 song, and afterwards to Write. 
 
 "Npr do I ever find myself the worse 
 for writing immediately after meals, nor is 
 my understanding ever clearer, nor am I 
 apt to be drowsy, the food I take being in 
 too small a quantity to send up any fumes 
 to the brain. Oh, how advantageous it is 
 to an old man to eat but little ! Accord- 
 ingly I, who know it, eat but just enough 
 to keep body and soul together." 
 
 Cornaro ate of all kinds of food, animal 
 
 Cornaro. as well as vegetable^ but in very 
 
 small quantity, and he drank moderately 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 59 
 
 of the light wine of his country, diminishing 
 his slender rations as age increased. I am 
 quite aware that I am reciting a story which 
 must be familiar to many of my readers. 
 But it is by no means generally known, 
 and is too apt an example of the value of 
 the law under consideration not to be 
 referred to here. 
 
 It must now be clearly understood, as 
 an universally applicable rdle for men at 
 all ages, that the amount of food ingested 
 ought to accord, within certain narrow 
 limits, with the amount of force employed 
 for the purposes of daily life. But Apparent 
 there is a certain qualification, appa- qualification, 
 rent but not real, of the principle thus 
 enunciated, which must be referred to here, 
 in order to prevent misunderstanding or 
 misinterpretation of my meaning in rela- 
 tion to one particular. It is right and 
 fitting that a certain amount of storage 
 «iaterial, or balance, should exist Storage, 
 as a reserve in the constitution of every 
 healthy man. Every healthy individual, 
 indeed, necessarily possesses a stored 
 
6o DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 amount of force, which will stand him in 
 good ^tead when a demand arises for pro- 
 longed unusual exertion, or when any 
 period of enforced starvation occurs, as 
 during a lingering fever or other exhaust- 
 ing disease. The existence of this natural 
 and healthy amount of reserved force is. 
 Always °^ course, presupposed throughout 
 
 present in all my remarks, and its value is 
 health unless , , ,-,.,,, 
 
 when taken for granted. It is abundantly 
 
 * ^^ ' present in every obviously well- 
 nourished and healthy man. That undue 
 amount of stored nutriment, that balance 
 which has been referred to as prejudicial 
 to the individual, is a quantity over and 
 above the natural small reserve which exists 
 in health ; for when augmented beyond 
 that point, the material takes the form of 
 diseased deposit, and ceases to be an 
 available source of nutriment. Even the 
 natural amount of store or reserve is prone 
 to exceed the necessary limit in those who 
 are healthy or nearly so. 
 
 Hence it is that in all systems of training 
 for athletic exploits — which is simply a 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 6i 
 
 process of acquiring the highest degree of 
 health and strength attainable, in « irainini?" 
 view of great or prolonged exertion and loss of 
 — some loss of weight is almost 
 invariably incurred in developing a perfect 
 condition. In other words, almost any 
 man who sets himself to acquire by every 
 means in his power the best health pos- 
 sible for his system, does in the process 
 necessary thereto, throw off redundant 
 materials, the presence of which is not con- 
 sistent with the high standard of function 
 required. On the other hand, what is 
 sometimes called " overtraining " is a con- 
 dition in which the storage is reduced too 
 much, and some weakening is incurred 
 thereby ; while " undertraining " implies 
 that the useless fatty and other matters 
 have not been sufficiently got rid of, so 
 that the athlete is encumbered by un- 
 necessary weight, and is liable to needless 
 embarrassments, telling against his chances 
 in more ways than one. The exact and 
 precise balance between the two conditions 
 is the aim of the judicious trainer. 
 
62 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 We are thus led to the next important 
 consideration, namely, that although broad 
 Personal rules or principles of diet may be 
 peculiarities, enunciated as applicable to different 
 classes of people in general, no accurate 
 adaptation to the individual is possible 
 without a knowledge of his daily habits 
 and life, as well as to some extent of his 
 personal peculiarities. No man, for ex- 
 ample, can tell another what he can or 
 ought to eat, without knowing what 
 tionsandcir- ^''^ ^^^ habits of life and work — 
 ciunstonces mental and bodily— of the person 
 to be advised. Notwithstanding 
 which, no kind of counsel is more fre- 
 quently tendered in common conversation 
 by one stranger with another than that 
 which concerns the choice of food and 
 
 drink. The adviser feels himself 
 The folly of ^ j . ^i_ 
 
 supposing warranted by the experience that 
 
 ^pHMto^! ^°™^ particular combination of 
 
 nourishment suits his own stomach, 
 
 to infer without hesitation that this dish will 
 
 be therefore acceptable to the stomachs of 
 
 all his neighbours. Surely the intelligence 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 63 
 
 of such a man is as slender as his auda- 
 city and presumption are large. It would 
 not be more preposterous if, havjng with 
 infinite pains obtained a last representing 
 precisely the size and the peculiarities in 
 form of his own foot, he forthwith solemnly 
 adjured all other persons to adopt boots 
 made upon that model, and on none other ! 
 Only it may be confidently assumed that 
 there is much more difference between 
 stomachs and their needs among different 
 individuals, than among the inferior ex- 
 tremities referred to for the purpose of 
 illustration. Thus, in regard to Examples, 
 expenditure of food, how great is the 
 difference between that of a man who 
 spends ten or twelve hours of the day at 
 the work of a navvy, as an agricultural 
 labourer in harvest time, or in draining or 
 trenching land, as a sawyer, a railway 
 porter, or a bricklayer's labourer, or, let 
 me add, that of an ardent sportsman, as 
 compared with the expenditure of a clerk 
 who is seated at the desk, of individuals 
 engaged iq literary and artistic pursuit^ 
 
64 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 demanding a life mostly sedentary and 
 spent indoors, with no exercise but that 
 which such persons voluntarily take as a 
 homage to hygienic duty, and for a short 
 period borrowed at some cost from engage- 
 ments which claim most of their time and 
 nearly all their energies. While the manual 
 labourers rarely consume more food than 
 they expend, and are, if not injured by 
 drink, or by undue exposure to the weather, 
 mostly hale and hearty in consequence, the 
 latter are often martyrs to continued minor 
 ailments, which gradually increase, and 
 make work difficult, and life dreary. 
 
 Few people will believe how easy it is 
 
 in most instances to avoid these stomach 
 
 derangements and their results by 
 
 light dfetory adopting appropriate food, and that 
 
 to brain- gu^h brain-workers can really enjoy 
 
 workers. ^ •' •' 
 
 a fair degree of health and comfort 
 
 by living on light food, which does not 
 
 require much force to digest, and much 
 
 muscular activity to assimilate. A diet, 
 
 moreover, which is important to some of 
 
 these from another point of view — the 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 65 
 
 financial one — inasmuch as it is at least 
 less costly by one-half than the conven- 
 tional meals which uniform personal habits 
 or social customs prescribe alike to large 
 classes of men in varied conditions of life. 
 But there is another and more important 
 economic gain yet to be named, as realiz- 
 able through the use of a light and simple 
 dietary. It is manifested by the fact that 
 a greater expenditure of nerve-power is 
 demanded for the digestion of heavy meals 
 than for that of the lighter repasts which 
 are suitable to the sedentary ; from which 
 fact it results, of course, that in the latter 
 case, this precious power is reserved for 
 more useful and more delightful pursuits 
 than that of mere digestion, especially 
 when this function is not too well per- 
 formed. 
 
 But those who have little time for exer- 
 cise, and are compelled to live chiefly 
 
 within doors, must endeavour also to _ 
 
 Exercise 
 secure, or should have secured for and fresh air 
 
 them as far as possible by em- 
 ployers, by way of compensation, a regular 
 
 I 
 
66 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 supply of fresh air without draughts, an 
 atmosphere as free from dust and other 
 impurities as can be obtained, with a good 
 supply of light, and some artificial warmth 
 when needed. These necessities granted, 
 cereal foods, such as well-made bread in 
 variety, and vegetable produce, including 
 fruits, should form a fair portion of the diet 
 consumed, with the addition of eggs and 
 milk if no meat is taken, except in the 
 form of soup, and little of other animal 
 food than fish, fowl, and game. On such 
 a dietary, and without alcoholic stimulants, 
 thousands of such workers as I have 
 briefly indicated may enjoy with very 
 little exercise far better health and more 
 strength than at present they experience 
 on meat and heavy puddings, beer, baker's 
 bread, and cheese. Of course there are 
 workers who belong to neither of the two 
 extreme classes indicated, and whose habits 
 cannot be described as sedentary, but who 
 occupy a middle place between the two. 
 For such, some corresponding modification 
 of the dietary is naturally appropriate. 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 67 
 
 Thus, then, it is a common error to re- 
 gard much meat in any form as necessary 
 to life ; although it is desirable for ^ , , 
 
 the hard-working outdoor labourers, concentrated 
 , - , , - animal food, 
 
 and for the two services — the army 
 
 and navy ; and for these latter it is especi- 
 ally so. Animal flesh is useful as a con- 
 centrated form of nutriment, valuable for 
 its portability. Like every other descrip- 
 tion of food, it is highly useful in its place, 
 but is by no means always necessary for 
 a large proportion of the population. To 
 many it may have become partially de- 
 sirable only by the force of habit, and 
 because their digestive organs have thus 
 been trained to deal with it, and at first 
 resent a change. But this being Force of 
 gradually made, adaptation takes ***^'** 
 place, and the individual who has con- 
 sumed two or three meat meals daily with 
 some little discomfort, chiefly from being 
 often indisposed to make active exertions, 
 becomes, after sufficient time has elapsed, 
 stronger, lighter, and happier, as well as 
 better-tempered, and manifestly healthier 
 
68 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 on the more delicate dietary sketched. 
 People in general have very inadequate 
 ideas of the great power of habit alone in 
 forming what they believe to be innate 
 personal peculiarities, or in creating con- 
 ditions which are apparently part of a 
 constitutional necessity, laws of their 
 nature and essential to their existence. 
 Many of these peculiarities are solely due 
 to habit, that is, to long continuance in a 
 routine of action, adopted, it may be, with- 
 out motive or design ; and people are apt 
 to forget that if a routine of a precisely 
 opposite character had been adopted, 
 precisely opposite conditions would have 
 been established, and opposite peculiarities 
 would have become dominant, as their 
 contraries are now. Alterations in the 
 dietary, especially of elderly persons, 
 should be made gradually and with caution. 
 This condition fulfilled, a considerable 
 change may be effected with satisfactory 
 results, when cifcicimstances render it 
 necessary. 
 To revert once more to the question of 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 69 
 
 flesh-eating, it should be remarked that it 
 
 appears to be by no means a natural 
 
 taste with the young. Few children ^^""adiSted 
 
 like that part of the meal which con- ^'>°.f^^7 
 ^ in life. 
 
 sists of meat, but prefer the pudding, 
 the fruit, or the vegetables, if well-dressed, 
 which unhappily is not always the case. 
 Many children manifest great repugnance 
 to meat at first, and are coaxed and even 
 scolded by anxious mothers until the 
 habit of eating it is acquired. Adopting 
 the insular creed, which regards beef and 
 mutton as necessary to health and strength, 
 the mother often suffers from groundless 
 forebodings about the future of a child 
 who rejects flesh, and manifests what is 
 regarded as an unfortunate partiality for 
 bread and butter and pudding. Never- 
 theless, I am satisfied, if the children 
 followed their own instinct in this matter, 
 the result would be a gain in more ways 
 than one. Certainly if meat did not appear 
 in the nursery until the children sent for it, 
 it would be rarely seen there, and the 
 young ones would as a rule thrive better on 
 
70 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 milk and eggs, with the varied produce of 
 the vegetable kingdom. 
 
 A brief allusion must be made to the 
 well-known and obvious fact that the sur- 
 Temperature rounding temperature influences the 
 and food, demand for food, which therefore 
 should be determined as regards quantity 
 or kind according to the climate inhabited, 
 or the season of the year as it affects each 
 climate. In hot weather the dietary should 
 be lighter, in the understood sense of the 
 term, than in cold weather, v The sultry 
 period of our summer, although compara- 
 tively slight and of short duration, is never- 
 theless felt by some persons to be extremely 
 oppressive ; but this is mainly due to the 
 practice of eating much animal food or 
 fatty matters, conjoined as it often is with 
 the habit of drinking freely of fluids con- 
 taining more or less of alcohol. Living on 
 cereals, vegetables, and fruit, with some 
 proportion of fish, ^. and abstaining from 
 alcoholic drinks, the same persons would 
 probably enjoy the high temperature, and 
 be free from the thirst which is the natural 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 71 
 
 result of consuming needlessly substantial 
 and heating food. 
 
 There is a very common term, familiar 
 by daily use, conveying unmistakably to 
 every one painful impressions regard- Indigestion, 
 ing those who manifest the discomforts 
 indicated by it — I mean the term "indi- 
 gestion." The first sign of what is so called 
 may appear even in childhood ; not being 
 the consequence of any stomach disorder, 
 but solely of some error in diet, mostly 
 the result of eating too freely of rich com- 
 pounds in which sugar and fatty matters 
 are largely present. These elements would 
 not be objectionable if they formed part 
 of a regular meal, instead of being con- 
 sumed, as they mostly are, between meals, 
 already abounding in every necessary con- 
 stituent. For both sugar and fat are ele- 
 ments of value in children's food, and 
 naturally form a considerable portion of it, 
 entering largely into the composition of 
 milk, which Nature supplies for the young 
 and growing animal. 
 
 In children, an attack of indigestion 
 
72 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 mostly terminates rapidly by ejection of 
 the offending matter. But the indigestion 
 of the adult is less acutely felt and is less 
 readily disposed of. Uneasiness and in- 
 capacity for action, persisting for some time 
 after an ordinary meal, indicate that the 
 stomach is acting imperfectly on the 
 materials which have been put into it. 
 These signs manifest themselves frequently, 
 and, if Nature's hints that the food is in- 
 appropriate are not taken, they become 
 more serious. Temporary relief is easily 
 obtained by medicine; but if the unfor- 
 tunate individual continues to blame his 
 stomach, and not the dietary he selects, 
 the chances are that his troubles will con- 
 tinue, or appear in some other form. At 
 length, if unenlightened on the subject, he 
 becomes "a martyr to indigestion," and 
 resigns himself to the unhappy fate, as he 
 terms it, of " the confirmed dyspeptic." 
 
 Such a victim may perh4ps be surprised 
 to learn that nine out of ten persons so 
 affected are probably not the subjects of 
 any complaint whatever, and that the 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 73 
 
 stomach at any rate is by no means neces- 
 sarily faulty in its action — in short, niaUgg^ 
 
 that what is popularly termed "indi- tion" a 
 
 ^. „ . , ,. . natural result 
 
 gestion IS rarely a disease in any of ill-chosen 
 
 sense of the word, but merely the * 
 natural result of errors in diet. For most 
 men it is the penalty of conformity to the 
 eating habits of the majority ; and a want 
 of disposition or of enterprise to undertake 
 a trial of simpler foods than those around 
 them consume probably determines the 
 continuance of their unhappy troubles. In 
 many instances it must be confessed that 
 the complaint, if so it must be called, 
 results from error, not in the quality of the 
 food taken, but in the quantity. Eating 
 is an agreeable process for most people, 
 and under the influence of very small 
 temptation, or through undue variety fur- 
 nishing a source of provocation to the 
 palate, a considerable proportion of nutri- 
 tious material above what is required by 
 the system is apt to be swallowed. 
 
 Then it is also to be remembered that 
 stomachs which vary greatly in their 
 
 K 
 
74 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 capacity and power to digest, may all 
 Variation of nevertheless be equally healthy and 
 stomachs, competent to exercise every neces- 
 sary function. In like manner we know that 
 human brains which are equally sound and 
 healthy, often differ vastly in power and 
 in activity. Thus a stomach which would 
 be slandered by a charge of incompetence 
 to perform easily all that it is in duty 
 bound to accomplish, may be completely 
 incapable of digesting a small excess beyond 
 Nat ral *^^* natural limit. Hence, with such 
 
 power to an organ indigestion is inevitable 
 
 disTcst is 
 
 small in when this limit is only slightly ex- 
 
 s"""^' ceeded. And so when temptations 
 are considerable, and frequently complied 
 with, the disturbance may be, as it is with 
 some, very serious in degree. How very 
 powerful a human stomach may sometimes 
 be, and how large a task in the way of 
 digestion it may sometimes perform with- 
 out complaint, is known to those who have 
 had the opportunity of observing what 
 certain persons with exceptional power are 
 accustomed to take as food, and do take 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 73 
 
 for a long time apparently with impunity. 
 But these are stomachs endowed with ex- 
 traordinary energy, and woe be to the 
 individual with a digestive apparatus of 
 moderate power who attempts to emulate 
 the performance of a neighbour at table 
 who perchance may be furnished with such 
 an effective digestive apparatus. 
 
 After all, let not the weaker man grieve 
 overmuch at the uneven lot which the 
 gods seem to have provided for Compensa- 
 mortals here below in regard to *'''°* 
 this function of digestion. There is a 
 compensation for him which he has not 
 considered, or perhaps even heard of, 
 although he has been so moderately en- 
 dowed with peptic force. A delicate 
 stomach which can just do needful Illustration, 
 work for the system and no more, by 
 necessity performs the function of a care- 
 ful door-porter at the entrance of the 
 system, and like a jealous guardian in- 
 spects with discernment all who aspire to 
 enter the interior, rejecting the unfit and 
 the unbidden, and all the common herd. 
 
76 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 On the other hand, a stomach with 
 superfluous power, of whom its master 
 boastfully declaims that it can "digest 
 tenpenny nails," and that he is unaccus- 
 tomed to consult its likes and its dislikes 
 if it have any, is like a careless hall- 
 porter who admits all comers, every pre- 
 tender, and among the motley visitors 
 many whose presence is damaging to the 
 interior. These powerful feeders after a 
 time suffer from the unexpended surplus, 
 and pay for their hardy temerity in 
 becoming amenable to penalty, often 
 suddenly declared by the onset of some 
 serious attack, demanding complete change 
 in regimen, a condition more or less grave. 
 On the other hand, the owner of the deli- 
 cate stomach, a man perhaps with a habit 
 of frequently complaining of slight troubles, 
 and always careful, will probably in the 
 race of life, as regards the preceding 
 pilgrim, take the place of the tortoise as 
 against the hare. It is an old proverb 
 that "the creaking wheel lasts longest," 
 and one that is certainly true as regards 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 77 
 
 a not powerful but nevertheless healthy 
 stomach which is carefully treated by its 
 owner ; to whom this fact may be accept- 
 able as a small consolation for the posses- 
 sion of a delicate organ. 
 
 For it is a kind of stomach which not 
 seldom accompanies a fine organization. 
 
 The difference is central, not local : „ 
 
 ' ' Hue some- 
 
 a difference in the nervous system times to an 
 chiefly; the impressionable mental able nervous 
 structure, the instrument of strong ^y®**""- 
 emotions, must necessarily be allied with 
 a stomach to 'rhich the supply of nerve- 
 power for digestion is sometimes tem- 
 porarily deficient and always perhaps 
 capricious. There are more sources than 
 one of compensation to the owner of an 
 active, impressionable brain, with a sus- 
 ceptible stomach possessing only moderate 
 digestive capabilities — sources altogether 
 beyond the imagination of many a coarse 
 feeder and capable digester. 
 
 But it is not correct, and it is on all 
 grounds undesirable, to regard the less 
 powerful man eis a sufferer from indigestion, 
 
78 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 that is, as liable to any complaint to be 
 so termed. True indigestion, as a mani- 
 festation of diseased stomach, is com- 
 paratively quite rare, and I have not one 
 word to say of it here, which would not 
 be the fitting place if I had. Not one 
 person in a hundred who complains of 
 indigestion has any morbid affection of 
 the organs engaged in assimilating his 
 food ; unless a temporary one, occasioned 
 by over-indulgence. As commonly em- 
 Indigestion ployed' t^« wo'^l "indigestion" de- 
 mostly is not notes, not a disease, but an admoni- 
 disease, but 
 anadmoni- tion. It is the language of the 
 
 *"'°' stomach, and is mostly an unknown 
 tongue to those who are addressed. Few 
 even listen to the cry, much less ims^ine 
 that it bears a message of importance. 
 It means, however, that the individual 
 thus admonished has not yet found his 
 appropriate diet: that he takes food un- 
 suited for him, or too much of it. The 
 food may be "wholesome enough in it- 
 self," a popular phrase permitted to appear 
 here, first, because it conveys a meaning 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 79 
 
 perceived by every one, although the idea 
 is loosely expressed; but secondly, and 
 chiefly, for the purpose of pointing out 
 the fallacy which underlies it. There is 
 no food whatever which is "whole- 
 some in itself;" — and there is no be°affirnied" 
 fact which people in general are "whole- 
 more slow to comprehend. That 
 food only is wholesome which is so to the 
 individual ; and no food can be whole- 
 some to any given number of persons. 
 Milk, for example, may agree admirably 
 with me, and may as certainly invariably 
 provoke an indigestion for my neighbour ; 
 and the same may be said of almost every 
 article of our ordinary dietary. The whole- 
 someness of a food consists solely in its 
 adaptability to the individual, and this 
 relation is governed mainly by the in- 
 fluences of- his age, activity, surroundings, 
 and temperament or personal peculiarities. 
 Indigestion, therefore, does not neces- 
 sarily, or indeed often, require medicine 
 for its removal. Drugs, and especially 
 small portions of alcoholic spirit, are often 
 
8o DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 used for the purpose of stimulating the 
 stomach temporarily to perform a larger 
 share of work than by nature it is quali- 
 fied to undertake ; a course which is dis- 
 advantageous for the individual if persisted 
 in. The effect on the stomach is that of 
 the spur on the horse ; it accelerates the 
 pace, but " it takes it out " of the animal ; 
 and if the practice is long continued, 
 shortens his natural term of efficiency. 
 
 It is an erroneous idea that a simple 
 
 form of dietary, such as the vegetable 
 
 A "light ^i"g^°™ i° t^s largest sense of the 
 
 dietary "may term furnishes, in conjunction with 
 be a very 
 palatable a moderate proportion of the most 
 
 *'°®' easily digested forms of animal food, 
 may not be appetising and agreeable to 
 the palate. On the contrary, I am pre- 
 pared to maintain that it may be easily 
 served in forms highly attractive, not only 
 to the general but to a Cultivated taste. 
 A preference for the high flavours and 
 stimulating, scents peculiar to the flesh of 
 vertebrate animals, mostly subsides after 
 a fair trial of milder foods when supplied 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 8i 
 
 in variety. And it is an experience almost 
 universally avowed, that the desire for 
 food is keener, that the satisfaction in 
 gratifying appetite is greater and more 
 enjoyable, on the part of the general light 
 feeder, than with the almost exclusively 
 flesh-feeder. For this latter designation 
 is applicable to almost all those who com- 
 pose the middle-class population of this 
 country. They consume little bread and 
 few vegetables ; all the savoury dishes are 
 of flesh, with decoctions of flesh alone for 
 soup. The sweets are compounds of suet, 
 lard, butter, eggs, and milk, with very 
 small quantities of flour, rice, arrowroot, 
 etc., which comprise all the vegetable con- 
 stituents besides some fruit and sugar. 
 Three-fourths at least of the nutrient 
 matters consumed are from the animal 
 kingdom. A reversal of the proportions 
 indicated, that is, a fourth only from the 
 latter source with three-fourths of vegetable 
 produce, would furnish greater variety for 
 the table, tend to maintain a cleaner 
 palate, increased zest for food, a lighter 
 
 L 
 
82 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 and more active brain, and a better state 
 of health for most people not engaged 
 perience ii the most laborious employments 
 cfnfiS °f ^^^l^iv^ l^f®- While for those who 
 are so occupied the same proportion 
 amply sufSces, and, with due choice of 
 material, even that amount of animal 
 food might be diminished, probably some- 
 times with advantage. For inactive, 
 sedentary, and aged persons the small 
 proportion of animal food indicated might 
 be considerably lessened with beneficial 
 result. I am frequently told by individuals 
 of sixty years and upwards that they have 
 no recollection of any previous period since 
 reaching mature age, at which they have 
 possessed a keener relish for food than 
 that which they enjoy at least once or 
 twice a day since they have adopted the 
 dietary thus described. Such an appetite 
 at all events as had rarely offered itself 
 during years preceding, when the choice 
 of food was conventionally limited to the 
 unvarying progression and array of mutton 
 and beef, in joint, chop, and steak, arriving 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 83 
 
 after a strong meat soup, with a possible 
 
 interlude of fish, and followed by puddings 
 
 of which the ingredients are chiefly derived 
 
 from the animal sources. 
 
 The penetrating odours of meat cookery 
 
 which announce their presence by escape 
 
 from the kitchen, and will, in spite r-rtamdi 
 
 of much precaution, pervade the advantages 
 , ., . . ^ of constant 
 
 air of other rooms m any private flesh 
 
 house but a large one, and which ^^^^^' 
 are encountered in clubs, restaurants, and 
 hotels without stint, rank among the small 
 miseries of human life, and are only 
 tolerated because believed to be almost 
 necessary to existence. Such offence to 
 a delicate and sensitive organism alone 
 sufRces to blunt the inclination for food 
 of one who, returning from daily occu- 
 pation fatigued and fastidious, desires a 
 repast easy of digestion, attractive in 
 appearance, and unassociated with any 
 element of a repulsive character. The 
 light feeder knows nothing of the annoy- 
 ances described ; he finds on his table 
 that which is delightful to a palate 
 
84 DIET IN RELATION TQ 
 
 sensitive to mild impressions, and indisposed 
 to gross and over-powerful ones. After 
 the meal is over, his wit is fresher, his 
 temper more cheerful, and he takes his 
 easy-chair to enjoy fireside talk, and not 
 to sink into a heavy slumber, which on 
 awakening is but exchanged for a sense 
 of discontent or stupidity. 
 
 The doctrine thus briefly and inade- 
 quately expounded in this paper may 
 _. . probably encounter some opposition 
 remarks to and adverse criticism. I am quite 
 
 PflH" T 
 
 content that this should be so. Every 
 proposal which disturbs the current habits 
 of the time, especially when based on long 
 prevalent custom, infallibly encounters that 
 fate. But of the general truth, and hence 
 of the ultimate reception of the principles 
 I have endeavoured to illustrate, there 
 cannot be the faintest doubt. And I know 
 that this result, whenever it may be 
 accomplished, will largely diminish the 
 painful affections which unhappily so often 
 appear during the latter moiety of adult 
 life. And having during the last few 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 85 
 
 years widely inculcated the general dietetic 
 principles and practice briefly illustrated 
 here, with abundant grounds for my grow- 
 ing conviction of their value, it appears to 
 me to be a duty to call attention to them 
 somewhat more emphatically than in some 
 preceding contributions on the subject of 
 diet already referred to. In attempting 
 to do this I have expressly limited myself 
 to statements relating to those simple 
 elementary facts concerning our everyday 
 life, which ought to be within the know- 
 ledge of every man, and therefore such as 
 may most fitly be set forth in a publication 
 outside of that field of special and technical 
 record which is devoted to professional 
 observation and experience. 
 
PART II 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Simplicity in diet — Corpulence to be avoided — Preven- 
 tion of corpulence — The proper mode of eating — 
 Water a true food — Early morning tea — Tempera- 
 ture at which hot liquids are and should be taken— 
 Exercise — System for meals. 
 
 Let me commence this portion of my work 
 by stating that I advise more emphati- 
 cally than ever, simplicity in diet ; by 
 which is to be understood, that not dirt mw-e "* 
 only is the quantity of food taken to ^^^* 
 be gradually diminished in proportion 
 to decreased activity of body and mind, but 
 that not more than two or three different 
 forms of food should be served at any one 
 meal. There is no objection to variety Variety 
 in the choice of our provisions, desirable. 
 On the contrary, it is neither necessary or 
 desirable to make use of the same kinds of 
 aliment every day. Moreover, these neces- 
 sarily vary considerably with the season of 
 
 M 
 
90 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 the year, both in the animal and vegetable 
 kingdoms. And from the profusion which 
 Nature provides should be selected those 
 which each individual, at the time of life 
 supposed, has discovered, by personal ex- 
 perience or otherwise, to agree best with 
 his constitution, I say advisedly " with his 
 constitution," rather than with his stomach. 
 For it should be observed there are notable 
 examples of the stomach digesting easily 
 materials highly injurious to the constitu- 
 tion. It will suffice to name one important 
 
 , .. and not uncommon example here, 
 Avoid . "^ 
 
 becoming viz, that in which many persons so 
 
 readily digest and assimilate fatty 
 
 or fat-forming elements in their food, and 
 
 become unduly corpulent in consequence. 
 
 Such a condition should be avoided as 
 
 most undesirable in advancing years, and 
 
 as one of the most certain to prevent 
 
 longevity, and give rise to complaints which 
 
 entail discomfort and even suffering during 
 
 No one need the latter period of life. No one 
 
 be so. should permit himself to become the 
 
 subject of obesity in advancing years ; and 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 91 
 
 almost ifivariably it is his own fault if he 
 
 does. The prevention may be insured by 
 
 largely reducing the use of fatty foods, as 
 
 fat of meat, bacon, ham, etc., by renouncing 
 
 all pastry which contains that element 
 
 largely ; also cream, and much milk, as well 
 
 as all starchy matter, which abounds in the 
 
 potato and other farinaceous products of 
 
 the vegetable kingdoni ; and especially in 
 
 those combinations so popular and „ . 
 
 so universally met with at the family avoid 
 
 • X. - J tendency to 
 
 table, as rice, sago, tapioca, and corn- corpulence, 
 
 flour puddings, made with milk and ' exists. 
 
 eggs, of which the yolks contain much fat, 
 
 the whole being sweetened with sugar — a 
 
 combination of "carbo-hydrates" of the most 
 
 fattening kind. Admirable for childhood 
 
 and middle life, and afterwards, during the 
 
 years of maximum activity, they must be 
 
 completely renounced, if corpulence appears 
 
 in later life. In this condition also Drink in 
 
 large quantities of liquid are undesir- relation to it. 
 
 able at meals ; indeed, no liquid should be 
 
 taken during the meal, and only in moderate 
 
 quantity soon after it. If any wipe is taken. 
 
92 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 it should be a light Moselle, while ale or 
 
 beer in any form is wholly inadmissible. 
 
 Pure water alone is probably the best, or 
 
 as used in tea, coffee, and cocoa-nibs. 
 
 Respecting the act of eating itself, it is 
 
 desirable to add a few words here. Not 
 
 .j.jjg many persons learn the importance 
 
 mode of of performing it rightly in youth and 
 
 middle life. Indeed, it ought to be 
 
 taught among other' elementary lessons in 
 
 Physiology at every school in early life ; a 
 
 _, ^ short course of which would be much 
 Elementary 
 
 physiology more important and far more inte- 
 
 tor children ..• ^t. r ^i. ^.i. 
 
 restmg than some of the other 
 
 courses which the existing curriculum con- 
 tains. I mean by this, a simple descrip- 
 tion of the chief internal organs connected 
 explained, with digestion and how they act. 
 Every child at eight or ten years of age 
 should know what becomes of his bread- 
 and-butter, and of his meat, when he gets 
 it. I can scarcely conceive a better subject 
 than this — for a simple and entertaining 
 talk to a class of these young people, with 
 a diagram on the wall, showing the chief 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 93 
 
 organs contained in the chest and abdomen. 
 Another chat about respiration and the 
 circulation of the blood would follow at a 
 later period. The subject is regarded with 
 suspicion by the public, from the imposing 
 eflfect of the fiversyllabled Greek terra 
 " Physiology," which suggests the idea that 
 I propose to teach young children "science !" 
 —as if that term, let me remark, whenever 
 it is used, denoted anything more than an 
 " exact knowledge respecting the matter in 
 hand." The process of masticating Process of 
 affects the food in two ways, during ""asticatioii. 
 the period it is retained in the mouth, 
 before the act of swallowing takes place. 
 
 First, it is essential that all food, whether 
 formed of meat, fish, bread, or vegetable, 
 should be thoroughly divided into minute 
 fragments by the teeth, so that, first, _ 
 the animal portion may be properly division of 
 subjected to the action of the gastric °° 
 juice when it arrives at the stomach ; 
 secondly, because for all starchy foods 
 already spoken of as the carbo-hydrates, 
 complete and prolonged mastication is, if 
 
94 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 possible,, even more necessary, although 
 
 they are generally soft and easily 
 
 *° offarina- swallowed. For the act of mastication 
 
 ceous foods excites a constant flow of saliva into 
 
 by the saliva. 
 
 the mouth, secreted by numerous ad- 
 jacent glands : a fluid containing a specific 
 chemical agent, known as " ptyalin," by 
 means of which the actual process of 
 digestion is performed in the mouth, of all 
 the starchy products — which are completely 
 insoluble in water — converting them into 
 "glucose," which is quite sdluble, and on 
 being swallowed can therefore be absorbed 
 
 How accom- ^^ s°°'^ ^^ ^^^ reach the stomach, 
 plished. Tjjig fa.ct shotild never be forgotten, 
 that the mouth is the cavity in which that 
 large portion of our food which consists of 
 bread, and farinaceous foods and vegetable 
 tubers, ought to be digested by means of 
 mastication and insalivation — i.e. thorough 
 
 „ ,^ , mixing with the saliva. If, however. 
 
 Results of ^ ' 
 
 neglecting this process be neglected, as unhap- 
 
 mas ica e. ^.j^ .^ ^^^ often the case, the stomach, 
 
 which is capable of digesting animal food 
 only, of course including milk and eggs, and 
 
AGE. AND ACTIVITY 95 
 
 has no power whatever to digest starchy 
 matters, is liable to be deranged by the 
 presence of much undigested bread and 
 pudding, which, if not well masticated, must 
 be detained there until the animal products 
 are dissolved, when the entire contents 
 reach the small intestine (duodenum), where 
 digestion of the starchy matters is effected 
 by contact with the pancreatic juice, which 
 renders them soluble and capable of being 
 absorbed as nourishment to the system. 
 
 It will be appropriate here to revert to 
 a subject already referred to when treating 
 of obesity, viz. that of not drinking 
 during meals. This practice has also ofdrSking 
 the advantage of enforcing the re- «Ju"ng 
 marks already made. The habit of 
 imbibing our fluids during the progress of 
 a meal, whether it be breakfast, dinner, 
 tea, or supper, is almost universal. In this 
 manner, from half a pint to a pint jg that food 
 and a half are thus consumed at a isuncon- 
 single meal ; hence much of the solid swallowed 
 matter eaten is unconsciously carrie^ whole, 
 down into the stomach unmasticated, 
 
96 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 and the farinaceous foods, especially at 
 breakfast where they abound, are un- 
 digested. Whether the fluids consist of 
 hot tea and coffee, cold water or wine, 
 more or less diluted, the result is, that 
 the food is apt to reach the stomach 
 R 1 Iwa s ''"P^'^fs^tly masticated. The only 
 tobeob- legitimate mode, as I have shown, 
 is to masticate every morsel until it 
 becomes a soft pultaceous mass, and is 
 easily swallowed in consequence, unaided 
 by drink. If this rule be observed, the 
 meal, if wholesome in kind and in quantity, 
 will be easily and rapidly disposed of in 
 the stomach ; and after all is finished, let 
 the tea or coffee be enjoyed by itself. 
 The popular mode of alternately sipping 
 fluid and eating is a difficult one to break ; 
 but it is merely a bad habit, and by per- 
 severance can be exchanged for a good 
 one. And when one has a healthy appetite 
 
 , , for solid food at meal times, drink is 
 Amount of , . , 
 
 drink usually never desired, at any rate to begin 
 require . ^jj.jj_ ^ certain amount is required 
 
 to meet the demands of the body, for it 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 97 
 
 has been calculated that an average adult 
 requires nearly two and a half pints of 
 water daily, which may be in the Water a 
 form of tea, coflFee, aerated drinks, t™efood. 
 or otherwise, according to his pleasure ; 
 and in this way water is regarded as a 
 true food.* ^ 
 
 The number of meals in the day is, to 
 some extent, a question of engagements, 
 and of previous habits. In advanced Number of 
 years, four small meals are generally ""eals daily, 
 better than three. Nothing should ever 
 be eaten between them. Prior to these 
 meals, however, I have myself derived 
 great advantage, for twenty or thirty years 
 
 * It should be boine in mind that water is an integral 
 part of the tissues of the body ; two-thirds of the weight 
 of every individual being water. All the solid food we 
 eat contains about half its weight of water. Water is 
 not absorbed by the stomach, but is expelled by the 
 pylorus (its lower valvular outlet) into the small intestine, 
 from which it is taken up into the blood ; and the hotter 
 it is, the more rapidly it is ejected, thus promoting the 
 peristaltic action of the bowels. (Vide "Food and 
 the Principles of Dietetics," p. 299, et seq., by Robert 
 Hutchison, M.D., M.R.C.P.) This in fact is one of 
 the principles on which the so-called " Hot-water cure " 
 is based. And the temperature of the water which 
 should be slowly sipped may be as high as 135° Fahr. 
 
 N 
 
98 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 at least, from taking a full-sized breakfast 
 Earl^ morn- cup of weak tea containing about one- 
 «ngtea. fourth of milk — always of course 
 sterilized or boiled — every morning at six 
 o'clock, while in bed, and never miss it. 
 Simol St N^^^^^^^S '^ easier than to make this 
 way of one's self ; it should never be left to 
 servants. Close to the bedside, a 
 small side-table is placed over-night with 
 a tray upon it, containing an ordinary 
 Etna, holding fully ten ounces of water, 
 with an appropriate measure of wood- 
 spirit, in a little bottle at its side. The 
 milk is put into the cup and covered from 
 dust. A small teaspoonful of tea is placed 
 in a silver wire cage with a hook, by which 
 it is attached to the brim of the Etna, and 
 by which it is suspended in the water when 
 it boils, leaving it there, say, three or four 
 minutes only, and then removing it. 
 
 The contents are poured into the cup 
 which is now quite full, and the hot tea 
 should be slowly sipped until finished, 
 without the addition of anything whatever 
 to eat. For those who breakfast at a later 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 99 
 
 hour than myself (8.30), this moming-tea 
 
 can be taken correspondingly later, but in 
 
 any case should be taken at least an hour 
 
 and a half before the first meal of the day. 
 
 For many years I have been accustomed 
 
 to write for an hour every morning in bed 
 
 after the tea, as I am doing at this moment, 
 
 and at no time do I find the brain clearer 
 
 for work, while the appetite for solid food 
 
 is excellent when the hour for breakfast 
 
 arrives. The temperature at which xemnerature 
 
 to take hot drinks is by no means at which hot 
 
 _, liquids are 
 
 unimportant. Few persons are aware and should 
 
 that they habitually swallow hot * ™* 
 liquids, tea especially, at a temperature 
 which, if applied to the hands or feet, 
 would inflict painful scalds. Most tea- 
 drinkers take it about 140° to 145° Fahr., 
 which the mouth bears very well if slowly 
 sipped, while the cup itself is too hot to 
 be held by any hand. But the habit of 
 swallowing such tea is injurious to the 
 stomach, and it ought not to be taken 
 above 130° to 135°. Again, water at 120°, 
 which feels little more than lukewarm in 
 
100 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 the mouth, causes severe pain if the hand 
 
 is dipped in it, and cannot be endured. 
 
 _ Then, no one can take a foot-bath 
 
 Tempera- ' 
 
 hires of above 1 13° or 1 14°, very few at that, 
 and then only after long continued 
 habitual use : 1 10° can only be borne 
 usually, A hot bath for the entire body 
 is generally taken at from 98° to 100°, 
 although it may be sometimes gradually 
 raised to 105° with advantage, or even to 
 107° or 108°, for three or four minutes, 
 before leaving it. 
 
 I now approach the subject of Dietetics 
 
 in detail. First, however, let me assume 
 
 Dietetics in ^^^^ the ideal personage here advised 
 
 detail, jg entering his eighth decade, or, 
 
 perhaps, has passed halfway through it — 
 
 ths^t he is of average size and weight, and 
 
 has little or no tendency to corpulence. 
 
 If he has, he must omit some of the foods 
 
 already pointed out under the head of 
 
 Obesity, as unfit for those who are afflicted 
 
 Exercise with it. It will be assumed also 
 
 of mind, jhat he is capable of taking bodily 
 
 exercise in the open air at least once daily ; 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY loi 
 
 of walking, say, five, four, or three miles 
 at a stretch, according to his age, and that 
 he does so. That his mind is also actively 
 employed more or less every day : possibly, 
 in some form of literary work, or of pro- 
 fessional, commercial, political, or other 
 engrossing activity. For it is very un- 
 desirable to be without occupation, and it 
 should be one that involves personal exer- 
 tions of some kind during a portion of 
 every day. To add, that some gentle Bodily 
 use of the muscles of the arras and exercise, 
 back should be ensured every morning for 
 a few minutes before dressing, by light 
 clubs or dumb-bells, will suffice for the 
 subject of indoor physical exercise. 
 
 Relative to outdoor exercise, this is 
 essentially necessary to the preservation 
 of health in advancing years; and, Out-of-doora 
 further, to state that the amount of walking 
 should be sufficient to accelerate the cir- 
 culation, and produce some action of the 
 skin, as denoted by gentle perspiration. 
 A favourite and often admirable mode of 
 taking it is, no doubt, that known as " the 
 
108 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 old gentleman's cob," who, if a wholly trust- 
 worthy beast, may be both a useful servant 
 and a friend. Moreover, wet weather 
 should not be an excuse for omitting out- 
 of-door exercise. A long waterproof coat 
 and an umbrella should be used, and boots 
 may be kept dry by goloshes, or be 
 changed on returning, if necessary ; no risk 
 is then incurred. As our subject is "Diet 
 in relation to Age and Activity," it was 
 necessary to defitle the last-named con- 
 dition, to a certain extent, before consider- 
 ing the subject of food. 
 
 With these preliminary observations, I 
 now approach the subject of Dietetics in 
 System for detail. I advise as a typical system, 
 meals, ^hjch can be varied according to the 
 circumstances and personal idiosyncrasies 
 of the individual, four small meals in the 
 day. Breakfast, say about 8.30 ; lunch 
 about I or 1.15 ; dinner at 7 or 7.30 ; and 
 a very light supper, in one's bedroom, 
 about II. 
 
 Following this course, the animal food 
 supplied for breakfast and at lunch may 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 103 
 
 include eggs or fish cooked in various well- 
 known ways. At lunch, a little tender Breakfast 
 meat or fowl may be taken, unless Lunch, 
 it is preferred to reserve them for dinner, 
 in which case fish and a farinaceous pudding 
 may be substituted. This last-named Dinner, 
 meal should generally commence with a 
 little good consommi ; often substituting a 
 vegetable purie, varying with the season, 
 and made with a light meat stock or broth ; 
 or a good fish soup as a change. Then a 
 little fowl or (game) and a dish of vegetable, 
 according to the time of year. Finally, 
 perhaps, some light farinaceous pudding, 
 with or without fruit, should close the 
 meal, which is to be a light one in regard 
 to quantity. Lastly, supper ; a very ^ light 
 light refreshment may be advan- supper, 
 tageously taken the very last thing before 
 entering bed, at about eleven or so, as it 
 favours sleep. All animals feed before 
 resting for the night. Few meals are more 
 undesirable for man than a heavy supper, 
 which severely taxes digestion. But 
 elderly men especially require some easily 
 
104 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 digested food to support them during the 
 
 long fast of night. It is well known 
 
 reason for ^^^^ ^^e forces of the body are at 
 
 elderly ^j^gj^ minimum at 4 or 5 a.m. ; and 
 persons. ^ ■* ' 
 
 this may be well provided for, by 
 
 taking about 5 or 6 ozs. of consommi with 
 
 I ounce of thin toasted bread, served in 
 
 the bedroom as above said. 
 
 Of bread eaten with meals it may be 
 Bread, said, that whether brown or white, it 
 should be toasted ; the white as containing 
 most starch should be toasted thoroughly, 
 so as to be quite brittle, and show the 
 brown colour extending through its in- 
 terior; the starch is thus converted into 
 glucose which is soluble. Quantity during 
 the meal, from 3 to 5 ozs. of the bread 
 before toasting it, which, of course, 
 Butter, diminishes the weight Fresh butter 
 is the most generally- wholesome of all 
 fatty matters which come to table ; about 
 3 or 4 ozs. may be taken daily, of course 
 including that which is used in cooking. 
 
 Drink. Very weak tea is generally the 
 best at breakfast, with a good proportion 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 105 
 
 of milk ; and with sugar if it agrees. This 
 is not to be taken very hot, for reasons Drink, 
 already named, and about five minutes after 
 the conclusion of the meal. At lunch, the 
 drink may include a breakfast-cup of 
 coffee with milk ; or a draught, if desired, 
 of pure distilled aerated water, either to 
 be taken after the meal. The question of 
 wine and spirits will be discussed in its 
 place hereafter. 
 
 Occupation : after breakfast. Two hours 
 at least of some quiet sedentary Occupation 
 occupation should follow this meal ; ^"^ forenoon, 
 after which an hour or a little more should 
 be devoted to outdoor exercise. As age 
 advances, say at eighty or upwards, it is 
 often advisable, by no means always, to 
 find a seat somewhere after the first half- 
 hour or more — such as are provided in all 
 the London parks — and rest for a quarter 
 of an hour, to enjoy as much fresh air as 
 possible, before returning by the same or 
 by another and, perhaps, extended route. 
 But it should be a rule to reach home twenty 
 or thirty minutes before lunch, during which 
 
io6 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 period, rest — ^best in the recumbent posi- 
 Rest before tioii — should be maintained, as a 
 midday meal, desirable preparation for the coming 
 meal. An hour and a half's rest at least 
 and after, should follow lunch, when a portion 
 of the afternoon should be spent driving 
 in fresh air, if possible, or in visiting friends ; 
 The club and and at one's club, where the billiard- 
 its resources, room offers gentle exercise, if the 
 condition of the eyesight permits ; if not, 
 Whist a quiet rubber or two should be 
 always within reach, and be enjoyed 
 as a special resource of age. 
 
 Here also may be found the daily 
 journals with the news of the day ; often 
 doubtless too much read, but containing 
 not a little that is necessary to be known 
 concerning the wide world in its course. 
 Moreover, if it be a club of the first rank, 
 it will contain a collection of Encyclopaedic 
 works, English and foreign, for reference, 
 and for research on all subjects, so necessary 
 to every man of intelligence. Then it is 
 also a treasure-house of standard classical 
 literature, that of our own countty during 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 107 
 
 the last two or three centuries, with some 
 of the best examples of foreign Literature, 
 authors, besides the ancient "classics," 
 specifically so-termed. Besides these, a 
 large collection of ancient and modem 
 works of fiction, or what is known as " light 
 reading" for leisure hours. Among these 
 we shall probably find the admired masters 
 of the past, whom perchance we read in 
 our youth, a great resource now ; and that 
 some of these are more highly appreciated, 
 understood, and enjoyed, re-read as they 
 are with the matured knowledge of the 
 world which comes with age. Perhaps there 
 is no man, however active and hard-working 
 in the past, who has not found a great and 
 necessary relief in spending what would 
 otherwise be tedious hours, over works of 
 fiction, new and old favourites treasured in 
 his own library at home. 
 
 " Our Club " suggests the smoking-room, 
 and a very few words about that habit 
 will suffice. The only persons who Smoking, 
 enjoy the practice, and find it tranquillising 
 at times, are those who smoke in great 
 
io8 DIET IN RELATION TO AGE, ETC. 
 
 moderation. Men who certainly do not 
 enjoy it, and have long ceased to do so, 
 are those who are rarely seen either here 
 or elsewhere without a cigar between their 
 lips. To have one there has become a 
 confirmed habit, which is followed by the 
 natural result that they are merely miser- 
 able when the cigar is absent. That much 
 smoking endangers the eyesight and occa- 
 sions a chronic disease of the throat is 
 not to be forgotten. 
 
 A cup of weak tea may be taken at the 
 
 usual "Five-o'clock tea," but not a single 
 
 Five-o'clock morsel of solid food. Nothing can 
 
 ***• be more undesirable, not to use a 
 stronger term, than the practice of eating 
 then ; especially of the sweet and un- 
 wholesome dainties of every description, 
 which are offered to visitors at this popular 
 hour among ladies when receiving their 
 friends; a repast which practically takes 
 place about two hours before dinner, at 
 which time the stomach should be com- 
 pletely at rest in view of that meal so 
 near at hand. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 Alcoholic liquors — Cold and hot baths— Turkish baths— 
 The air-bath — Hats to be dispensed with when 
 possible — Indoor warmth — Hints on self-command 
 — Hints relative to opinion and an open mind. 
 
 The question of alcoholic drink has to 
 be considered. I believe all intelligent 
 persons will agree in believing that Alcoholic 
 the consumption of alcoholic liquors ''?"<»«. 
 (beer, wine, and spirits) by people in 
 general, greatly exceeds that which is 
 desirable for health. Having been myself 
 what is known as " a moderate drinker " up 
 to about fifty-two years of age, my own 
 experience, and large opportunities of ob- 
 serving that of others, compelled me some 
 twenty years ago to come to the conclu- 
 sion that most of those patients who 
 suffered from indigestion, or from what 
 
IIP DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 they termed "Rheumatism, gout," etc.,* 
 were greatly improved in health by ap- 
 propriate diet and some simple treatment ; 
 and that many were permanently cured, 
 provided that they discontinued the use 
 of alcoholic drinks altogether. 
 
 In the original editions constituting 
 what is now called the "First Part" of 
 this little work, the view of abstinence 
 from alcoholic liquors just enunciated was 
 taken for granted. Here, in the " Second 
 Part," where details are given respecting 
 diet and habits of various kinds, conducive 
 to longevity and to the prevention of 
 disease at the same time, a fuller con- 
 sideration of the subject is necessary. 
 
 „ , Further, it is well known that a 
 Reputed 
 value of wine popular idea respecting the value 
 
 in age. ^^ alcohol to elderly men has existed, 
 time out of mind, expressed by the quaint 
 saying, "Wine is the milk of old age." 
 
 * These terms have little real meaning as popularly 
 used, and express no other fact than the existence of pain 
 and stiffness in the joints or elsewhere ; but they indicate 
 the necessity for a careful inquiry into the patient's 
 general condition and habits, so that a diagnosis of his 
 complaint may be made. 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY iii 
 
 Desirous of testing this allegation at all 
 events — and I confess with a faint hope 
 that there might be some truth in it for 
 myself — I made the experiment some five 
 or six years ago of taking during a period 
 of about two months, a single claret-glass 
 — say three ounces — of good wine every 
 day at dinner only. But I was compelled 
 to give it up, as I felt unmistakable 
 signs of the return of pain and stiffness in 
 the joints, together with the recurrence of 
 sick-headaches, from which I had suffered 
 severely for many years before. For these 
 I had at that early date obtained no 
 relief, notwithstanding much treatment, 
 until I abstained entirely from alcoholic 
 drinks, when, after a few months, I lost 
 my local pains and the sick-headaches 
 completely. Moreover, the joints gradually 
 lost their stiffness and ultimately became 
 as supple and mobile as they were in 
 youth, and continue absolutely so until 
 this day.* It may be fairly said in reply 
 
 * This is not an extravagant use of language, but a 
 well-considered statement, capable of verification. 
 
112 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 that one example does not suffice to prove 
 
 Oneezpe- * '^^^^- ^^^ ** '^ °°* ^ single ex- 
 rience by no ample, and really designates a very 
 
 proves a large class of active men among all 
 rule : but it , . , 
 
 is a typical ranks, possessmg a more or less 
 
 ''°*' similar temperament, of which a type 
 Is here described, and it is for such that 
 I have found it so successful. 
 
 The habit of daily bathing and washing 
 in various forms demands a paragraph. 
 Special notes I shall presume that most, if not all, 
 on bathing, octogenarians have passed the age 
 at which the early morning cold bath can 
 be enjoyed all the year round. For all 
 general purposes of bathing in the bed- 
 room, a fairly deep and capacious hip- 
 bath is, I think, the best form. This, in 
 cold weather, should be filled with water 
 overnight, and remain in the bedroom to 
 acquire its temperature. Then the head 
 
 „ . should be thoroughly sluiced on 
 Morning ° ' 
 
 coldbaw first rising, while kneeling down 
 before it, not stooping over the bath. 
 This is a refreshing exercise before dress- 
 ing, and should be followed by a dry rub 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 113 
 
 all over. Then, say twice a week, for 
 the last-named dry rubbing may be sub- 
 stituted friction over the whole body with 
 a towel wrung out of hot water once -pj^ j^ t_ 
 
 or twice ; or by taking a hip-bath " towel 
 
 bath." 
 at 100° or 102° for five minutes with 
 
 a good sponging all over ; if in winter, of 
 course, before a fire. 
 
 Then, once a-week, or ten days at least, 
 a hot bath should be taken, if there is one 
 closely adjoining the bedroom ; if not, Hot baths, 
 it can be easily managed in the hip-bath 
 described. Respecting this procedure, I have 
 to recommend a plan adopted by me during 
 the last ten or twelve years with very use- 
 ful results. It should be remembered that 
 the skin always tends to become __ ^. . 
 drier and harsher in advanced ^e, old age 
 and therefore acts less freely as an and less * 
 excreting organ, which it is — a large *•*'*• 
 and very important one. The true skin, 
 indeed, is largely made up of minute capil- 
 lary blood-vessels which lie closely beneath 
 the surface of the dry cuticle. These 
 gradually become diminished, and the 
 
 P 
 
114 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 circulation through them less active ; a 
 condition partially remedied by daily exer- 
 cise, alluded to above (p. 105). The bath 
 commencing say at 99° should gradually 
 be brought up at least to 106° or 108°, for 
 three or four minutes, as advised at p. 100. 
 The skin becomes more or less red- 
 be raised to dened, and a very pleasurable sense 
 high tempe- Qf comYort is produced by the aug- 
 mented circulation, set up through 
 the entire surface. Soap should now be 
 freely used to every part of it, aided by a 
 soft flesh-brush, and should be washed off 
 with water of the same high temperature. 
 Then leaving the bath, the surface of the 
 body should be well rubbed and dried with 
 a large sheet of thick white towelling which 
 
 ^.. .. ^ completely covers it. When this is 
 Oil apphed ^ ' 
 
 to entire accomplished, the bather should now 
 
 thoroughly rub into every part of 
 
 the surface of the body, using the palm of 
 
 the hand for the purpose, some pure olive 
 
 oil (salad oil) say a teaspoonful at a time, 
 
 especially into those regions where the skin 
 
 is drier and thicker than the rest, as on the 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 115 
 
 outer sides of the thighs and hips. An 
 
 ounce (two tablespoonfuls) at least should 
 
 be thus employed. The ancient Romans 
 
 who spent so much time in the hot bath as 
 
 a luxury, well knew the value of applying 
 
 oil afterwards to replace the loss of 
 
 the natural secretion of the skin oc- prOTe/u^" 
 
 casioned by prolonged immersion in condition of 
 
 hot water, and used it largely for the 
 
 purpose. The natural supply of moisture 
 
 during the prime of life is gradually 
 
 diminished by age ; but a greatly improved 
 
 condition of the skin may be secured by 
 
 the proceeding described. Under such 
 
 treatment it becomes supple and healthy, 
 
 and at the close of the performance some 
 
 five minutes should be devoted to gentle 
 
 calisthenic exercises, to bring into action 
 
 as far as possible all the muscles of the 
 
 body. 
 
 There is another mode of using hpt 
 
 water, an exceedingly valuable one, ^ ... 
 
 ' The mghtly 
 
 which must be mentioned here. It use of the 
 
 is the habit of taking a hot foot-bath ^'>°^-^^^^- 
 every night before going to bed, for about 
 
ii6 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 ten or twelve minutes as hot as it can be 
 borne. I have done this for thirty years, no 
 matter how late the hour at which social 
 or professional engagements have delayed 
 my return home. Indeed, the more pro- 
 longed or the more engrossing these have 
 been, the more need is there for the hot 
 foot-bath. The effect of this on the feet, 
 which should be immersed over the ankle, 
 is to fill their vessels with blood — ren- 
 dered apparent by their deep red colour 
 — and this affords relief, by withdrawing it 
 Why it is from the brain. Especially after in- 
 valuable, tellectual activity resulting from 
 public life, etc., as above referred to, also 
 after prolonged study or literary labour at 
 night, the tranquillising effect on the nervous 
 system is very remarkable, and quiet sleep 
 is promoted. Let the highest temperature 
 which can be borne be maintained for at 
 least ten minutes by repeated small ad- 
 ditions from the hot-water can close at 
 hand. Probably, at first, 108° or 110° may 
 be the limit of endurance. From long 
 habitude, I use it at 113° or 114°. A brief 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 117 
 
 wash with soap may be made at finishing 
 before well rubbing dry. A secondary ad- 
 vantage of the practice advised is Another 
 that the condition of the feet will advantage, 
 become as good as that of the hands ; and 
 if boots of proper form are worn, i.e. as 
 wide as the foot and not pointed, each 
 toe will be separate and mobile as it should 
 be, not overlapping and deformed ; and 
 half-hose made with separate digits for 
 each toe, or at least like mittens, with one 
 compartment for the great toe may be 
 worn with advantage as my long experience 
 can testify.* 
 
 Turkish baths should be named. No 
 doubt these are very serviceable to many 
 people during the prime of life and Turkish 
 afterwards; with some, however, they ^at'^s- 
 disagree, producing headaches, etc. The 
 experience of each individual must, as in 
 many other things, determine this question. 
 In advanced age I think they are generally 
 unadvisable ; or, at all events, the highest 
 
 * Both made by Jaeger and Co., and I believe not 
 elsewhere. 
 
ii8 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 temperatures should be avoided. If doubt 
 exists at any period of life, in relation to 
 the question, a good medical adviser should 
 be requested to make a general examina- 
 tion of the heart, nervous centres, etc., and 
 his opinion should decide it. 
 
 I have still another bath to name, which 
 I term " The. Air-bath." With our usual 
 The air- habits of life, the skin is never un- 
 bath covered or exposed to the surround- 
 ing air, except for a minute or two when 
 taking water-baths ; hence it becomes soft 
 and flabby, loses its healthy surface, and 
 more or less of its ability to resist cold, 
 especially what is called "catching cold." 
 It is liable, particularly in hot summer 
 weather, to be affected by a slight, red, 
 irritating rash, it may be, a modification 
 of what is known as " prickly heat." In 
 order to avoid this condition, and certainly 
 to remedy it if it occurs, I know nothing 
 so useful as exposing the entire surface 
 of the body to the air of the bedroom, 
 with an open window, for half an hour 
 before dressing. Much of this period, 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 119 
 
 however, may be occupied in this con- 
 dition for toilet purposes, such as shaving, 
 if this practice is followed — sad loss of 
 time as it is, especially for men above 
 eighty, who should economise all that re- 
 mains to them — moreover, all ordinary 
 washing and general toilet proceedings 
 can be nearly completed, except dressing ; 
 while a walk about the room is also de- 
 sirable for the purpose of meeting moving 
 currents of air, and in this way the full half- 
 hour may be expended. After a month or 
 two of this experience, the skin becomes 
 firm and healthy. No rough towelling is 
 admissible now, if the skin has been irri- 
 table, although desirable after bathing in 
 the cold season. This is, of course, what 
 younger men enjoy after a summer sea 
 bath on the shore ; in either case it is 
 delightful and invigorating in every way.* 
 One more hint of the same kind. During 
 
 • A simple and admirable recipe for itching of the skin, 
 when no very obvious rash is visible, is made by mixing 
 equal parts of salad oil and genuine eau-de-Cologne. 
 They do not blend, but are well shaken before use, and 
 then well rubbed in with the palm of the hand. 
 
120 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 the summer months, it is a good habit to 
 walk when in the country, or in the 
 be dispensed shady parts of our London parks, 
 '"oosHbfe" ^^'•^ *^^ head uncovered, carrying 
 our summer headgear, whatever it 
 may be, by hand. I have done this for 
 a good many years, and for several have 
 not had a "cold in my head," which for- 
 merly very frequently occurred. No one 
 catches cold by exposure of the hands or 
 the forearms to the air, simply because 
 the skin has thus become proof against 
 it. The practice is well illustrated by the 
 Blue Coat School boys, who wear no caps, 
 and are notoriously free from colds in the 
 head. The exposure, moreover, promotes 
 the growth and healthy condition of the 
 hair. The practice of sitting indoors with 
 a hat on for hours together, frequently 
 adopted by men in clubs, is a great 
 error. 
 
 I have more than once incidentally re- 
 Indoor ferred to the presence of a fire in 
 warmth, the bedroom. The subject of tem- 
 perature within a house, throughout its 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 121 
 
 various apartments, is an important one. 
 
 No modern house, even of eight or ten 
 
 rooms, should be constructed now without 
 
 an apparatus in the basement for Supply of 
 
 supplying heated air during the long *"** *"■• 
 
 English winter, or cold season, which often 
 
 extends from November to March, or 
 
 April inclusive — not less than six months, 
 
 at all events. My experience of such 
 
 supply has been gained when visiting hotels 
 
 abroad in the winter, where an apparatus 
 
 has existed in each bedroom, by which its 
 
 occupant could obtain this supply when 
 
 desired. Hitherto, for the most part in 
 
 this country, the necessary heat has ^^ ^^ 
 
 been obtainable chiefly by employing yery useful 
 ,.,,,,, , in bedrooms 
 
 gas fires m all the bedrooms, where and else- 
 
 a good draught exists, or is provided ^ ^^^' 
 for, adequate to remove the products of 
 combustion by the chimney. These, doubt- 
 less, greatly diminish dirt, dust, and labour, 
 necessarily occasioned by the transit of 
 coals and removal of ashes, etc., connected 
 with open coal fires. 
 The common habit of leaving, on a cold 
 
 Q 
 
122 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 winter's evening, the sitting-room, where a 
 large open fire has been enjoyed by a 
 family group seated around it, to get 
 thoroughly warmed before retiring to un- 
 warmed bedrooms, to spend a long night 
 _ jjugj. in an atmosphere often 20° or 25° 
 rooms in under that left below, is a flagrant 
 should be error ; a room in which no one would 
 avoided, gpgjjjj more time than was absolutely 
 necessary during the day. The effect of 
 such changes of temperature, incurred by 
 leaving the house to go abroad during the 
 day, is provided for by active exercise and 
 by the widely different condition of the 
 body, when it is supported every few 
 hours by hot food and liquids, which 
 maintain its natural temperature, besides 
 the warmth of fires in every inhabited 
 room. 
 While writing this, accidental circum- 
 stances have brought to my know- 
 patented ledge a new and greatly improved 
 ^^d^^Sis* ^y^*^™ °^ heating every part of a 
 house, from the furnace below, to 
 the top -most floor. It possesses the 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 123 
 
 following special advantages over the 
 methods referred to above, i. The air is 
 introduced from a pure source outside the 
 house ; and, if necessary, as in a crowded 
 city, can be deprived of the blacks and 
 dust it contains. 2. The air is conveyed 
 by earthenware (sanitary) tubes to every 
 spot required, 3. The heated, and there- 
 fore dried, air is moistened, either auto- 
 matically or by hand. 4. A constant 
 circulation of the air is produced so as to 
 introduce frequently a fresh supply. No 
 draughts of cold air in winter can occur. 
 The system, which is patented, has been 
 largely applied in various parts of the 
 country within the last ten years.* 
 
 I cannot close my subject without a 
 remark or two respecting the supreme 
 necessity in advancing years, for 
 firm determination to resist needless self- 
 excitement, from emotional causes '^'"°'"*°"' 
 of all kinds. If habits of self-command 
 in respect to diet and exciting drinks 
 
 * The patentee is Mr. John Grundy, heating-engineer, 
 City Road, London, 
 
124 DIET IN RELATION TO 
 
 have been steadily cultivated, it is pro- 
 bable that a due control of temper, and 
 of the pcissions, and the avoidance of 
 needless sources of worry or anxiety, 
 should come to be regarded, not only 
 as one of the main objects of life at 
 this period, but also, as an attainable one 
 to a great extent — the first discipline 
 having been useful in training the will to 
 exercise restraint and self-denial. Each 
 period of man's personal history brings its 
 own appropriate duties and enjoyments. 
 By no means the least of those which 
 accompany old age is a satisfactory sense 
 of the absence of desire for pursuits, which 
 there is now little inducement, or perhaps, 
 ability, to cultivate. 
 
 rAgain, men's opinions are apt to become 
 more or less fixed, as experience increases 
 
 „. , and habits of thought are formed. 
 Hints 
 relative to It is undesirable to assert these too 
 opmion. gjj.Qjjg2y jjj j.jjg foj.ju ^f advice, much 
 
 less to endeavour to impose them on our 
 children, whose ways are, naturally, not 
 as our ways. Indeed, sound and wise as 
 
AGE AND ACTIVITY 125 
 
 our advice to young people may be, great 
 allowance should be made for the fact that 
 they must, will, and even ought, within 
 certain limits, to deal in their own way 
 with the incidents they encounter in the 
 early stages of life's journey, and learn 
 by their own experience — as we ourselves 
 did — ^paying, however, sometimes, rather 
 dearly for their lessons, perhaps. 
 
 But it is our duty to keep our own 
 knowledge, as far as possible, abrejist of 
 the age ; especially to be interested ^n open 
 in modem scientific discovery ; in the ""^d. 
 advance of general knowledge, and in the 
 modifications, not only respecting the varied 
 resources of daily life, but in matters of 
 thought — and even as to old and long- 
 respected beliefs — which have to be ac- 
 cepted as the result Truth comes from 
 the future, far more than from the past 
 It was well and truly said by Hobbes, 
 respecting the extreme reverence paid by 
 mankind everywhere to ancient beliefs, 
 " If we are to be guided by antiquity, the 
 present age is the most ancient — that is. 
 
126 DIET IN RELATION TO AGE, ETC. 
 
 more ancient than any preceding, older in 
 experience, inheriting all the wisdom of 
 the past." * 
 
 And here is the privilege which the old 
 enjoy — to sit quietly, and survey intelli- 
 gently the world's progress. 
 
 Happy are they who, having long main- 
 tained temperance in all things, preserve 
 fair health, and attain a ripe old age, 
 enabling them to survey the vast field of 
 natural phenomena with growing interest, 
 attracted by each new discovery, preserving 
 an open mind, and ready to utilise any 
 that conduces to man's well-being. 
 
 Moderation in all things is the "tempo" 
 which governs life, in all the variations 
 of the delightful theme, when rightly and 
 intelligently played. 
 
 • From the close of " The Leviathan." 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Sugar in relation to diet — Increased use of sugar — Two 
 forms of sugar — ^Digestion of sugar — Sugar and 
 obesity — Sugar a valuable food. 
 
 Since this little book appeared in October, 
 1901, I have received various communica- 
 tions from unknown correspondents, offer- 
 ing suggestions, criticisms, etc., to some of 
 which I have briefly replied in writing. 
 Among these, however, a question has 
 been raised respecting the value of sugar 
 in relation to diet. 
 
 A correspondent states that^the opinions 
 prevalent among society at large are ex- 
 tremely varied, and are habitually sugar in re- 
 expressed with apparently more em- '^*>°° *" ^^t- 
 phasis than intelligence. There is a large 
 party, he states, who regard sugar as in- 
 jurious in every form, and who maintain, 
 with a fervour almost equal to that which 
 
128 APPENDIX 
 
 distinguishes political controversy, its 
 dietetic use as the cause of much evil ; 
 believing it to give rise to " gout," " rheu- 
 matism," and other evils among those who 
 consume it habitually. 
 
 I shall therefore offer a few remarks 
 respecting sugar, and a true estimate of 
 its value as an article of diet, according 
 to the highest authorities of the present 
 day — premising of course that there are 
 some few idiosyncrasies, as in all matters 
 of diet which appear to be exceptional, 
 but that the facts and principles adduced 
 here are correct and applicable to people 
 generally. 
 
 I shall commence by remarking that the 
 use of sugar as food has enormously in- 
 Increased creased in quantity during the last 
 use of sugar, fe^ir years. Compared with the pre- 
 sent price it was a very costly article 
 at the commencement of the nineteenth 
 century, and was very little used by the 
 poor, being a luxury almost beyond their 
 reach. At the present time it is one of 
 the cheapest forms of food, and its use 
 
APPENDIX 129 
 
 has become almost universal, the actual 
 amount now consumed annually by the 
 population of Great Britain being no less 
 than 80 lbs. per head. 
 
 Speaking technically, there are two forms 
 of sugar used for diet : the first are -j-^q forms 
 the "sucroses," furnished by cane of sugar, 
 sugar, beet-root sugar, milk sugar, besides 
 one or two others ; the second, the 
 "glucoses," or grape sugar, the sugar in 
 other sweet plants and fruits, and honey. 
 
 Cane sugar in its raw form is too 
 well known to need description. When 
 refined it forms what is known as loaf 
 sugar, which is, perhaps, the most perfect 
 form of that agreeable carbo-hydrate. A 
 much larger proportion of this is furnished 
 by the juice of the beetroot than by that 
 of the cane. Milk sugar, or lactose, has no 
 sweetening property, but being the carbo- 
 hydrate of milk is very desirable as a form 
 of nourishing food for dyspeptic patients 
 requiring to be limited to "a milk diet," 
 because they are unable to consume any 
 cane sugar without setting up fermenta- 
 
 R 
 
130 APPENDIX 
 
 tion, and suffering great discomfort ; nor 
 indeed can they take any other food with 
 such good result as that named, for a 
 certain period of time. 
 
 All cane and beet-root sugars are ren- 
 dered digestible in health by a process 
 Digestion ^^^V undergo in the stomach and 
 of sugar, allied organs, in which they are con- 
 verted into "glucose;" the same form as 
 that which we have already seen exists in 
 grapes and other ripe sweet fruits. Most 
 persons with ordinary digestion can take 
 sugar with advantage, provided they take 
 it in moderate quantity and well diluted, 
 say two or three large lumps in a breakfast- 
 cup of tea. 
 
 Those who have a strong tendency to 
 obesity will generally be wise in dis- 
 Sugarand pensing with both sugar and milk 
 obesity, in any but moderate quantities. 
 
 It is scarcely sufficiently known that 
 
 sugar is a very valuable food where much 
 
 A valuable muscular exercise is taken and much 
 
 food, bodily labour performed. Especially 
 
 in adults who are becoming exhausted 
 
APPENDIX 131 
 
 with labour, sugar may be taken largely, 
 with the effect of rapidly affording a fresh 
 supply of power. On the other hand, it 
 agrees well with children, and is one of 
 the best and most palatable sources of food 
 for them, taken under the rules above given, 
 chiefly relating to its moderate dilution. 
 
 It thus may be inferred that healthy 
 persons, not suffering from indigestion or 
 obesity, may generally use sugar in a 
 
 moderate quantity with advantage. 
 
 -»- 
 
 Vidt " Food and Dietetics," by Dr. Rob. Hutchison, 
 third edition, pp. 260-273. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Advertised nostrums, 46 
 Air-bath, iiS 
 Alcohol, evils of, 13, 109 
 Animal flesh a concentrated 
 
 form of nutriment, 67 
 Artificial teeth, 50 
 
 "Baby " a vegetarian ? is, 2$ 
 
 Bathing, 112 
 
 BiUous attacks to square 
 
 accounts, 31 
 Brainworkers require a light 
 
 dietary, 64 
 Bread, 104 
 Butter, 104 
 
 Chronic disease, cause of, 17 
 
 Comfort for those with weak 
 stomachs, 75 
 
 Concentrated aliment to be 
 avoided in age, 42 
 
 Comaro's writings and ex- 
 perience, 55 * 
 
 Corpulence to be avoided, 
 90 ; prevents longevity, 90 
 
 Delicate stomach often due 
 
 to impressionable nervous 
 
 system, 77 
 Disease, cause of chronic, 17 
 Drink not to be taken with 
 
 meals, 91, 95 j temperature 
 
 of, 99 
 Drink, nutritious, 48 
 
 Early morning tea, 98 
 
 Eating rightly, 92 
 Exercise and food, 32, 39, 
 63, 65, loi 
 
 Fat — an incumbrance, 53 
 Feeding, improper, 15 
 " Five-o'clock tea," 108 
 Flesh-cookery, some disad- 
 vantages of, 83 
 Flesh-eating not natural to 
 
 the young, 69 
 Food and temperature, 70 
 Food in early years, 30 
 Food, none wholesome in 
 
 itself, 79 
 Food, present sources and 
 varieties of, should be 
 luaintained, 18 
 Force of habit, 67 
 Fresh air for the sedentary, 65 
 
 Hat to be discarded when 
 
 possible, 120 
 Hot bath, 113 
 Hot foot-bath at night, 115 
 Hot-towel bath, 113 
 
 Improper feeding, evils of, 
 equal to those produced 
 by drink, 15 
 
 Income and expenditure, 37, 
 
 63 
 
 Increase of girth, 52 
 Indigestion, 7 1 ; cause of, 73, 
 78 ; not often a disease, 78 
 Indoor warmth, 121 
 
134 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Light dietary may be pala- 
 table, 80 ; testimony to its 
 value and sufficiency, 82 
 
 Light supper, 103 
 
 Mastication, process and ob- 
 ject of, 93 
 
 Meals, number per day, 97 
 
 Meat desirable for outdoor 
 labourers, 67 
 
 Menu in outline, 103 
 
 Milk, not for the inactiv); 
 adult, 49 
 
 Milk, the best food for 
 children, 29 
 
 Much meat unnecessary, 67 
 
 Nerve power expended in 
 
 digestion, 65 
 " Nutritious cbrink," 48 
 
 Occupation for the aged, 
 
 los 
 Old age and leanness go 
 
 together, 54 
 Olive oil for the skin, 114 
 One rule not applicable to 
 
 all, 62 
 " Our Club," 107 
 Over-feeding, 31, 33 
 Over-training, 61 
 
 Pdti de frie gras, and its 
 
 lessons, 34 
 " Phosphates, the," 46 
 Popular theory of feeding, 
 
 41 
 Privilege of ^e, 126 
 
 Reduced activity must be 
 accompanied by less food, 
 
 39 
 Rest before mid-day meal, 
 106 
 
 Rule of life respecting diet, 
 28 
 
 Saliva, the value of, 94 
 
 Self-command, 123 
 
 Smoking, 107 
 
 Stomachs vary in power, 
 74. 76 
 
 Sugar in relation to diet, 
 127 ; its increased use, 
 128 ; two forms of, 129 ; 
 digestion of, 130 ; should 
 be avoided by the obese, 
 130; 1 valuable food for 
 those performing bodily 
 labour, 130 
 
 System for meals, 103 
 
 Tea, 98, 104, 108 . 
 Teeth, artificial, 5° 
 Temperature and thedemand 
 
 for food, 70 
 Temptations of age, 45 
 Training and loss of weight, 
 
 61 
 Turkish bath, 117 
 
 Undertiaining, 61 
 
 Variety of food desirable, 89 
 Vegetable diet unsuitable for 
 
 babies, 25 
 Vegetarianism, its use and 
 
 limitations, 20 
 Vegetarians, soi dUant, 23, 
 
 27 
 
 Water, the most powerful 
 solvent of food, 48 ; a true 
 food, 97 . . 
 
 Whist, 106 
 
 Wife's fallacious counsel, 43 
 
 Wine, reputed value of, fol 
 elderly persons, no 
 
Wotes. 
 
"Slofes.