The Healthy Life Part 21

M.D. says, further: "For the public it will now probably suffice if they insist on raising (or considering, A.R.) the question of quant.i.ty" (of food, A.R.) "wherever they suffer in any way." I agree with all my heart. But M.D. implies, if I read him aright, that the public should increase the quant.i.ty of their food when they suffer in any way. I, on the other hand, and rather unhappily for myself, am convinced that the raising of this question implies that it should be answered in the exact opposite way to that of M.D. and that we should diminish our food if we "suffer in any way." And I can point to Nature's own plan as a corroboration of the truth of my view, for her plan when we suffer in any way is to fling us into bed and take away our appet.i.te, or at least to diminish our appet.i.te if we are not so ill as to require to remain in bed.

The whole question of medical practice depends on the answer we give to this question, and therefore one might go on indefinitely with its discussion. Neither the Editors' s.p.a.ce and patience nor my time allow of this; but I should like to ask M.D., with all respect, if he remembers what Dr King Chambers said of the starvation that comes of over-repletion? Dr King Chambers occupied one of the most prominent places as a consultant in London (very probably, I suppose) when M.D.

was a very young man. My late lamented friend, Dr Dewey of Meadville, Pennsylvania, used the phrase "starvation from over-feeding," not knowing that Dr King Chambers had used practically the same expression before him. That I made the same discovery myself, and independently, is not, I take it, a sign of acuteness of intellect or of observation.

The amazing thing is that every pract.i.tioner is not compelled to make the same discovery. But if it is a true discovery, then it follows that all the signs of lowered vitality referred to by M.D., while they _may_ be caused by under-feeding, may also be caused by over-feeding and may therefore require for proper treatment, not increase of the diet, but diminution of it. A low temperature, therefore, a slow pulse, languor, pallor, inanition, fatigue, good-for-nothingness, inefficiency, anorexia, anaemia, neurasthenia, etc., etc., may all be due to blocking of the body with too much food as well as to supplying it with too little. Fires may be put out by heaping up too much coal on them. To make them burn briskly we ought to push the poker in and gently lift the coal so as to admit of the entrance of air. Then in a while our fire will become brisk and bright. And so it may be in the body. Nay, my opinion is that almost always these marks of depression are caused by blocking up of the body and that therefore the proper treatment is, as a rule, not increase but diminution of the diet. The place in the body in which the blocking first occurs is the connective tissues or the tissues that connect every part with every other. It is here that the lymph is secreted, and as the lymph joins the thoracic duct which conveys the products of digestion to the blood, it is obvious that lymph-secretion is a complementary digestive process and it is also obvious how blocking up of the connective tissues, which is the immediate cause of anorexia and inanition, usually comes to exist in the body.

M.D. talks of "natural food." He seems to be a vegetarian? Good. But is not the question of how much food we ought to eat equally urgent whether we are vegetarian or omnivorous? I think it is. I do not think that the chief cause of our illnesses to-day is taking wrong or unsuitable food. In my opinion we are ill mainly because we take suitable food too often and because we take too much of it. My answer to the question, therefore--"How Much Should We Eat?--A Warning"--turns on the previous question: What is the Function performed by Food in the Body? As I think that this function in the grown body is only to restore the waste, the warning in my mind is far rather that we should take less than that we should (as M.D.

advises us) take more. I agree with him in the view that "chronic starvation is insidious." But, as I believe that "chronic starvation"

is usually a form of Dr King Chambers's "starvation from over-repletion" and of Dr Dewey's "starvation from over-feeding," I am bound to be of the consequent opinion that it is to be met, not by increase, but by diminution of the diet. This is one of my reasons for thinking that none of us ought ever to eat oftener than twice a day, under fifty years of age, and that after that we would do well to eat once a day only. I feel sure that if we altered our habits in these ways, we should add very much both to the duration and to the efficiency of life. This is not a question of dietetics only. The issue is of the most practical character. What an addition of five or ten or fifteen or twenty or twenty-five years to the average duration of life might mean to this people and still more to the people of the whole globe is unpredictable by mortal man. But it is evident that it would be of the very greatest import to humanity. This is the great issue of the discussion of this subject. It seems to me that illness might be enormously diminished and health and efficiency and happiness immensely increased. But I think that these boons might be obtained, not by indulging the body and its appet.i.tes, but only by the exercise of a wise restraint and government over it. It is at least very much to be desired that more agreement might be manifested in the opinions and practice of qualified physiologists so that the public might have clear guidance, and not as at present, be advised in ways so conflicting that they do not know what or whom to believe.

A. RABAGLIATI, M.D.

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_To Tourists:_

Every little village has a little shop where you can buy nasty little sweets.

PICKLED PEPPERCORNS.

He was a native of Liverpool, but had liver for many years in the Isle of Wight--_Edmonton_ (Canada) _Journal_.

Funny he didn't go to Poole and leave his liver behind him.

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REAL FLESH FOOD FOUND AT LAST.

--From an advt. in daily papers.

Evidently we have all been vegetarians and knew it not.

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Nothing can replace salt.--From an advt. in _Punch_.

Many food reformers advantageously replace salt with nothing.

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The golf craze has been greater this autumn than in any previous year. n.o.body is quite safe from the fever. It seizes those who mocked at it, and pays no respect to s.e.x or age.--_British Weekly_.

By the time the next Medical Congress comes round it is expected that at least three distinguished bacteriologists will have discovered the golf-fever microbe. They will probably agree to call it _Mashilococcus Caddes_.

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Between lunch and dinner take another tumbler of water cold. Take a gla.s.s of cold water half-an-hour after lunch, half-an-hour after tea, half-an-hour after dinner, and before going to bed at night. Never drink between meals.--_Woman's Life_.

All other methods failing, try putting your watch half-an-hour on after each meal.

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I once got a circular from a man who grew potatoes containing his photograph, and, I think, an autobiography.--_Musical Standard_.

Not nearly so convenient as one of those automatic egg-stamping hens.

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_Stop-Press News._

A "pocket clipper" has been invented (according to a certain catalogue) which can be used for the beard or hair at back of neck.

But surely people who can do anything so clever as grow a beard on the back of the neck ought not to be tempted to clip it off.

PETER PIPER.

HEALTHY LIFE RECIPES.

MORE EGG DISHES.

In our issue of May 1912 we published a number of special recipes for eggs. These were much appreciated. And even now this and other back numbers are asked for. We now give some further recipes.

It should be remembered that eggs are a simple form of animal food and much purer than meat. They are also easily digested by most people.

They therefore form a very useful subst.i.tute for flesh-foods, especially where the latter have only recently been discarded.

The normal progress towards a more or less ideal diet involves, of course, the elimination of eggs as well as of other dairy products.

But wise food reform proceeds always by steps.

SAVOURY BAKED EGGS.

Melt a little b.u.t.ter, or vegetable fat, in an open earthenware baking dish; break into this as many eggs as required. Cover thinly with grated cheese; add a k.n.o.b of b.u.t.ter and bake till set. The dish can be placed direct on the table.

EGG ON TOMATO.[13]

One egg, two medium-sized tomatoes, b.u.t.ter.

Skin the tomatoes; cut in halves and put them, with a small piece of b.u.t.ter, into a small stewpan. Close lightly, and cook slowly until reduced to a pulp. Break the egg into a cup, and slide it gently on to the tomato. Replace the pan lid and the egg will poach in the steam rising from the tomato.

[13] This recipe is from _The Healthy Life Cook Book_, a new and revised edition of which is in contemplation.