Class_ Book„_ COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT J-Jow ]SJature Qures COMPRISING A NEW SYSTEM OF HYGIENE; ALSO The natural food of man A STATEMENT OF THE PRINCIPAL ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE USE OF BREAD, CEREALS, PULSES, POTATOES, AND ALL OTHER STARCH FOODS. / BV EMMET DENSMORE, M. D. tl There is no wealth but life — life, including all its power of love, joy, and admiration. That country is the richest which nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings; that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence." — Ruskin. 3Lortt(0tt : SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO. PATERNOSTER SQUARE. Nefo H>arit: STILLMAN & CO. 1398 BROADWAY. \ • \^U R<>^ Copyright, 1892, STILLMAN & CO., NEW YORK. TO Dr. HELEN DENSMORE WHOSE ENTHUSIASTIC INTEREST IN ALL MOVEMENTS LOOKING TO THE BETTERMENT OF OUR RACE IS UNSURPASSED ; WHOSE PERSISTENT LABOURS IN BEHALF OF SUCH REFORMS AS SEEM OF GREATEST PROMISE ARE UNTIRING ; WHO FROM THE OUTSET HAS BEEN A CO-WORKER IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM OF HYGIENE AND HEALTH WHICH THIS WORK AIMS TO UNFOLD, AND WITHOUT WHOSE HELP IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN WRITTEN, THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. PREFACE. The critic will no doubt find abundant opportunity in the following pages to point out imperfections. As for the matter of repetitions, which may seem to many to be needlessly frequent, we can only plead the great import- Lce of a thorough understanding of the principles $ erein treated in order that good health may be attained .nd maintained. Much of the matter contained in this book is not new ; it is nowhere assumed that it is. The doctrine that food and dietetic habits are the chief factors in health and disease is as old as Plato, and received a new and powerful impulse through the life and writings of Louis Cornaro more than three hundred years ago. The doctrine that the use of bread, cereals, pulses and vegetables is not only unwholesome, but is at the very foundation of nervous prostration and modern dis- eases, is, however, sufficiently novel and startling. The value of fasting as a method of curing disease has been previously fairly well stated. The author only hopes by this book to call the attention thereto of many who have not before been aware of its great importance. That " catching cold " is always caused by errors in eating has also been well stated in the writings of our friend Dr. C. E. Page. This is a matter, in our opinion, fraught with such unusual importance that too much attention cannot well be given it. vi PREFACE. All hygienists, new-school physicians, and many of the old school, talk much of the importance of good ventilation ; at the same time, it is next to impossible to find any person who habitually sleeps with a wide-open window in all climates and weather. It is a common teaching of physiology that our breathing ought to be done through the nostrils, and it is a rule that is transgressed oftener than obeyed — when the hours of sleep as well as those when awake are con- sidered — by our physiologists, scientific men, and hy- gienists, to say nothing of those who give such matters no attention. The fact that although old-school physicians are wonderfully skilled in anatomy, physiology, pathology, and the diagnosis of disease, and at the same time not only utterly powerless to aid in the restoration of the patient, but on the whole prone to do untold damage by their drugs and methods of treatment, has been forcibly pointed out by some of the ablest members of the profession; and jests and diatribes against doctors are in everybody's mouth. All the same, no sooner is any person taken ill than the doctor is as surely sum- moned and as credulously consulted as is the sacred fetish on similar occasions by the Polynesian. It is our hope that the reader will see in this book such statements and such reasoning as will induce him unswervingly to resolve that whatever the ailment may be — aside from the realm of surgery — he will not con- plicate the situation or endanger his recovery by sum- moning any physician of that school in which opium is a sheet anchor. We have a twofold aim : to introduce and to bespeak a trial for the anti-bread, non-starch diet ; and to present what has been said before fragmentarily concerning hygiene and reform in medicine in such a systematic shape and with such force that large numbers will be PREFACE. vii induced to put these hygienic truths to the test of experi- ment in everyday life. Heretofore there has been an impassable gulf between hygienists (physicians of the reform school) and reme- dies which are of real value. We have aimed, while giving some new truths and a new form to some valuable old ones, to avoid fanaticism and the favoring of untried theories. The central thought on which this book is written is the confident belief that sickness and acute attacks of illness bear the same relation to diet that drunkenness bears to drink. It is quite indisputable that no one needs to get drunk ; all that is requisite to avoid inebria- tion is to abstain from intoxicating drinks. It is in this sense that we affirm that all cases of taking cold are the result of improper food, and more especially of excessive quantities even of proper food; and that acute attacks of illness invariably depend, either for a primary or a secondary cause, upon bad alimentation — improper food and food taken in excessive quantities ; and of these errors, excess is often the far greater factor. Here in England, at this time, the newspapers are scanned each day to learn the condition of a poet of world-wide fame, who has been confined to his bed for weeks but is now able to sit up ; also of a scientist of equal fame whose observations and contributions have enriched the field of physics, at the moment convalescent from an attack upon the lungs which has confined him to his bed for weeks. One of the foremost statesmen of America continually oscillates between his public duties and such attacks of illness as confine him to his bedroom. During every month of the year, and in every principal city of civilization, are to be seen similar examples. Learned, able, and useful men and women adorning all professions are rendered helpless by indispositions; and this is accepted quite as a matter of course and as a dispensa- viii PREFACE. tion of Providence. The reader is asked to peruse care- fully this book, and to consider seriously its proofs of the contention that all such illness and decrepitude are easily avoidable. We have not lost sight of the fact that zymotic diseases are the result of poison transmitted through the medium of the atmosphere ; but we also do not lose sight of the fact, well known to scientists, that these poison germs are powerless and harmless unless a favorable soil is found in the human body in which to germinate. The influenza, which recently caused such widespread illness and so many deaths throughout America and England, in some of the large provincial towns attacked all classes — physicians, clergymen, professional men of all kinds, and the latter quite as much as the laboring classes. At the same time, very many people who must necessarily have been equally exposed with those who succumbed to the scourge passed entirely untouched; this was not because these persons did not breathe the poison, but because the poison germ did not find in them a suitable soil in which to germinate. It is the same with taking cold. After one, by persisting in the habit of taking improper food, and especially in excess- ive quantities, has overloaded and overstrained his organism, an exposure to a draught brings on a cold which not infrequently settles into bronchitis or pneu- monia with a fatal termination ; another person sitting in the same draught feels only a momentary inconvenience from such change of temperature. Like the poison germ in the unsuitable soil, this draught finds the latter person with vigor so unimpaired that taking cold for the time is impossible. It is not affirmed that hereditary tendency to disease is not an important factor, and always to be considered. Persons inheriting weak constitutions, and a predis- position toward consumption, scrofula, cancer, or any PREFACE. ix serious disease, must of necessity exercise more care than those with more fortunate inheritance. All the same, we affirm that as the poison germ is powerless for evil except where there is a suitable soil, and as expos- ure to a draught does not induce a cold except where due preparation has been made by dietetic transgression, so an inherited weakness, a predisposition to disease, will never develop into the maladies with which the parents were afflicted except by persistence in unhygienic methods of life, of which errors in diet at the present day constitute a far greater share than is formed by all other transgressions combined. Good grounds are set forth for the belief that total abstinence not only from wine, beer, and alcohol in every form, but from tea and coffee as well, is demanded in the interest of health, and in obedience to hygienic law. A new explanation of the cause of intemperance is pointed out, as well as a new method for its cure. Although heretofore much has been written in favour of fruit eating, it will be seen, so long as men make cereals and starch vegetables the basis of their food, that fruit is and must continue to be simply an orna- ment, neglected and unused. The claim that fruit is composed of substantially the same elements as bread, and will take its place, will be a novelty to most readers ; but a careful scrutiny of the evidence adduced in favour of this contention will, it is believed, convince earnest students of the correctness of this claim. Throughout civilization the great bulk of the human /amily — the vegetarian and the mixed eaters alike — are oerealites; in the future, when the doctrines herein taught are understood and adopted, mankind will become "fruitarian. This claim is fraught with more meaning than is seen at first glance. A fruit diet, as set forth in the following x PREFACE. pages, means the solution of the problems of how to ban- ish disease and intemperance from the race ; to free us from the horrors of the shambles ; and to give us a food which is at once in accord with our higher instincts and the demands of aesthetics. The following quotation from an essay by Mrs. Densmore, which is found in Part II., may be taken as an epitome of this book : ' ' Health is man s birthright. It is as natural to be well as to be born. All pathological conditions ', all diseases, and all tendencies to disease are the result of the trangres- sion of physiologic and hygienic law* This is the science of health in a nutshell." 78, Elm Park Road, London, June, 1891. CONTENTS. PART I. How to Doctor. CHAPTER I. HEALTH. DISEASE. LAW OF CURE. PAGE Life based on nutrition 4 Nature's engineering 5 Healing power of nature 6 Requisites for health 7 The law of cure 8 CHAPTER II. THE BASIC ERROR OF PHYSICIANS. Soothing by opium 10 Obligation to physicians 11 A fashionable fetish 12 History repeats itself 13 CHAPTER HI. DIFFERING MODES OF MEDICINE. Hygenic obedience cures 15 Mind Cure physicians 16 Progress in forty years 17 Tendency toward recovery a law 18 Drugs modify symptoms 19 Fasting and food 20 CHAPTER IV. HOW TO DOCTOR. Why fasting benefits 22 Duration of fast «... 23 Copious draughts of hot water 24 How hot applications overcome pain 25 Hot water soothes better than opium . 26 ; One cause of constipation . 27 Law universal in its action 28 Results of eating too much • • . 29 Dr. Hall's cure for constipation . 30 Value of herb tea cathartics ... 31 A portable hot air bath 32 Office of perspiration 33 Further hygienic rules 34 CHAPTER V. DIAGNOSIS. Normal number of heart beats 36 Counting the pulse. A blood thermometer 37 Degree of heat showing danger 38 Temperature of feet and head ^"39 Value of diagnosis 40 CHAPTER VI. CONVALESCENCE. When to continue fasting 42 When to eat, and what food 43 Fruit, meat, and milk 44 Eggs and milk for vegetarians 45 Why water is the only wholesome drink 46 No stimulants. Much fresh air 47 Exercise and sleep 48 Orthodox testimony 49 Doctors generally powerless 50 CHAPTER VII. TREATMENT FOR CHILDREN. Treatment for croup and diphtheria 52 Cow's milk and woman's contrasted 53 Infant's food— Mellin's, etc. ........ 54 Improper feeding makes fretful babes 55 PART II. How to Get Well and Keep Well. CHAPTER I. PRINCIPLES OF NUTRITION. Why avoid starch foods 58 Fruit sugar better than starch 59 Starch foods induce overeating ........ 60 Simplicity in diet 61 Value of nutrition 62 Variety not necessary 63 Relish for simple foods 64 Milk with dates and figs 65 Rule for quantity of food 66 Meat and fruit diet By Tobacco, alcohol, and a simple diet 68 The best sauce is hunger , . . 69 Same food for different seasons 7° Same food for all work 71 CHAPTER II. TEA, COFFEE, AND CHOCOLATE. Theine, caffeine, bromine, and koline 73 Tea and coffee poisonous 74 Tea and tobacco related poisons 75 Opium and coffee alike 76 Tobacco a dangerous poison 77 Familiar poisons grouped ......... 78 All to be avoided 79 CHAPTER III. THE OPEN WINDOW. England and America contrasted 81 Dr. Jaeger's woolen clothing 82 The Black Hole of Calcutta 83 Inured to abuse 84 Amount of ventilation needed 85 CHAPTER IV. SLEEP AND HYGIENIC AIDS. Advantages of warm climates 87 Undue strain injurious ......... 88 Nature the true guide 89 Best conditions for sleep 90 CHAPTER V. BREATHING. -Indian children rarely die 92 Office of the nostrils 93 Infection by the mouth 94 The immunity of Indians 95 When mischief begins 96 "* Sound teeth of savages 97 The lung protector 98 CHAPTER VI. THE MORNING BATH. Injury from cold baths 100 Importance of cleanliness ......... 101 Home Turkish bath 102 Hot water better than hot air 103 Reaction guaranteed 104 Homespun methods 105 Health compensates for all 106 Irksomeness removed by habit 107 To enjoy a luxurious bath ......... 108 A cold douche become harmless 109 CHAPTER VII. FATHER KNEIPP'S WATER CURE. Father Kneipp's book . . . . - . . . . .Ill A patient saved by mildness 112 Walking barefoot in wet grass 113 CHAPTER Vin. TURKISH BATH AT HOME. Directions for bathing 115 Temperature and duration 1 16 Advantages over Turkish baths 117 Much time saved 118 A daily bath advised 119 CHAPTER IX. EXERCISE. All kinds good 121 Tricycling wearisome 122 Exercise must be attractive 123 Professor Wright's advice . 124 Bicycling recommended 125 CHAPTER X. THE SALISBURY METHOD OF CURE. Advantages claimed 127 Unending circle of beneficent forces 128 Preparing the Salisbury diet 129 Fruit with meat preferred 130 Rationale of the meat diet 131 Food for the corpulent 132 Why fruits are healthful 133 Measured amount of food 134 CHAPTER XI. COOKING. Cause of cooking cereals 136 Reasons for cooking flesh 137 y Non-starch food natural 138 CHAPTER XII. PREPARATION OF FOOD. « Nitrogenous foods 140 Why fish is preferred 141 f A wholesome pudding 142 Water the only wholesome drink 143 ■' Coarse grains irritate 144 CHAPTER XIH. WHOLEMEAL BREAD. Bran indigestible and inflaming 146 Inflammation causes flatulence 147 Bran always damages bread ........ 148 Professor Goodf ellow confirms . 149 Scientific proofs against brown bread 150 CHAPTER XIV. CONSERVATION OF FORCE. Town-bred boys excel farmers' sons 152 Overstrain proves fatal 153 Vital force proof against disease . 154 All poison habits lower vitality 155 Fear— an unread telegram kills 156 All indulgence weakens 157 f All transgressions lessen vital force 158 CHAPTER XV. CORPULENCE — ITS CAUSE AND CURE. I Table of normal weights 160 Increasing with age unnatural 161 Dr. Page's testimony . . 162 Starch foods cause corpulence 163 Water drinking not the cause 164 Obesity a disease ........... 165 Treatment for reduction 166 Some self-denial required 167 Advantages of reduction 168 A dangerous deformity .169 CHAPTER XVI. THE CURATIVE ACTION OF REGIMEN. \V Results of excess in food 171 Some mistakes of vegetarians 172 Injuries of diet cumulative . 173 Not wholly bankrupt 174 Dieting discouraged 175 I Results of bread-and-milk diet 176 To be ill is a sin 177 CHAPTER XVII. THE IMMORALITY OF FLESH-EATING. Vegetarian reasoning 179 Common sense must rule 180 Circumstances may demand meat-eating 181 Health the first requisite 182 CHAPTER XVHI. THE VALUE OF DRUGS IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE. Effect of quinine in malaria 184 Warburgh's tincture 185 Chronic sore eyes cured 186 Effect of drugs in rheumatism ........ 187 Hygienists need no medicine 188 CHAPTER XIX. SUPERSTITION CONCERNING DOCTORS. FALSE MEDICAL ETHICS. Surgeons as such excepted 190 Opium the modern delusion 191 A monopoly in medicine 192 Medical ethics screen the guilty 193 Mental healing, or mind cure 194 The question of advertising 195 The Keely cure for drunkenness ........ 196 Madame del Cin 197 Medical tyranny 198 Medical tyranny in England . ....... 199 Dr. Alabone's persecution • . • • 200 Dr. Pye Smith on doctors 201 Sir John Forbes' testimony 202 From Dr. Kimball and others 203 Drs. Richardson and Gardner 204 Professor Clark and Dr. Ramage, F.R.C.S 205 From James Johnson, M.D., F.R.S 206 Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes . . 207 Dr. Samuel Wilks — the famous Majendie 208 The indictment completed 209 CHAPTER XX. DINNERS AND DINING. Fashionable large dinners . . . . . . . . 21 1 Select private dinner 212 Sir Henry's view of moderation . 213 Fruit considered an ornament 214 All depends upon the point of view 215 Avoidable errors in diet . . .216 Sir Henry Thomson inconsistent . 217 Hunger is the best sauce . . . 218 Simplicity more healthful . . . . ' 219 PART III. The Natural Food of Man. CHAPTER I. GENERAL SURVEY. Natural term of life ,.'■-. 222 Animals in nature always well 223 ) What is man's natural food ? 224 j Fruits give greatest relish 225 /Fruit and bread — essential differences 226 Natural food digested in main stomach 227 Man's digestive organs unchanged by habit 228 The theory confirmed by facts 229 The Salisbury meat diet 230 Though vegetarians, prescribed flesh food . . . . . .231 x The milk, grape, and spa cures . 232 The author's personal experience 233 s One man's meat another's poison 234 Confirmed by tens of thousands 235 CHAPTER II. OFFICE OF THE SALIVA. Professor Goodfellow's experiments 237 Goodfellow's experiments continued 238 Experiments continued 239 Experiments on raw starch . . 240 Starch not digested in stomach ...,..«. 241 Fruit pre-digested by nature « 242 Why toasting bread aids digestion ....... 243 CHAPTER III. CAUSE AND CURE OF CONSTIPATION. Why fruit is aperient 245 Why bread is constipating 246 Starch food retained too long ........ 247 CHAPTER IV. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS. Truth always harmonious 249 CHAPTER V. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — ROWBOTHAM. A plea for progress 251 Why common salt is harmful ........ 252 Bread the staff of death . 253 Cause of premature old age ......... 254 Substitute for distilled water 255 Experiments upon fowls 256 Upon a dog, horse, and man 257 Experiment upon mother and child 258 -* Childbirth naturally painless 259 Effect of fruit on parturition 260 Another striking example 261 The more fruit and less bread the better 262 Effect of diet on teeth 263 Effect of diet on complexion and old age ...... 264 Cereal foods induce early death 265 Fruit and meat promote health and life 266 Historical proofs 267 South Sea Islanders. Herodotus 268 Why the Irish excel the English 269 Wild hog and long-lived birds 270 Elephant, horse, dog, and monkey 271 Why the poor die sooner than the rich 272 Diet of long-lived Egyptians , . . . 273 Examples of longevity .......... 274 Jenkins and the patriarchs 275 The more food taken the more deaths 276 Abstaining from bread saves life 277 CHAPTER VI. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS — DR. DE LACY EVANS. The Macrobiotic art 279 Bacon on facts 280 Causes of old age 281 Youth and old age contrasted 282 155 another who abstains from all these articles, but when- ever a test can be made it will be seen that those men who have habitually refrained from all such poisons, other things being equal, will undergo fatigue and hardship which those people accustomed to stimulants, but who may have given no sign of their being damaged thereby, will be unable to endure. No two persons are exactly alike. The sum total of the vital force of each individual depends upon the temperateness of his or her life, and the amountof vigourinherited from the parents. Persons especially vigorous are able to take a surprisingly large amount of any of these poisons with comparative impunity ; but the law is universal and unfailing. Who- ever habitually deprives himself or herself of the natural amount of sleep is lowering the bank of vitality ; the same is true of anyone who indulges in overwork, or in any of the stimulants above mentioned. All excesses are distinctly a drain upon vital energy. Exercise in mod- eration, and up to the needs of the system, is a most important and indispensable requisite, but contests in ath- letic sports conduce to overstrain, and many young men have come to their death from an excessive indulgence in these sports, while many more have permanently injured themselves. It is probable that those who have indulged in excessive strain and severe contests, and who have not noticed any unfavorable results therefrom, are dis- tinctly weakened thereby, just as the farmers and young men inured to hardship and inclement weather, although having no consciousness of illness or that their vitality had been lowered, were still seen to be deficient when pitted against those young men from the towns who had not been exposed to the severe strain and hardships in- cident to rural life. If it be true, as we maintain, that the natural life of man is from 100 to 120 years, the fact that three score years and ten is now considered the full measure wshows that the race has been so deteriorated by 156 FEAR— AN UNREAD TELEGRAM KILLS. its various excesses, indulgences, and overstrain, that there is a deficit of fully fifty years even in the case of those who have escaped the mortality of childhood ; and this deficit is the result of the various strains and ex- cesses that abound upon every side. The graduate of the university who has indulged in athletic contests, and unconsciously damaged himself thereby, has still a store of vitality sufficient to enable him to overstrain again when he comes to the competitive contests of professional or business life, and the sum total of his excesses, made up of undersleep, overwork and the like, constitutes the cause of his premature death — we say premature, though he may have reached the traditional seventy years. Fear and intense solicitude of all kinds are distinctly a drain upon vital force. An illustration of the terrible effects that may result from fear occurs in a case recently narrated by the public press. A woman solicitous about the welfare of a son at a distance received a telegram from those watching over him, bearing to her the glad tidings that the crisis had been reached and that her son was out of danger. Without opening the despatch the anxious mother, overcome by her fears that its contents were unfavorable, died almost instantly. In this case the strain was so great that everyone could see its deadly effect. In the majority of instances, although people are distinctly damaged, and are given less power to withstand the encroachments of disease, and have their term of life distinctly shortened, they nevertheless are unconscious of any permanent harm for the simple rea- son that the debit and credit account of their vital force is not kept and published by nature from day to day. One of the advantages of the Mind Cure or Christian Science movement that in recent times has attracted so much attention in America, and which is being also agi- tated somewhat in England, is that it allays fear and therefore cuts off one source of the waste of vital force. ALL INDULGENCE WEAKENS. 157 Anger or rage is a severe strain upon the vital powers ; and for this reason, if for no other, it is a condition that everyone should strive to avoid. The indulgence of the passion^ is another fruitful source of diminished vitality, crippled usefulness, and shortened life. As in the other sources before mentioned, the victim is not conscious that his powers are being un- dermined, but there are abundant proofs that it is true notwithstanding. We earnestly maintain that the pur- suit of pleasure for pleasure's sake, wherein any physical act is concerned, is not lawful ; and that violation of this law always results in a greater or less diminution of the powers of life. If mankind could in a day be persuaded to refrain from indulgence in the sexual relation except for purposes of procreation, an amazing improvement, in greater freedom from nervous disease and from all dis- eased conditions that have their source in the nervous system, would be at once manifest. Overeating is another abuse, and, like the one just named, as universal as the race. As elsewhere pointed out in this work, digestion is distinctly under control of the nervous system. Nature is equal to the performance of all needed duties, and the digestion of a needed amount of natural food, in normal conditions, requires no exhaustion of vital force. But when more food is taken than is required for the needs of the system, not only that food must be digested from which the system absorbs its needed nutrition, but the excess must be dis- posed of, and this involves a heavy drain upon vitality. Furthermore, the use of all starch foods, as elsewhere elaborately shown in this work, produces a great waste of vital power. This list could be further extended, but enough has probably been said to impress the thoughtful student of hygiene with the great importance of this subject. Our chief purpose is to impress it upon the reader that be- 158 ALL TRANSGRESSIONS LESSEN VITAL FORCE. cause there is no daily registration of the damage done the system by overwork, overeating, insufficient sleep, the use of stimulants and narcotics, and the indulgence of the appetites and passions, or the use of starch foods, it does not follow that there is not a daily deterioration of the vis natura or natural force of the individual. In- deed, there is abundant evidence to prove that such de- terioration is inevitable. Thousands of persons now oc- cupants of insane asylums, and tens of thousands who are suffering a living death of gloom and melancholy be- cause of a debilitated nervous system, are the victims of the various poison habits, excesses, and dietetic errors herein referred to. CHAPTER XV. CORPULENCE— ITS CAUSE AND CURE. One who has abstained from intoxicants until middle life, but who nevertheless, from incorrect diet, or over- work, or any such reason finds himself or herself in somewhat frail health, if persuaded to take light wine or beer with meals is apt at first to feel decided improve- ment. The stimulus of the wine for a time increases the digestive powers, and the patient consequently has an improved appetite, and digests and assimilates a greater amount of nourishment. Unfortunately the alcohol, which has done some good by stimulating the appetite and digestion, soon begins its work of under- mining the nervous system, and in due time, if its en- tire effect be considered, it will be found to have done decidedly more harm than good. Likewise, anyone who has been in rather frail health up to middle life, and perhaps somewhat emaciated, and finds himself or herself eating more food and with a better relish than formerly, and notices also a gradual increase in weight and roundness, considers these unmis- takable evidences of improved health. Very few even among physicians are aware of the dangers which threaten such an individual. If a person in such circumstances should so manage his or her diet as not to permit a greater accumulation of flesh than is normal or natural, the threatened dangers would be avoided. According to a record of averages compiled by insurance companies, i6o TABLE OF NORMAL WEIGHTS. taken from observation of over three thousand persons, the normal or natural weights for given heights are in accordance with the following table, which includes the weight of ordinary clothing : Table of Relative Height and Weight. Height. Min. Weight. Max. Weight. Average. 5 98 132 1*5 5-i I02 138 I20 5-2 106 144 !25 5-3 III I50 I30 ' 135/ 5-4 "5 155 5-5 119 l6l I40 5-6 121 165 143 5-7 123 167 145 5-8 126 170 I48 5-9 131 179 155 5-i° I36 184 l6o 5" 138 190 165 6 141 196 I70 6.1 144 202 175 6.2 153 207 l8o 6.3 157 213 185 Unfortunately nearly all persons — including a large proportion of physicians — are under the impression that a moderate obesity, when occurring in middle life, is natural to many human beings. Scientific physicians are aware that there is only a small amount of adipose tissue — some seven pounds in a person weighing 154 — in the human organism ; and are also aware that each pound above the normal amount is a detriment in vari- ous ways. Among the more serious of these may be mentioned the pressure upon the vital organs caused by increasing surplus flesh, and the degeneration of the heart and other organs that frequently follows in obesity's INCREASING WITH AGE UNNATURAL. 161 train. But a majority of these same physicians, un- aware of the readiness with which obesity or corpulence can be controlled, regard this infirmity as if it were in- evitable; and have no thought whatever either of its serious nature or of advising such measures as are sure to reduce and control it. As before stated, the most unfortunate feature in regard to the encouragement of this disease is the well-nigh universal ignorance concern- ing it, — the conviction on the part of most persons that a moderate rotundity and increase of weight in middle life is desirable rather than otherwise. Many people have rheumatism in middle life. Among some races and peoples cases of rheumatism are far more frequent than are cases of obesity or corpulence among others. But rheumatism or similar disorders give a convincing demonstration of their unnaturalness the moment they take possession of the human frame ; whereas during the early years of obesity the victim is quite apt to feel an increase of vigour, and enjoy better health than before the obesity commenced. It is not alone in the presence of a surplus amount of flesh in the system, encroaching upon the vital organs, and interfering with their natural and needed activity, that the danger of obesity lies ; the obese are more sus- ceptible to attacks of illness of all kinds than persons of normal weight. In the matter of taking cold the obese are, as a rule, much more liable than they were before obesity supervened. Rheumatism is more frequent and more severe. The same is true of the frequency and severity of attacks of sick headache, neuralgia, and simi- lar disorders. Mr. Banting, whose name has become famous by his writings upon this subject, was afflicted with partial deafness, and the reduction of his obesity largely restored his hearing. In a practice extending over a number of years, we have had many cases where a similar restoration of hearing followed the reduction of 1 62 DR. PAGE'S TESTIMONY. obesity. Inflammatory diseases of all kinds, as before said, are most apt to attack the obese or corpulent, and readers will be able to perceive from observation among their own acquaintances that the corpulent are not as long-lived and do not enjoy as good health as others. A gifted hygienic physician, Dr. C. M. Page, in treating this topic writes : " A fat person, at whatever period of life, has not a sound tissue in his body ; not only is the entire muscular system degenerated with the fatty particles, but the vital organs — heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver, etc., — are likewise mottled throughout, like rust spots in a steel watch spring, liable to fail at any moment. The gifted Gambetta, whom M. Rochefort styled the fatted satrap, died — far under his prime — because of his depraved con- dition ; a slight gunshot wound from which a clean man would have speedily recovered ended this obese diabetic's life. Events sufficiently convincing are constantly occur- ring on both sides of the Atlantic ; every hour men are rolling into ditches of death because they do not learn how to live. These ditches have fictitious names — grief, fright, apoplexy, kidney troubles, heart disease, etc.,-— but the true name is chronic self -abuse." Fortunately there is a considerably greater apprehen- sion in the public mind now than a few years ago as to the evils of growing fat. The writings of Mr. Banting, an enthusiastic layman who was greatly helped by a re- duction of obesity, and whose interest in his fellow men prompted him to make as widely known as possible some thirty years ago his method of cure, has done much to dispel some of the dense ignorance concerning this topic ; and in more recent years the illness of Bismarck, and his restoration through the reduction of his obesity, was also a great help to spread knowledge on this most important subject. The exciting cause of obesity is the ingestion of more food that the system requires, together with the weaken- ing of the excretory organs, which results in the failure STARCH FOODS CAUSE CORPULENCE. 163 of the system to adequately throw off its waste matter. But the profound and primal cause of obesity will one day be recognized to be the use of cereal and starch foods. An obese person weighing two, four, or six stone, or twenty-five, fifty, or eighty pounds, or even a still larger amount, more than is natural, may be given a diet of flesh with water, with or without the addition of starch- less vegetables, as lettuce, watercress, tomatoes, spinach, and the like, excluding bread, pulses, and potatoes, and the patient will be gradually but surely reduced to his normal weight. A perseverance in this diet is sure to prevent a return to obesity. As soon, however, as the patient returns to his usual diet of bread and potatoes he straightway begins to increase in weight ; and while an obese patient can easily be reduced eight pounds per month when placed upon a flesh diet, he will gain fully this much or more upon returning to a free use of bread and starch vegetables. If this patient who has been reduced, and who has again developed obesity, is per- suaded to again adopt the exclusive flesh diet, again the reduction is sure to take place ; and in the course of our practice this process has been repeated among many patients, and in a few a reduction and return to flesh has been repeated three times. It is plain from such demon- strations that without starch foods co rpulency would not exist. Chemically starch foods are chiefly carbon ; adi- pose tissue is also carbon, and it would naturally be ex- pected that a diet of oil and the fat of animal flesh would contribute quite as much to obesity as bread and starch foods. But experience proves that such is not the case. The reason for this is not, in the present state of science, understood ; it will likely be found in the fact that starch foods undergo a complicated process of digestion, where- as oils require only emulsion to render them assimilable by the system. If an autopsy be held upon the body of an obese 1 64 WATER DRINKING NOT THE CAUSE. person, the abnormal weight will be found to be due to an accumulation of adipose tissue and water — the pres- ence of water in the tissue is plainly visible and adds considerably to the bulk. From this fact has arisen the practice of advising obese persons to drink as little water as possible. A moderate amount of shrinkage can be accomplished by this course ; but it is one which we do not recommend. Water is a necessity to the organism ; it is invaluable not only in keeping up the volume of the blood, but in aiding the excretion of waste matter through the bowels and kidneys. And since a reduction can safely, and in a majority of instances quite rapidly be induced by a non-starch diet and an unlimited amount of water, we do not favour limiting the patient in the amount of liquid. The courage and strength of conviction possessed by the average family doctor is curious to behold. It will be found to be inversely to the ratio of his knowledge. The less conversant he is with this malady the greater confidence he seems to have in his opinions. During the years that we were in practice some hundreds of patients came to us for assistance in this trouble, a large number of whom were under the control of their family physician. Many of these patients came in defiance of the express orders of their physicians ; and while they had assumed courage enough to disobey their orders and come to us, they needed much encouragement to en- able them to proceed with any confidence. They were usually told by their medical advisers that in them it was natural to be stout, that they had ' ' better leave well enough alone," and the direst results were prophesied in the event that they had the temerity to proceed. In point of fact these patients quite invariably experienced nothing but the happiest results. Many of them came out of an interest in their personal appearance ; finding their figures destroyed and their beauty going, they OBESITY IS A DISEASE. 165 desired restoration to their youthful form and feature. Others, again, were annoyed at clumsiness in getting about, shortness of breath in climbing stairs, and the general awkwardness and inconvenience that result from this "too, too solid flesh." Only a small proportion of these patients came from a knowledge that obesity is a disease, that it encourages other states of inflammation and other diseases, and that its reduction is a great aid in the return of health. But while these patients as a rule did not come to us with this expectation, it was common for them to testify to great benefits that had resulted from their treatment. These benefits were quite frequently greater than the patient would readily admit or remember. It was our custom, with all patients beginning treatment, to take the name, age, height, weight, and a list of the infirmities, if any, from which they were suffering. These details were elicited by a series of questions, and the answers duly recorded. Out of sight out of mind is the old adage ; and human beings are fortunately so conditioned that when their aches and pains have taken flight they forget not infre- quently that they were ever present. Many of these patients would have stoutly denied the benefit rendered but for the diagnosis taken at the beginning of treat- ment, and a reference to which only would convince them of the condition they had been in. The proper treatment for the reduction of obesity is as simple as it is effective. Many people are under the impression that it is necessary to take unwonted exercise ; and that taking only a very limited amount of fluid is permissible. In point of fact, all that is necessary is to induce the patient resolutely to abstain from all bread, cereals, and starchy vegetables. Almost any flesh food is admissible, although the lean will be found to be more favourable to reduction than the fat, and beef is more effective and desirable than any other. A patient will 166 TREATMENT FOR REDUCTION. need from one pound to two and a half pounds per day, according to the amount of obesity and the amount of exercise that must be taken. The obese patient rarely needs more than two meals a day. We usually ordered patients to abstain from their breakfast, to take their first meal about twelve o'clock, and the last one at the usual dinner time — six, seven, or eight in the even- ing. Many patients weighing from ioo to 250 pounds (from seven to eighteen stone) more than is natural will frequently be adequately nourished on a half-pound of lean beef taken twice a day, and from two to four pints of hot water taken before meals and before going to bed. Others again of less obesity and with greater need for exercise or work require about double this amount of food, and in some instances even more. Most patients unaccustomed to this diet are apt to think it a great hardship to eat beef, and beef only, and we made it a custom to allow these patients not only lettuce, cress, and such salads, but a moderate amount of spinach, tomatoes, and similar starchless vegetables. These foods contain substantially no nourishment, but they distend the stomach and afford bulk, which is thought by many physiologists to be important. At the same time, any person who will confine himself or herself to beef only will in a few weeks find no inconvenience whatever from this diet. It must be understood, however, that the cessa- tion of the use of bread and the accustomed vegetables is usually followed by constipation, and a mild cathartic is indispensable. We gave our patients one made from aperient herbs. The corpulent patient reading this and resolving to follow this treatment is recommended to read the chap- ter entitled " The Curative Action of Regimen." For reasons explained in that chapter nature not infrequently seizes upon a favourable moment for accomplishing re- pairs in the organism; and when a patient who has SOME SELF-DENIAL REQUIRED. 167 really had profound difficulties to contend with ceases the use of coarse foods and those which are difficult of digestion, and commences an exclusive diet of beef in small quantities each day, such a person is expending relatively so small an amount of vital power upon diges- tion that the system is encouraged to undertake repairs. While this is going on, as is more fully explained in the chapter referred to, the patient is liable to have lassitude and a feeling of general weariness ; but if he or she finds himself or herself in this situation, and will only perse- vere, this unpleasant state of affairs will soon gradually pass away, and the patient will almost invariably find not only a return to a more normal weight and shape, and to an increased ease in getting about, but a much greater freedom from the accustomed headache, or neuralgia, or bronchitis, or liability to take cold, and a distinct in- crease in vigour and general health. We do not wish to disguise the fact that considerable will-power and self-denial, on the part of the obese pa- tient who is otherwise in fair health and possesses a vigorous appetite, are required to faithfully follow the treatment. Such persons are apt to be obliged resolutely to abstain from those foods which they have been accus- tomed to, the temptations to partake of which they will meet nearly everywhere. This is also true, however, of the moderate drinker or smoker who discontinues his al- cohol or tobacco. The difficulty of mastering habit in these matters is no reason why it should not be at- tempted, nor why it should not be accomplished as suc- cessfully in regard to the course of diet necessary to re- duce obesity as in regard to tobacco and liquor. As re- gards the amount of difficulty to be overcome, or the self-denial to be exercised, it is fortunate that this is felt in its severity only a few days. Anyone who will reso- lutely abstain from all forbidden foods, and as resolutely confine himself or herself to the lean of beef and to hot iC8 ADVANTAGES OP REDUCTION. water as a drink, will find after a week or two an excel- lent appetite for the needed amount of food ; and more- over, within twenty minutes of the time a meal is fin- ished the patient will find himself not only free from craving or longing for any kind of food, but distinctly lighter and in better condition than when partaking of the usual diet. As before remarked, strong resolution and self-denial are required at the outset. But persever- ance will soon reduce the self-denial to a minimum. The advantages of this reduction are manifold. It is not alone that the former victim to obesity is able to get about with old-time ease and facility, to walk fast or run, climb stairs, etc., without getting out of breath; but perhaps the most important benefits arise from the in- creased health and vigour of the patient and the reduced liability to the encroachment of disease. There are few persons who are without regard for their personal appearance. A tumor arising in one cheek which enlarges it quite out of all proportion to the other would be recognized by all as a deformity. If, however, a tumor should arise in each cheek, while the balance of the face would be preserved plainly there would be deformity all the same. If, going further, this tumor was almost equally distributed over the whole body, the deformity would be less marked because the distribution would be more general, and the symmetry better maintained. All the same, the equal distribution of the tumor of obesity does not save it from being a deformity or mild monstrosity. The transformation that takes place from the grace and symmetry of a youthful figure and the embonpoint of middle life is so gradual that the victim has no daily notification of it, and his friends and companions also usually fail to notice it. Any person can, however, readily see the extent of this de- formity or monstrosity by noting the grace and easy movements of a willowy young actor or actress upon the OBESITY A DANGEROUS DEFORMITY. 169 stage, and by imagining what the effect would be if this actor or actress were transformed in a moment into an obese person who would carry himself or herself with difficulty, and go through the part with the consequent awkwardness. A scene of great beauty would instantly become ludicrous and repugnant. An artist in the por- traiture of ideal men and women is no more apt to repre- sent them as obese than to depict them the victims of any other disease or monstrosity. The Three Graces repre- sented by three corpulent women would at once be grace- less and disgraceful. Because the change from the sym- metry of youth to the stoutness of middle life has re- quired years of time instead of a moment to accomplish, as in the hypothetical illustration of the stage, in an ab- solute sense the transformation is no less repugnant and monstrous. It is our contention not only that it is natural for human beings to be well, but also the inten- tion of nature that the supple, graceful forms of youth should remain throughout old age ; and that a man or woman at eighty should have substantially the same fig- ure as at twenty. CHAPTER XVI. THE CURATIVE ACTION OF REGIMEN. The following essay was published under the above heading in the London Vegetarian (February 4th, 1888), a year and a half before we made the discovery of the injurious nature of cereal and starch foods. It is repro- duced in this connection because it is believed to be a valuable statement of an important physiological law, namely, that after a person who has for years been transgressing the laws of his being, for example, in the matter of diet, is placed upon a more natural and whole- some regimen, such person is not unlikely for a time to exhibit greater weakness and lassitude than before the change to a more favourable diet was made. We hold that this phenomenon is the result of the apparent per- ception on the part of the occult forces of nature that under the improved conditions a favourable opportunity is given to undertake repairs ; and while this recupera- tive work is going on, and the vital energies of the sys- tem are being devoted to this restoration, there is not vital force enough in addition to carry on the usual pro- cesses of life with even that vigour that was manifested before the restoration was undertaken. At first thought it seems strange, in view of the fact that cereal and starch foods are shown to be unnatural and unwholesome, that the change from an ordinary mixed diet to the usual vegetarian regimen should prove beneficial, since theoretically such converts are eating a RESULTS OF EXCESS IN FOOD. 171 food more exclusively composed of starch foods than be- fore. This does not necessarily happen. One of the greatest errors in diet is eating too much — using an amount of food greatly in excess of the needs of the sys- tem. When a person who has been following the ordi- nary diet becomes interested in vegetarianism, and becomes a convert, he or she is very apt at the same time to learn the importance of temperance and a more hygi- enic life. In obeying a prompting to follow this hygienic life, very frequently a much smaller amount of food is taken than before, and hence in many instances an act- ually smaller quantity of starch foods than was before consumed. This, together with the fact that a convert to vegetarianism is apt to use less tea, coffee, wine, and the like, and in general to live more simply and more in accordance with hygienic demands, is the explanation of why it is that such converts not infrequently make unmistakable gains in their conditions of health, although in many instances starch forms a larger proportion of the food than before. For many years before the discovery of the natural food system, it was our custom to put a large majority of invalids not obese who came to us for treatment upon an exclusive diet of brown bread and milk. This food was usually given three times a day, only in such quan- tity as was demanded by the appetite and thoroughly relished. No other food whatever was added. We now perceive that milk bore a more important part in the beneficial results attained than we took note of at the time ; but certain it is that the patients who were per- suaded to adopt that simple diet and to continue its use for months, sometimes even for years, were wonderfully benefited. It is to be remembered that they were not permitted the use of tea, coffee, or wine, and that water constituted their only drink. The following is the article referred to; SOME MISTAKES OF VEGETARIANS.* By Dr. Helen Densmore. Health is man s birthright. It is as natural to be well as to be born. All pathological conditions ', all diseases and all tendencies to disease, are the result of the transgression of hygienic and physiologic law. This is the science of health in a nut-shell. But man has traveled far from his first estate. Through the devious ways of civilization he has forgot- ten, if he ever knew, the higher law of physical life, and has become effete, diseased, and prematurely decrepit. It is also true that he is not at all aware that his physical troubles all come from such disobedience ; does not know that he has a right to health, that he need no more be ill when he understands this, than to get drunk or to steal. And this is the gospel that the food reform prop- aganda is destined to give to the world. But in reading the literature, and listening to the speeches at vegetarian meetings, I often regret the rose- ate picture that is painted by its enthusiastic agitators of the benefits which they say are sure to come easily and quickly with the change from the present diet of civiliza- tion to a plain, non-flesh diet, advocated by this new dis- pensation. No warnings are sounded that there may be quicksands ahead ; no danger signals are given that there may be troubled waters before reaching port in safety, and no lights to show the way safely out of the shoals. There is ignorance on all sides regarding the cura- tive action that is likely to be set up in the system when this change is first made, and this accounts for so many well-intentioned experimenters trying it for a time and deciding against it after trial, because it did not seem to agree with them. When a man who has been addicted to the use of stimulating drinks desires to reform, and stops the use * This essay is here given as originally published except that it is modi- fied, in the matter of diet, to conform to recent discoveries concerning the deleterious nature of starch foods — bread, cereals, pulses, and potatoes. — H. D. INJURIES OF DIET CUMULATIVE. 17 3 of such drinks, taking water instead, lie is quite apt to feel ill at first. He often loses his appetite, grows thin, and finds himself in a less vigorous state physically ; but he knows well enough that, if he resumes his accus- tomed drams, he will soon brace up, and for the time feel better. Similar experience is likely to follow the breaking off of any poison habit. Indeed, it is the opinion of eminent medical authorities that, after the habit of arsenic eating has been followed for many years, it is impossible to wholly discontinue it without fatal results. This condition is well understood in regard to leaving of! tobacco, morphine, chloral, etc., and when lassitude, and loss of strength follow, no apprehension is felt. The truth is, that errors in diet become a fixed habit to which the system will cling, notwithstanding injuri- ous results ; tea and coffee are unnatural stimulants, and when one has used them for thirty, forty or fifty years, the habit is fixed, and nature, true to her purpose of preserving life at all hazards, proceeds to adjust the system to the intruder in the most favourable manner. Physiologists explain that a dose of poison strong enough to kill instantly may be divided into small doses, and taken at intervals, and the effect not be noticeable at the time, but that it becomes cumulative in effect; and though it takes much longer, it does its full work in time. So the results of injurious diet is cumulative, and has its effect in ten, twenty, forty or more years, in rheumatism, gout, kidney affections, cancer, pulmonary consumption, and so on to the end of the chapter ; and when the system is released from this cause of trouble, when the habit is changed from the diet of civilization to a more natural one, relieved of the necessity of stand- ing guard at the digestive tube to dispose of the poison- ous elements daily taken into the stomach to the best possible advantage, nature at once proceeds to set up a curative action — the elimination of accumulated disease germs ; and this action is quite likely to create some of the same symptoms seen in the case of the reformed drunkard, viz., lassitude, loss of appetite, dyspeptic symp- toms, etc. If, at this juncture, a wise food-reformer, 174 NOT WHOLLY BANKRUPT. himself acquainted with this truth, explains this mani- festation, exciting the "expectant attention" of the patient, who patiently waits for the promised results, then will follow all the joys — and they can hardly be overdrawn — that are painted by the most enthusiastic devotee of a natural diet. In a personal experience and medical practice of years devoted to hygienic and dietetic methods, Dr. Densmore and I have proved the correctness of this in hundreds of cases. But such is the nature of prejudice, and the tendency to cling to old schools and forms, that when these manifestations appear, even when warned, and so somewhat prepared for them, more fall through the fear born of this ignorance of the curative action than continue the food-reform life ; and if it is difficult when warned, how much more difficult when totally ignorant of the real cause of the trouble, and what won- der is it that so many succumb? If it were true that, after so many years of abuse, we could stop the wrong course of living, and all the blessings of health follow immediately, it would be proof that this disobedience is not so bad after all. When we consider the wonderful mechanism of the human organ- ism, the certainty with which all of its organs perform their allotted work, the inevitable penalty that has to be paid for every physiological sin that is committed, and then consider the trangressions committed for so many years, before the bills of credit began to mature, we ought not to be surprised that it takes a few years to repair the damage done in a life-time ; and, instead of complaining at the discomfort entailed, we should rather be thankful that it is not too late ; that our accounts are not closed, and we found to be totally bankrupt in health. It is true that some do make this change with very little or no discomfort. Such persons are favoured with strong constitutional powers that have enabled them to resist the inroads of disease and the development of hereditary tendencies, or are free from such tendencies. Others, having strong digestive powers, are enabled to digest and assimilate unaccustomed food from the first, and so get on comparatively well ; being well nourished, DIETING DISCOURAGED. 175 the craving for the stimulating foods abandoned is not so great, and improvement in the physical condition begins to be felt immediately. This would happen gen- erally with the young at once. But by far the larger number meet the curative action sooner or later, and it may not come for some time. With the drunkard the curative action is recognized at once ; all know that it is not the water that is making him ill, but the alcoholic poison which he had been be- fore accustomed to. So mother, sister, sweetheart, and friends with one accord appeal to him to keep up his courage, notwithstanding his apparently bad symptoms. How differently is the poor dyspeptic treated when he attempts to reform in diet ! With one accord his friends try to prevail upon him to abandon it ; assure him that he is killing himself ; read him tomes of medical author- ities to show that he is impoverishing his blood by this " low diet; " and when he returns to the old injurious diet, just as with the dram of spirits in the case of the drunkard, the effect is to stop the curative action ; he feels braced up, and this is taken as proof that he was all wrong, and the accumulation of disease commences again. Another mistake of food-reformers is in painting a too roseate picture of the change, from a failure to rec- ognize the price demanded of the devotee in the divorce- ment which a strictly hygienic life, conscientiously car- ried forward, causes from one's accustomed social life. Eating is made so much a feature of every form of social communion, that to refuse to enter into its artificial pleasures is looked upon by hosts and guests alike as an impoliteness. It is somewhat like a total abstainer giv- ing a midnight revel and refusing to drink wine. This is one of the difficulties to be admitted and met, when the pros and cons of this new reform in food are being discussed. It is well known, when one has become accustomed to the poison habit of opium, alcohol, or tobacco, that it is a slavery difficult to overthrow. It will be found that the habit of eating improper food, when once formed, is also difficult to be overcome, and if to this there has been 176 RESULTS OF BREAD-AND-MILK DIET. added the baneful habit of tea and coffee drinking, the inconvenience is increased. The difficulty of overcom- ing these pernicious habits is made still greater when the attitude of one's companions, friends, and society is taken into account. A mistake is often made in counseling a too- abrupt change. If one is young, or has great vigour, and the powers of digestion and assimilation have not been too much weakened by unnatural foods, and the necessary quantity of natural foods can be easily digested and as- similated — such a person can be advantageously put upon fruit and nuts at once, and all will go well. But most persons have so long depended upon improper foods for a large share of their nourishment that their digestive organs have become weakened ; and if such people are persuaded abruptly to change to brown bread and fruit, it will be found they are quite likely to suffer from flatu- lence, indigestion, etc., and, what is worse, their weak- ened stomachs have not the required vigour necessary to abstract the needed nourishment from cereal foods, and they really suffer from lack of nourishment; this is a prolific source of disease. We have found that such per- sons thrive much better for a time — some patients have persevered for years — on bread and milk than on bread and fruit. This is because milk is much more easily digested and assimilated by weakened stomachs than bread ; at the same time, we do not regard milk as a natural or desirable food, but as a most invaluable crutch on which the enfeebled victim may lean in passing from the usual diet of civilization to a fruit diet. One, two, and even three years of milk yield the most satisfactory results, where an abrupt change to bread and fruit would result in emaciation, weakness, discouragement, and their abandonment — or worse.* It is natural and *We have had many instances of entire success with patients who had a life-long dislike of milk, and with others who liked the taste, but had sup- posed they could not use it ; said it did not "agree" with them, that it gave them indigestion, heaviness, and made them "bilious. " We have found that, while it is true that such persons cannot use milk in addition to the usual hotel and mixed diet, when they are put upon a monotonous diet of brown bread and milk, and when necessary all other food excluded a few days — in extreme cases a few weeks — all difficulty has disappeared. We insist that the patient must not drink the milk, but eat only so much of TO BE ILL IS A SIN. 177 desirable that the digestive organs should have vigorous exercise in performing their physiological functions; and fruit and nuts afford just the exercise needed. A man in vigorous health needs exercise — it is indispens- able ; but it is often as unwise to put an enfeebled invalid abruptly on a diet of nuts and fruit as to insist that a sedentary invalid, unaccustomed to exercise, shall at once commence a daily constitutional of eight miles. But after all these difficulties are fully acknowledged and appreciated, and due weight allowed for all the drawbacks it is possible to discover, there is quite enough of blessedness and compensation to charm any earnest soul who has an ambition to take his birth- right — Health. It is just this ambition for health that is sadly lacking in the modern mind. There was a glimpse of sanity in the old Spartan practice of putting to death the weak, sickly, and deformed children at birth. It was a dim perception of the truth that to be ill is a monstrosity. And when we learn that illness is always the result of disobedience to law ; when we come to know that it need never be, — that it comes only with the violation of plainly written laws of health, we shall see an entirely different attitude towards illness, in what- ever form it makes its appearance. And, moreover, when we learn that the pleasures of life, judged from the sensuous standpoint alone, are much greater when fol- lowing this simple diet, — that we enjoy more physical, delight in the newness and fullness of increased vitality, clearer brains, stronger powers in every direction, and no illness, lassitude, or fear of these, — surely this will be motive strong enough, when once conviction is se- cured, to induce all men and women, whatever their station in life, to adopt it. From the royal family to the most humble of her Majesty's subjects, dietetic re- form is the most important material truth of this wonder- ful age, and means the restoration of the ill to health, and the possibility of making health a permanent condition. it as the bread will absorb. By using the milk with the bread its mastica- tion insures insalivation. We insist that no more shall be taken than is thoroughly relished, and if the patient tires of it— the result of the curative action before mentioned — abstain from all food until the appetite is restored. CHAPTER XVIL THE IMMORALITY OF FLESH-EATING. In these days of vegetarianism and theosophy a phy- sician is often met with objection on the part of patients to a diet of flesh, which objection will usually be found to be based on the conviction — a growing one through- out civilization — that it is wrong to slaughter animals, and therefore wrong to use their flesh as food. What- ever may be the ultimate decision of humanity in regard to this question, at the present time it is not infrequently a very serious one to the physician. A patient comes to him much out of health, earnestly desiring to follow the necessary course and practice the necessary self-denial to gain health, and the physician is fully impressed that the patient's digestive apparatus and general system is in such condition that flesh is well-nigh indispensable in a dietary system that will restore the patient to health, — under such circumstances this question will be found of grave importance. What constitutes morality in diet ? Manifestly, many animals are intended by nature to live upon other animals. To our apprehension the intention of nature, when it can be ascertained, authoritatively disposes of this matter. If it could be shown, as many physicians believe, that man is by nature omnivorous, and designed to eat flesh among other foods, this would be a conclu- sive demonstration that it was right for him to eat flesh. If, as we believe, nature intended man should subsist upon sweet fruits and nuts, there is not only no license for flesh-eating, but the reverse, — there is presumptive VEGETARIAN REASONING. 179 evidence that it is wrong to eat flesh. Physiological law must be the court of last resort in which to try this question. Vegetarians and others scruple at the purchase of a beef -steak on the ground that the money so expended encourages the butcher in the slaughter of the animal, and thereby identifies the one who expends the money with the slaughter. If this reason be given in earnest it should be binding, and its logic followed under all circumstances. While it is true that the purchase of a pound of beef identifies the purchaser with the slaughter of the animal, the purchase of a dozen eggs or a quart of milk as clearly identifies the purchaser with the slaughter of animals ; for the reason that the laws governing the production of agricultural products are such that the farmer cannot profitably produce milk or eggs except he sell for slaughter some of the cocks and male calves, as well as those animals that have passed the productive period. True, there is no particular animal slain to pro- duce a given quart of milk or a dozen of eggs, as there is in the production of a pound of beef-steak ; but the sin is not in the slaughter of a given animal, but in the slaughter of animals, and it must therefore be acknowl- edged that animals are as surely slaughtered for the production of milk and eggs as for the production of beef -steak. And hence, since this is a question of ethics, we may as well be honest while dealing with it ; and if an ethical student honestly refrains from the purchase of flesh because it identifies him with the slaughter of animals, there is no escaping, if he be logical and ethical, from the obligation to refuse also to purchase milk and eggs. This law applies as well to wool and leather, and to everything made from these materials; because, as before shown, agriculture is at present so conducted that the farmer cannot profitably produce wool and leather unless he sells the flesh of animals to be used as food. 180 COMMON SENSE MUST RULE. Looking at the matter in this light, almost all of us will be found in a situation demanding compromise. If a delicate patient be allowed eggs, milk, and its products, and the patient is able to digest these foods, so far as physiological needs are concerned there is no serious difficulty in refraining from the use of flesh as food ; but if these ethical students hew to the line, have the cour- age of their convictions, accept the logic of their position, and refrain from the use of animal products altogether, there will be a breakdown very soon. There are a few isolated cases where individuals have lived upon bread and fruit to the exclusion of animal products, but such cases are rare, and usually end in disaster. We are, after all, in a practical world, and must bring common sense to bear upon the solution of practical problems. The subject of the natural food of man will be found treated somewhat at length in Part III. In this chapter it is designed only to point out some of the difficulties that inevitably supervene upon an attempt to live a consistent life, and at the same time refuse to use flesh on the ground that such use identifies the eater with the slaughter of animals. There seems to us good ground for the belief that fruit and nuts constituted the food of primitive man, and are the diet intended by nature for him. Remember, primitive man was not en- gaged in the competitive strife incident to modern life ; the prolonged hours of labour and excessive toil that are necessary to success in competitive pursuits in these times were not incidental to that life. Undoubtedly an individual with robust digestive powers, who is not called upon to expend more vitality than is natural and health- ful, will have no difficulty whatever in being adequately nourished on raw fruits and nuts. When, however, a denizen of a modern city, obliged to work long hours and perform excessive toil, can only succeed in such endeavors by a diet that will give him the greatest CIRCUMSTANCES MAY DEMAND MEAT EATING. 181 amount of nourishment for the least amount of digestive strain, it will be found that the flesh of animals usually constitutes a goodly portion of such diet. It may be said to be a pre-digested food, and one that requires the mini- mum expenditure of vital force for the production of the maximum amount of nutrition. However earnest a student of ethics may be, however such a student may desire to live an ideal life, if he finds himself so circum- stanced that a wife and family are dependent upon his exertions for a livelihood, and if it be necessary, in order adequately to sustain him in his work, that he shall have resort to a diet in which the flesh of animals is an im- portant factor, there is no escape, in our opinion, from the inevitable conclusion that it is his duty to adopt that diet which enables him to meet best the obligations rest- ing upon him. An invalid with no family to support, and with in- dependent means, may nevertheless find himself in a similar situation with regard to the problem of flesh- eating. We have found many persons whose inherited vitality was small at the outset, and whose course of life had been such as to greatly weaken the digestive powers, and who when they came to us were in such a state of prostration as to require, like the competitive worker, the greatest amount of nourishment for the least amount of digestive strain ; and yet such persons have duties in life to perform, and are not privileged knowingly to pursue any course that necessarily abbreviates their life or diminishes their usefulness. The conviction is clear to us that the plain duty of persons so circumstanced is to use that diet which will best contribute to a restoration of their digestive powers and the development of a fair share of vital energy. When this result has been reached, these persons may easily be able to dispense with flesh food and even animal products, and to obtain satisfactory results from a diet of fruit and nuts. i32 HEALTH THE FIRST REQUISITE. A true physician must make every effort to overcome the illness of his patients, and to put them on the road to a recovery of health. To our mind there is, in the solution of this problem, a clear path for the ethical student to follow. We believe that health is man's birthright, and that it becomes his bounden duty to use all efforts within his power to obtain and maintain it. We believe that sickness is a sin; that it unfits the victim for his duties in life ; that through illness our life becomes a misery to ourselves, and a burden to our fel- lows ; and where this result is voluntarily incurred it be- comes a shame and a disgrace. Manifestly the body is intended for the use of the spirit, and its value depends upon its adaptability for such use. In the ratio that the body is liable to be invaded by disease is its usefulness impaired. The old saying, ' ' a sound mind in a sound body," is the outcome of a perception of this truth. The saying that cleanliness is next to godliness is based upon the perception that cleanliness is necessary for the health of the body, and that the health of the body is necessary for the due expression of a godly life. When this truth is adequately understood it will be seen by the vegetarian, the theosophist, and the ethical student that health is the first requisite ; that it becomes a religious duty to create and conserve this condition, and that whatever diet, exercise, vocation, or course in life is cal- culated to develop the greatest degree of health is the one that our highest duty commands us to follow. In short, the favorite maxim of one of Britain's most famous statesmen might wisely be taken for the guiding prin- ciple of all : Sanitas omnia sanitas. CHAPTER XVIII. THE VALUE OF DRUGS IN THE TREATMENT OF DISEASE. One of the most unfortunate limitations of hygienists and physicians of the reform school is their fanaticism concerning the use of drug remedies. They stoutly maintain that drugs are valueless at all times and on all occasions. The enthusiastic work and brilliant writings of T. R. Trail, M. D., an American physician, are largely responsible for this extreme view. Dr. Trail began practice about 1845, an ^ died in 1877. That this doc- trine should have made headway is not strange when one considers the enormous abuses brought about by the wholesale administration of drugs by the orthodox medi- cal profession ; and when we further consider the heal- ing power of nature, and the fact that the human organ- ism is a self-regulating machine, and that a majority of patients have only to be let alone to recover from attacks of illness, it is not difficult to understand that Dr. Trail in the heat of his enthusiasm and elated by his discovery should have gone to the opposite extreme. But, after a score of years have elapsed, that such an able writer as the distinguished American hygienist, Felix Oswald, M.D., should be blinded to facts is to be deplored. The effect of Dr. Trail's propaganda is plainly seen among the vegetarians in England. A prominent vegetarian physician has the following notice at the head of his weekly advertisement : ' ' Strictly avoid all drugs, medi- i8 4 EFFECT OF QUININE IN MALARIA. cines, pills, powders, lotions, gargles, inhalations, oint- ments, salves, etc. Do not paint with iodine, nor use caustic, poultices, liniments, nor splints." What are the facts? An antidote is simply a counter- poison. If a patient has swallowed a portion of acetate of lead a com- petent physician is aware that the administration of the sulphate of magnesia converts the poison into an inert and insoluble and therefore harmless sulphate. The most fanatical hygienist would recommend the adminis- tration of a substance which would render the most vio- lent poison harmless, and this is what some drugs accomplish. Fever and ague, chills and fever, are varying names for a very serious disease. The victim is periodically attacked, usually every day, or every other day, with severe chills, attended with great pain and suffering, followed by an intense fever, ending in copious perspira- tion, and is unfitted for ordinary duties for the remain- der of the day. If nothing is done to overcome this state of things, the patient gradually loses flesh and strength, and is eventually unfitted for all the duties of life. This disease is well known to be the result of taking into the system the poison of malaria. While quinine is administered by the old-school physician upon all possible occasions, and while thousands of persons are seriously injured by the unwise administration of this drug, it nevertheless is true that it is an undoubted antidote for malarial poison. If skillfully administered, a person who is obliged to reside in a malarial neighbor- hood, and who is not in possession of sufficient robust- ness and vigour to enable him to withstand the disease, may be enabled thereby to reside in such locality without danger, and to have years of comparative immunity from sickness, whereas without it he would be enduring a living death. However glibly hygienists living in north- ern climates exempt from malarial poisons may talk WARBURGH'S TINCTURE. 185 about this matter, let them be forced to live in a tropical region full of malaria, and the truth of what is herein stated will be very effectually demonstrated. In severe cases, generally where the patient has been often treated with quinine, there comes a complication of malarial poisoning that quinine will not antidote. A physician in India has become famous by the concoction of a remedy that has an almost miraculous effect upon persons suffer- ing from this disease. The formula has been published to the world, and is known as Warburgh's Tincture. Venereal poisons have some similarity to the malarial in the fact that these poisons are also susceptible of drug treatment, and may be expelled from the system in a week's time by a skillful old- school physician ; whereas a patient who has contracted gonorrhea, in nine cases out of ten, when treated by a hygienic physician who consistently abstains from the use of drugs, will go from bad to worse, until in from six months' to a year's time there is chronic inflammation, and an almost incurable catarrh or gleet. A characteristic condition of illness, and one almost universally present with those seriously out of health, is constipation. Even if there be a daily movement there is still usually a lack of necessary activity of the excre- tory functions. The result of this is the accumulation within the system of foreign matter that is decomposing, and that has much the same deleterious effects as those that spring from poisons. If an old-school physician is summoned, he usually prescribes an opening medicine ; and if this cathartic shall be fortunately of a nature that stimulates to activity the liver and kidneys as well as the bowels, a wonderful improvement will be seen to take place. The fanatical zeal of a hygienist who turns his back upon all such active remedies not only prevents his patient from receiving much-needed relief, but tends to bring the profession of the hygienist into contempt. i85 CHRONIC SORE EYES CURED. A young man of our acquaintance, at one time resident in Pennsylvania, had suffered for years with ophthalmia — chronic inflammation of the eyelids and granulations upon the edges. This patient was an en- thusiastic hygienist and disciple of Dr. Trail. In the course of years his business called him to the city of New York. A retired chemist became acquainted with him, and told the young man that he was formerly a chemist ; that while in business he had suffered for years from a similar ophthalmia, and that he had been cured by a simple remedy for sale in all the chemists' shops in America. Our friend became interested, and was told by the chemist that this remedy was known as Becker's Eye Balsam. It appears an insignificent remedy resem- bling an oily paste, and a portion not larger than a pin's head is applied to the inner edge of the eyelid once in twenty-four hours. Our friend procured a small packet and began the treatment. Marked benefit was seen in twenty- four hours, and in a fortnight, although the scars of years of granulations were to be seen, there was no inflammation, and a complete cure resulted. When it is remembered that this young man had suffered with this affliction for years, it many times weakening the eyes so much as to prevent reading, and that he was an enthusiastic follower of the hygienic life, using no tea, coffee, wine, or spirits, the marvel of such a complete cure by so simple a means is readily seen. In enthusias- tic gratitude for the great benefit this remedy had been to him, he purchased it by the dozen packages and gave it away to any and all persons suffering with chronic sore eyes who would accept it. In one instance a laun- dress, a woman in middle life, had sore eyes of such severity that the water exuding from them and running down over the cheek had excoriated the skin, leaving the inflamed flesh exposed. She had been thus affected for many years. In a few weeks from the time of com- EFFECTS OF DRUGS IN RHEUMATISM. 187 mencing the treatment this woman was also cured. Many other remarkable cases of cures by this simple remedy have been brought to our notice. It is not our habit to prescribe medicine often. Indeed, we very frequently treat patients wholly by hygienic means, and without the administration of any medicine whatever. A striking result of the adminis- tration of a drug remedy was forced upon our attention in the following circumstances. We had a patient, a lady who when she came to us was suffering from obes- ity, from chronic bronchitis, and from rheumatism. We prescribed the non-starch diet, and insisted upon the open window, frequent bathing, and our usual hygienic regulations. The patient began to improve from the first. Having followed this treatment for some two years, while a very considerable improvement in the general health had been attained, there was still consid- erable rheumatism yet remaining. The patient had swelled joints, the hands were out of shape, and the knees were sometimes so affected as to make going up and down stairs a matter of great difficulty. She was recommended by friends to use Phelps' Rheumatic Elixir, a proprietary remedy on common sale in chem- ists' shops in America; and without consultation with us decided to try it. In six weeks the swelling was out of the hands, and the knees were so nearly restored that walking up and down stairs could be accomplished with ease. Physiological knowledge is yet very obscure, and the action of remedies upon the human system is largely an unexplored field. While we are totally unable to explain the rationale of the cure of this patient, and of those whom we have known to try this remedy since, it is undoubtedly upon the same general plan that the presence of a dangerous poison within the system may be antidoted by the administration of another poison. Our position with regard to the matter of drug medi- 1 88 HYGIENISTS NEED NO MEDICINE. cation is easily understood. It is our firm conviction that when people live in healthy situations, and in ac- cordance with the laws of hygiene, no medicines are needed. Furthermore, it is equally our firm conviction that the wholesale administration of drugs indulged in by the orthodox medical profession is not only not a benefit, but a large factor in causing much of the ill- ness and suffering that may be seen on every side. Moreover, we are of opinion, when patients are suffer- ing from illness, that hygienic regulations, especially as to diet, but also as to the open window, exercise, and the conservation of vital force, are the chief means to be relied upon in effecting a cure, and not infre- quently — indeed usually — the only remedies that are needed. At the same time it is not well to close our eyes to well-established facts ; and the wild talk of fanat- ical hygienists regarding drug medication has done and is doing more to bring these physicians into contempt (occasionally well merited) than any other cause. CHAPTER XIX. SUPERSTITION CONCERNING DOCTORS. FALSE MEDICAL ETHICS. Probably no men give so muah time and service gratuitously to the poor as physicians. They form a hardworking and painstaking profession, and we are not forgetful of the many self-sacrificing and generous- hearted members who adorn it. This work, however, is written to impress upon the reader, if possible, the im- portance of a hygienic life, and the necessity of relying upon hygienic rules to overcome illness and maintain health. The entire medical profession is organized on a wholly different basis. Instead of relying largely upon nature's simple laws, all their strength and effort are devoted to seeking out and administering palliative drugs. It is confidently believed that the foregoing- chapters contain such plain and complete directions for carrying out practical methods both in acute and chronic illnesses that any earnest-minded person of ordinary- intelligence will be enabled successfully to take entire charge of a person attacked with illness ; or wisely to direct the course and conduct of the chronic invalid. The mistake with the medical profession, as before re- marked, is that instead of relying upon these simple measures for the restoration and perpetuation of health, they almost invariably resort to the administration of drugs ; and it seems necessary to point out some of the reasons why hygienists ought to refrain from calling a doctor in cases of illness. igo SURGEONS AS SUCH EXCEPTED. Nothing that is said in this chapter is applicable to surgery; and the advisability of seeking the aid of a surgeon in case of accident, fracture, or similar need is not in the slightest degree questioned. Moreover, if one has swallowed poison, the skilled surgeon or physi- cian is more apt to be acquainted both with the best means of ascertaining what poison has been taken and of knowing the most likely antidote to be administered. Readers are asked all the time to bear in mind that there exists within the system itself the only healing force. Just what this force is, the mystery of life, is by no one understood at the present time ; but enough is known to convince the able physician or hygienist that all that anyone can do to further the cure of one taken in illness is to give nature the freest opportunity for the use of her powers. As before said, because of the methods in which the medical profession is trained, the physician is quite sure not only not to adopt this simple plan, but feel called upon to interfere with the workings of nature, and is all the time causing new complications by his interference. Full consideration is given to the solicitude of the parents or friends when a child or loved one is taken ill ; and to send for the physician is always the first thought. It has been the custom for genera- tions, which of itself is sufficient explanation of why it is quite universally done. But if the reader will grasp the entire problem — will perceive that the physician is the creature of his education, and that his treatment is sure not only not to follow hygienic methods but to rely upon drugs, which in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred work no good, but considerable harm, the impropriety of call- ing such a force within the household is plainly seen, unless in exceptional cases for a diagnosis of symptoms. This remark is largely as applicable to the homceopathist as to the allopathist. True, waiving the discussion as to whether infinitesimal doses have any reliable effect or OPIUM THE MODERN DELUSION. xgi power for good, there is still among these physicians the same reliance upon drug medication, and much the same ignoring of the demands of hygiene and the simple methods of nature, as among the allopathists. More- over, it is to be noticed that these systems of practice are gradually approaching each other ; the allopathist shows that he is influenced by the homoeopathic profession in that smaller doses of remedies are given than formerly ; and a considerable number of the homceopathists are now recommending mother tinctures and substantial doses. Moreover, all these gentlemen use opium for the relief of pain ; and the use of opium is perhaps fraught with more danger, and is the cause of more damage to the great multitude of patients than any other of the colossal delusions, of the pharmacopoeia. Instead of assisting nature in its efforts to throw off disease, the powers of the system are paralyzed at the outset ; the patient is mo- mentarily relieved, or, more properly speaking, is made unconscious of the pain, and is lulled into the hope or belief that he has been benefited. But what really hap- pens? The seeds of disease to expel which the system was making an effort remain. The effects of the opium are added to the original disease, and are usually more malignant and dangerous than the trouble for which the opium was administered. In a short time nature again makes another effort, the physician (so-called) again pre- scribes opium, and the patient is harried into a condition far worse than at first. Hygienists whose attention are called to this subject will therefore see that to send for a physician is to bring into the household a force directly in opposition to a dependence upon hygienic methods. The extraordinary and undue influence which the medical profession have been, and still are, able to exert over the public is seen in other ways than the readiness with which one of their number is summoned to almost every household upon the slightest pretext. While fair- ig2 A MONOPOLY IN MEDICINE. minded men of all ranks are up in arms against special legislation, thinking persons will be surprised to see, when their attention is called to it, that the medical profession have been able to procure the enactment of special protective laws designed for the sole purpose of making a monopoly in their own behalf. Ostensibly with a view to the adequate protection of the public, medical societies in America have appointed special committees to visit cities where the various legislatures are in session, and have appropriated money to sustain these committees while engaged in lobbying through the legislatures laws specially designed to create a mo- nopoly in the practice of medicine. No complaint could be urged against an enactment providing that any and all persons shall be held answer- able for malpractice, and shall be subject to such fines and punishments as are compatible with the gravity of the offense. Such is not, however, the nature of this special legislation. Indeed, quite the contrary state of things exists. Upon the day of his graduation the writer heard Professor Thomson, occupying the chair of Materia Medica in the New York University Medical College, in his last address to the graduating class, and in appealing to them to properly appreciate the extent of their obligations, explain that a regular physician is substantially above the law; that no matter what the result of his practice may be, he is practically out of reach of the officers of the law, and is amenable only to his own conscience. An examination into the usages controlling this matter will show that the professor's ground was well taken. The question, when there has been incompetent medical treatment, is not whether the person accused has been guilty of malpractice, but whether he is a regular graduate, and is a member of the privileged and monopolist class. If these laws were really enacted to protect the people, the only MEDICAL ETHICS SCREEN THE GUILTY. 193 effective method of obtaining this result is to enact a statute against malpractice, and define the penalties that shall be operative against any person who may be found guilty. Practically, and in point of fact, if a practitioner holds a diploma from a public college, is regularly registered, and has not made himself objection- able to members of his profession, it is a part of medical ethics that no fellow physician shall testify against him. It will be found that the act entitled ' ' The Regulation of the Practice of Medicine," which the committee ap- pointed by the New York Medical Society succeeded in lobbying through the legislature at Albany, is really class legislation of the most corrupt kind, since, by virtue of its action, what is called a qualified practitioner may commit malpractice to almost any extent and be free from the danger of any indictment; whereas a physician not having obtained a diploma from the privileged school is liable to imprisonment for simply advertising and attempting to benefit a neighbour. This law which has been enacted into a statute in the State of New York has become the model for the larger number of the other states of the American Union ; and in all these instances the same methods were employed. In the State of Illinois a similar bill was lobbied through the legislature at Springfield by the committee appointed and supported by the medical society at Chicago. The falseness of the claim that this legislation was procured for the greater precaution of the people, as before said, is seen in the fact that no provision whatever is contem- plated for the prevention or punishment of malpractice, whereas every possible precaution has been taken to see that a monopoly of medical practice is kept within the ranks of the orthodox physicians. The extraordinary length to which these medical monopolists are willing to go is well illustrated by their conduct in regard to what is known as the Mind Cure, ig 4 MENTAL HEALING, OR MIND CURE, or mental treatment. Mrs. Eddy, of Boston, instituted this system some fifteen years since, calling it Christian Healing. Cures were accomplished without the admin- istration of any medicine, or the adoption of any special hygienic rules or exercises. During the last half-dozen years this system of practice spread with such rapidity through the United States as seriously to interfere with the practice of the regular doctors ; and there has been before the legislature of the State of New York for several sessions an amendment to the medical bill so worded as to prevent, in the event of its enactment, these Christian healers from practicing, manifestly be- cause the incomes of the orthodox doctors have been interfered with by the cures that these physicians have iccomplished. These venal and special legislative enactments are not the only manifestation of the subtle power wielded by the medical profession. They have enacted a code of what they consider constitutes medical ethics. An- other title may be found far more appropriate for these provisions. Instead of being denominated "Medical Ethics" they should be termed "Provisions for the Adequate Protection of Orthodox Practitioners." As a case in point, let the well-known rule formulated by medical ethics in regard to the propriety of a physician being permitted to advertise be scrutinized. Since med- icine is not a science, and since there are no well-defined means known to the regular physician whereby patients suffering from illness are at all sure to be benefited, if a man like Priessnitz shall discover a curative agent that is, by virtue of its conformity to physiologic law, to be depended upon, it is quite natural for such a dis- coverer to desire to announce to the public the nature of his discovery, to the end that the public may be bene- fited and a business established. For the proper pro- tection of the orthodox physician, however, something THE QUESTION OF ADVERTISING, 195 must be contrived to prevent this irregular physician from making his superior methods known. Hence has arisen that provision of medical ethics upon which such tremendous stress is laid, namely, the great immorality on the part of a physician of advertising. While in attendance upon medical lectures the writer asked several of his fellow students to throw some light on this question. Harvard College has a medical de- partment, and a portion of its graduates obtain a degree in medicine, others the usual degree in arts. The ques- tion was propounded : Since a graduate of the classical department is entirely at liberty, having obtained his degree and decided upon what city or town he will make his home, to announce to the citizens by advertisement in the public press, or by distribution of circulars, what his qualifications are — that he is a graduate of Harvard University, and that he has decided to open a school for preparing young men for college, and asks the patron- age of his fellow citizens, — since this advertisement is in no way a violation of ethics, or morals, or good taste even, why is it that a medical graduate of the same col- lege, settling in the same town, would be committing an unpardonable offense by making a similar announce- ment to his fellow citizens ? Not one of the several stu- dents to whom this question was put was able to make any reply. The simple truth is that the assertion that laws for the regulation of the practice of medicine are made for the protection of the people is false ; it is done simply for the more complete protection of a monopolist class; and the code, written or unwritten, of modern medical ethics has precisely the same origin. It is easily understood upon his basis ; and, placed upon its correct footing, any man of intelligence can see that the system of medical ethics, so far as advertising is concerned, is simply another contrivance for the protection of the orthodox physician. ig6 THE KEELEY CURE FOR DRUNKENNESS. The question of the propriety or taste of any or all advertising is not here discussed. It is enough to note that the transactions of modern life are based upon it ; that if it is thought best to undertake to lay an Atlantic cable, or to construct an African railway, there is no question of ethics to prevent these schemes being prop- erly advertised, or even to prevent a properly qualified person from advertising that he has opened an academy and solicits the patronage of parents; and the only foundation for the widespread idea that it is immoral for a physician to advertise is the organized effort of the medical profession to insure a monopoly of medical practice. The wonderfully far-reaching and most subtle influence of this thoroughly organized effort is seen in the fact that a majority of the intelligent men and women in modern life take it for granted that an advertising physician is a moral leper. The matter is given no thought. It has been subtly instilled as a creed into our minds. To a thoughtful person the extent to which our opinions are given us ready-made is most astonishing. A flock of sheep are well known to follow in the course marked out by the leader, and in the mat- ter of medical ethics the medical profession, by their or- ganized efforts and skillful fulminations, are the leaders, and the bulk of mankind are the sheep-like followers. Dr. Leslie E. Keeley, of Dwight, Illinois, began some twelve or fifteen years since a special practice for the cure of inebriety. He claims that drunkenness is a dis- ease, and is as subject to medical treatment as any other. Dr. Keeley committed the unpardonable sin of advertis- ing his remedy, and soliciting patients through such advertisements. He has cured thousands of confirmed drunkards whose condition was in many cases worse than death, but who are now filling the role of useful and respected citizens. Some three years since the Chicago Tribune instituted an investigation into the MADAME DEL CIN. 197 merits of the Keeley treatment by sending a half-dozen drunkards to Dwight to be treated ; and when these un- fortunate persons returned home cured the Tribune began the publication of the successes of the method. This was followed by similar publications in the daily press of New York and the principal cities of the Union. At the beginning of 1892, Dr. Keeley claimed to have treated over 50,000 patients, with less than five per cent, of failures or of relapses into drunkenness. These ex- traordinary successes on the part of a physician who had the temerity to advertise his discovery irritated the doc- tors of Illinois to such an extent that they succeeded in getting Dr. Keeley's name removed from the register. But Dr. Keeley had made such wonderful cures, and in many instances of persons highly connected, that there were many persons of influence and standing ready to take his part and come to his protection, and the Gov- ernor of Illinois was induced to interfere with the deci- sion of the County Medical Society, and forced them to revoke their action in regard to Dr. Keeley. This injustice and bigotry is not confined to America. In Vienna a woman by the name of Madame del Cin, a natural bone-setter, became famous for extraordinary feats in surgery which she performed. She succeeded in what is technically known as reduction of the femur — successfully set dislocated hip- joints, — where many sur- geons of the regular school declared the patients beyond help. No sooner did this lady's success threaten the pockets of the doctors than they procured her indictment, and had her cast into prison. Fortunately for her, she had treated some members of the aristocratic and influential classes, who appealed to the Emperor, and she was given an honorary diploma which carried with it the right to practice medicine. Madame del Cin's cures became so famous that people came to her from all parts of the world. Some gentlemen from America were so signally 198 MEDICAL TYRANNY. benefited by her skill that they prevailed upon her to re- move to the States, and she settled in Brooklyn with a view to continuing her practice. As soon as it became known to the profession, a committee appointed and supported by the County Medical Society had her indicted, and she was obliged to return to Vienna. As an evidence that these physicians who opposed Madame del Cin were not moved from any solicitude for the people, but for fear that some of their own practice would be wrested from them, we refer readers to the following quotation from a letter written to the Echo, and published June 9th, 1892, by a physician who wrote to defend doctors against the charge of narrowness and trades unionism : ' ' If Dr. Densmore would recall Sir Astley Cooper's famous work ' On Fractures and Dislocations ' he would find that the bone-setters of the last age were by no means treated with contempt. On the contrary, the success with which Sir Astley credits them is held up as proof of the incompetence of some of the less sagacious of the surgeons of those days ; and so impressed was one English surgeon with the idea that by natural wit and hereditary skill these people had accomplished what well educated physicians had failed to do that he devoted much time to the study of their methods and wrote a book on the same."* In this instance we have the testimony of Sir Astley Cooper and other physicians that the natural bone-setters of England were in many instances more skillful than their contemporary educated surgeons ; and it is incon- testable that Madame del Cin succeeded in many cases * "During the reign of Henry VIII., Parliament undertook by statute to limit the practice of the healing art in England to 'those persons that be profound, sad, and discreet, groundly learned, and deeply studied in physic,' and practitioners were 'to be licensed by the Bishop of London or the Dean of St. Pauls.' But in 1543 the previous act was modified so as to permit 'divers honest persons, as well men as women, whom God hath endowed with the knowledge of the nature, kind and operation of certain herbs, roots and waters,' to prescribe for and treat certain dangerous afflic- tions there mentioned." — Knight's History of England, Volume II., p. 498. MEDICAL TYRANNY IN ENGLAND, 199 in the reduction of the dislocation of the hip- joint where all orthodox physicians who were consulted had pro- nounced it impossible. These facts are a plain demon- stration that the opposition of these physicians to Madame del Cin and to other physicians who are not in possession of a diploma from an orthodox college is not because of fear that they will commit malpractice, but for fear that they will get an undue share of the people's patronage. This subtle power of organized physicians is not less felt in England than elsewhere. Here no physician is allowed to sign a death certificate unless he is a regular graduate, and has his name still on the register as such. The plain result of this provision is to force every house- holder, however liberal and progressive he may be, to employ an orthodox doctor in all cases of serious illness, for the simple reason that if he should rest content with a physician outside the regular ranks, in whom he has the greatest confidence, and the patient should die, he would have to face a coroner's inquest, and run the risk of prosecution. It is easy to see how this most unwise and unjust measure is class legislation of the worst type, and admirably contrived to protect the orthodox medical profession. A few years ago Edwin W. Alabone, M.D., an able and conscientious physician, confident that he had dis- covered a most valuable method for the relief of con- sumption, in vain solicited the hospitals of London to give him an opportunity for demonstrating the efficacy of his discovery. This physician had his name erased from the medical register for simply publishing a book dealing with matters well known to medical men, and one of the chief grounds of complaint against Dr. Ala- bone was that this book was written in popular language, and sold at a low price. Quite recently Dr. T. R. Allinson, who has for years been teaching the impor- 2oo DR. ALA BONE'S PERSECUTION. tance of proper ventilation, bathing, and a simple diet in the columns of the Weekly Times and Echo, was struck off the register on the ground that he had been adver- tising ; and it appeared at the trial that his chief offense was that he had conducted for some years the medical columns in the aforesaid journal — in plain truth, had taught the people hygienic laws. Still another instance occurred in the attack upon the author of ' ' The Wife's Handbook" (H. A. Allbutt, M.R.C.P.E., L.S.A., Lon- don) a few years ago. This work, sold at a very low price, put within the reach of every woman certain in- formation and instructions which vitally concern not only themselves as individuals, but the welfare of a nation in which an unrestricted birth-rate among its poor means an ever- widening area of poverty and mis- ery. The book was never impugned in any court of law; it was warmly commended by clergymen, philan- thropists, and the press as well calculated to be a boon to the working classes ; yet these are the words of its author in an appeal for fair play made to the public in November, 1887: ' ' For the past ten months I have been persecuted, firstly by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, and secondly by the General Medical Council of Great Britain. The attack made by the college came to noth- ing, as much public opinion was brought to bear in my favor on the Fellows of the College. The attack made by the General Medical Council, sitting at 299 Oxford Street, London, terminated on November 25th, and I had the sentence passed upon me by the Council (who voted in secret) that my name be erased from the Medi- cal Register, and that I be ' judged guilty of infamous conduct in a professional respect for having published and publicly sold "The Wife's Handbook" at too low a price. Perhaps the strongest testimony as to the impotency of physicians, the uselessness of their efforts, and harm- DR. PYE SMITH ON DOCTORS. 201 fulness of their methods, has been given by physicians themselves. The following quotation is taken from the letter referred to above, in the Echo of June 9th, 1892 : ' ' Among the leading medical men in London is one who is a fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, M.D., and physician to one of the largest hospitals in London. In the very popular book on medicine of which he is editor, he has laid down at the bottom of the very first page that 'all systems of medicine . . . are of necessity false. Allopathy and homoeopathy are equally unreasonable, not wrong solutions of a scientific problem, but ignorant answers to an absurd question.' " This quotation is taken from "The Principles and Practice of Medicine," by Charles H. Fagge, M. D., edited by Dr. Pye Smith, page 2, 3d edition, 1891. By the following quotations from the sayings of cele- brated physicians it will be seen that in many instances we are able to cite the work and page from which the quotation is taken. Not infrequently many of the strongest testimonies to the universal inefhciencv of physicians are found in the addresses of physicians to their classes on public occasions. These utterances, not occurring in the more conservative works of the same authors, and published only in the daily press of the period, are not so readily identified. Bichat, the great French pathologist, in his " General Anatomy," Vol. I, page 17, says: 1 ' Medicine is an incoherent assemblage of incoherent ideas, and is perhaps of all the physiological sciences that which best shows the caprice of the human mind. What did I say ? It is not a science for a methodical mind. It is a shapeless assemblage of inaccurate ideas, of observations often puerile, and of formulae as fan- tastically conceived as they are tediously arranged." 11 Dr. Stille ( ' Therapeutics,' Vol. I., page 31 ) says: ' Nearly every medicine has become a popular remedy 202 SIR JOHN FORBES' TESTIMONY. before being adopted or even tried by physicians ; and by far the greater number of medicines were first em- ployed in countries which were and are now in a state of scientific ignorance ; ' and Pereira declares that nux vomica is one of the few remedies the discovery of which is not the effect of chance." — Beard and Rockwell on " Medical and Surgical Electricity, " page no. Sir John Forbes, Fellow of the Royal College of Phy- sicians, and Physician to the Queen's household, says : ' ' No systematic or theoretical classification of dis- eases or therapeutic agents ever yet promulgated is true or anything like the truth, and none can be adopted as a safe guidance in practice. ' ' With the exception of a very few, and those com- paratively insignificant diseases, the medical art does not possess the power of curing diseases in a direct and positive manner. In the very few diseases in which it may be said to do so, speaking generally, it not seldom fails to do so in individual instances, so that such cases require to be transferred to other categories of thera- peutic action." — "Of Nature and Art in the Cure of Disease," by Sir John Forbes, page 256. Dr. Eliphalet Kimball, of New Hampshire, was a diplomated doctor of the regular school. In his "Thoughts on Natural Principles," on page 7 he re- marks : 1 ' There is a doctorcraft as well as a priestcraft. . . Physicians have slain more than war. As instruments of death in their hands, bleeding, calomel, and other medicines have done more than powder and ball. The public would be infinitely better off without pro- fessed physicians. In weak constitutions nature can be assisted. Good nursing is necessary, and sometimes roots and herbs do good. In strong constitutions medi- cine is seldom needed in sickness. To a man with a good constitution, and guided by reason in his course of living, sickness would be impossible. He could defer death until the natural time. By the use of reason in food I passed unharmed through the great cholera in \ FROM DR. KIMBALL AND OTHERS. 203 New York in 1832. I was nearly two months in a chol- era hospital, engaged with the sick, day and night. The medical practice provided and paid for by the city was nonsense and an injury to the sick." On page 8 of the same work Dr. Kimball continues as follows : ' ' Immense numbers of children in canker-rash have been killed by the ' regulars, ' or scientific doctors, of whom I am one. The practice of many of them has been to give a powerful cathartic and calomel at first. The consequence is the rash cannot come out, the child sinks away and dies. In many of the country towns as many as sixty children have died of canker- rash in one winter, and nearly all of them undoubtedly from medi- cine given them by physicians. It is shocking to think how many soldiers in the late war were killed or their constitutions ruined by army doctors. The irrational use of medicine by physicians sweeps off the people as fast as war could. It has a serious effect upon the census. . Confidence in nature is the all-important prin- ciple, not only in disease, but in social welfare as affected by government. Artificial law causes the diseases of society, and has made the world a bad one." Dr. Munro, of Hull, M.D., F.R.S., delivered a speech at Exeter Hall, January 13th, 1872, on " Fashions in Medicine," from which the following is quoted: " Forty years ago we used to bleed everyone. Blue pill at night and a black draft in the morning. Then the question was asked : Have you any pain anywhere ? And woe to the patient if he said or thought he had." Sir Thomas Watson, lecturing on " Practical Physic," Vol. I., page 247, 5th Ed., 1877, says: "Yes, I remember the time when a surgeon, seeing a man in a fit, if he did not at once open a vein would be abused by the bystanders. To do so nowadays would be to incur the charge of murder. " Sir John Forbes, M.D., F.R.S., Physician to Her 204 £>fiS- RICHARDSON AND GA1RDNER. Majesty's household, says in his charge against the med- ical faculty : "What a difference of opinion. What an array of alleged facts directly at variance with each other. What contradictions. What opposite results of a like experi- ence. What ups and downs. What glorification and degradation of the same remedy. . . . What horror and intolerance of the very same opinion and practices which, previously and subsequently, were cherished and admired. Things have got to such a pitch they cannot be worse. They must end or mend." — Medical Journal, October 5th, 1861. The Medico-Chirurgical Review, January, 1861, gives voice as follows : * ' Would that some physician of mature experience had opened the academical year by a grave, unsparing exposition of the practices now in vogue of poisoning the sick with food, and maddening the brain by beer, wine and brandy without stint . . . dismissing the patients drunken from the world ... an equivalent of slaughter for thousands who were then bled, purged, and starved to death. In this balance of destruction, the result is of small value to the statistician ; but to the physician it is a double shame." B. W. Richardson M.A., M.D., LL.D., F.R.S., F. R.C.P., says: 1 1 All the learned professions are bordering on a state of discontinuity. Men and women of all classes are beginning to know and think for themselves without the aid of any professional adviser ; and extremely critical and inquisitive when the fruits of the advice are declared; threatening to uproot everything before it, and to establish a new face of destiny." Professor Gairdner, of Glasgow, physician to the Royal Infirmary there, says : ' ' One hundred and eighty-nine unselected cases treated without alcohol . . . and these would have had a death rate of from 30 to 35 per cent if they had PROFESSOR CLARK AND DR. RAM AGE, F.R.C.S. 205 been treated with alcohol, had only a death rate of less than one per cent." Professor Gairdner was not an abstainer. Dr. Whitmore confesses : " I am not a total abstainer, but I have been as- tounded with regard to the results of the treatment of smallpox with and without alcohol. Following the or- thodox line of the schools, brandy, wine, &c, were ad- ministered freely. I became anxious in reporting the state of things to the vestry. Brandy, &c, in the earlier cases of confluent hemmorrhagic and malignant form, administered freely, had no apparent benefit. Treated entirely without alcohol, and substituting milk, eggs and beef tea, the result was immediately satisfac- tory ; the rate of mortality decreased, and very bad cases did well, which under brandy, &c, would have, accord- ing to previous experience, terminated fatally ; and im- mediately after stimulants were given up." — Medical Temperance Journal, 1 8 79. Professor Alonzo Clark, of the New York College of Physicians and Surgeons, says : * ' In their zeal to do good, physicians have done much harm. They have hurried thousands to the grave who would have recovered if left to nature." Dr. Ramage, F.R.C.S., London, says: " It cannot be denied that the present system of medicine is a burning reproach to its profession — if, in- deed, a series of vague and uncertain incongruities de- serves to be called by that name. How rarely do our medicines do good! How often do they make our patients really worse ! I fearlessly assert that in most cases the sufferer would be safer without a physician than with one. I have seen enough of the malprac- tice of my professional brethren to warrant the strong language I employ." Sir John Forbes says : " Some patients get well with the aid of medicines, some without, and still more in spite of it." 206 FROM JAMES JOHNSON, M.D., F.R.S. Prof. Barker, New York Medical College, says : * ' The drugs which are administered for scarlet fever kill far more patients than that disease does." John Mason Good, M.D., F.R.S., says: * ' The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain, except, indeed, that they have destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and famine combined." Dr. Broady, of Chicago, in his " Medical Practice without Poisons," says: "The single, un combined, different and confessed poisons in daily use by the dominant school of medicine number one hundred and seven. Among these are phosphorus, strychnine, mercury, opium, and arsenic. The various combinations of these five violent poisons number, respectively, twenty-seven combinations of phosphorus, five of strichnia, forty-seven of mercury, twenty-five of opium, and fourteen of arsenic. The poisons that are more or less often used number many hundreds." " I declare, as my conscientious conviction, founded on long experience and reflection, that if there was not a single physician, surgeon, man-midwife, chemist, apothe- cary, druggist, nor drug on the face of the earth, there would be less sickness and less mortality than now pre- vails." — James Johnson, M.D., F.R.S., editor of The Medico- Chirurgical Review. Dr. Adam Smith says : ' ' After denouncing Paracelsus as a quack, the regu- lar medical profession stole his ' quack-silver ' — mercury ; after calling Jenner an impostor it adopted his discov- ery of vaccination ; after dubbing Harvey a humbug it was forced to swallow his theory of the circulation of the blood." Dr. A. O'Leary, Jefferson Medical College, Philadel- phia, says: * ' The best things in the healing art have been done • by those who never had a diploma — the first Caesarian / DR. OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES. 207 section, lithotomy, the use of cinchona, of ether as an anaesthetic, the treatment of the air passages by inhala- tion, the water cure, and medicated baths, electricity as a healing agent, and magnetism, faith cure, mind cure, etc. Pasteur has no diploma, but has done more good than all the M.D.'s in France." Prof. J. Rhodes Buchanan, Boston, says: 1 ' Mozart, Hoffman, Ole Bull, and Blind Tom were born with a mastery of music, as Zerah Colburn with a mastery of mathematics, as others are born with a mas- tery of the mystery of life and disease ; like Greatrakes, Newton, Hutton, Sweet, and Stephens, born doctors, and a score of similar renown.'* Sir John Forbes is thus quoted in the British and For sign Medical Review, 1 846 : "Ina large proportion of cases treated by allopathic physicians, the disease is cured by nature and not by them. For a less, but not a small proportion the dis- ease is cured by nature in spite of them. In other words, their interference opposes instead of assists the case. Consequently, in a considerable proportion of diseases it would fare as well or better with patients, in the actual condition of the medical art as now gener- ally practiced, if all remedies, at least active remedies, especially drugs, were abandoned." Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, the well-known author, and a professor of anatomy in the Harvard University, in his " Border Lines of Knowledge " says: * ' The disgrace of medicine has been that colossal system of self-deception, in obedience to which mines have been emptied of their cankering minerals, the en- trails of animals taken for their impurities, the poison bags of reptiles drained of their venom, and all the inconceivable absurdities thus obtained thrust down the throats of human beings suffering from some want of organization, nourishment or vital stimulation." And again : " If all drugs were cast into the sea, it would be so 2o3 DR. SAMUEL WILKS—THE FAMOUS MAJENDIE. much, the better for man, and so much the worse for tne fishes." Dr. Quain, editor of the "Dictionary of Medicine," said in an address to the British Medical Association in 1873: " Alas, our means of curing disease do not make equally rapid progress. This is not, as some assert, be- cause disease cannot be cured, it is simply because our knowledge of remedies is deficient. In other words, diseases are curable, but we cannot cure them." Dr. Samuel Wilks, F.R.C.S., lecturer on medicine at Guy's Hospital, in February, 1871, told his class plainly that the method which he had to teach them was un- scientific. His words are : "All our best treatment is empirical. ... I should have preferred to have offered you some princi- ples based on true scientific grounds, and on which you could act in particular cases. ... At the present day this cannot be done, nor is it wise to speak of prin- ciples when framed from conclusions whose premises are altogether false. To say that I have no principles is a humiliating confession. . . . For my own part I believe that we know next to nothing of the action of medicines and other therapeutic agents. . . . There was a time when I scarcely dared to confess these opin- ions to myself, and this is the first occasion in which I have been bold enough to assert them before my class." — Lancet, February, 1871. The following from the celebrated physician and physiologist Majendie, given while lecturing to his class, and published in the press at the time, is one of frankest of these confessions : 1 ' Let us no longer wonder at the lamentable want of success which marks our practice, when there is scarcely a sound physiological principle among us. I hesitate not to declare, no matter how sorely I should wound our vanity, that so gross is our ignorance of the real nature of the physiological disorder called disease, that it would THE INDICTMENT COMPIETED. 209 perhaps be better to do nothing, and resign the com- plaint into the hands of nature, than to act as we are frequently compelled to do, without knowing the why and the wherefore of our conduct, at the obvious risk of hastening the end of the patient. Gentlemen, medicine is a great humbug. I know it is called science. Science, indeed ! It is nothing like science. Doctors are merely empirics when they are not charlatans. We are as ignorant as men can be. Who knows anything in the world about medicine ? Gentlemen, you have done me an honor to come here to attend my lectures, and I must tell you frankly now, in the beginning, that I know nothing in the world about medicine, and I don't know anybody who does know anything about it. . . I repeat it, nobody knows anything about medicine. . . . We are collecting facts in the right spirit, and I dare say, in a century or so, the accumulation of facts may enable our successors to form a medical science. Who can tell me how to cure the headache, or the gout, or disease of the heart ? Nobody. Oh, you tell me the doctors cure people. I grant you people are cured, but how are they cured ? Gentlemen, nature does a great deal ; imagination a great deal ; doctors — devilish little when they don't do any harm. Let me tell you, gentle- men, what I did when I was a physician at the Hotel Dieu. Some three or four thousand patients passed through my hands every year. I divided the patients into classes: with one I followed the dispensary and gave the usual medicines, without having the least idea why or wherefore ; to the others I gave bread pills and colored water, without of course, letting them know any- thing about it ; and occasionally I would create a third division, to whom I gave nothing whatever. These last would fret a great deal ; they felt that they were neglect- ed: sick people always feel neglected, unless they are well drugged, "les imbeciles," and they would irritate themselves until they got really sick, but nature always came to the rescue, and all the third class got well. There was but little mortality among those who received the bread pills and colored water, but the mortality was greatest among those drugged according to the dispensary." CHAPTER XX. DINNERS AND DINING. Space is given for the following quite extended quo- tations from Sir Henry Thompson's book entitled ' ' Food and Feeding"* for the reason, among others, that Sir Henry is more liberal on the question of diet than the average of his profession ; and because by virtue of his position his words may be taken to be somewhat authoritative as to what constitutes the dining habits of the so-called upper classes. Chapter IX. commences as follows : " And of this entertainment, the dinner of invitation, there are two very distinct kinds. First, there is the little dinner of six or eight guests, carefully selected for their own specific qualities, and combined with judgment to obtain an harmonious and successful result. The in- gredients of a small party, like the ingredients of a dish, must be well chosen to make it complete. Such are the first conditions to be attained in order to achieve the highest perfection in dining. Secondly, there is the dinner of society, which is necessarily large ; the number of guests varying from twelve to twenty -four. ' ' The characteristics of the first dinner are : comfort, excellence, simplicity, and good taste. Those of the second are : the conventional standard of quality, some profusion of supply, suitable display in ornament and service. " It must be admitted that with the large circle of acquaintances so commonly regarded as essential to exist- ence in modern life, large dinners only enable us to pay our dining debts, and exercise the hospitality which posi- tion demands. With a strong preference, then, for the * Sixth Edition. F. Warne & Co., London. 1891. FASHIONABLE LARGE DINNER. 211 little dinners, it must be admitted that the larger banquet is a necessary institution (?), and therefore we have only to consider how to make the best of it. ' ' No doubt the large dinner has greatly improved of late ; but it has by no means universally arrived at per- fection. Only a few years ago excellence in quality and good taste in cuisine were often sacrificed in the en- deavor to make a profuse display. Hence abundance without reason, and combinations without judgment, were found co-existing with complete indifference to comforts in the matters of draughts, ventilation, tempera- ture, and consumption of time. Who among the diners- out of middle age has not encountered many a time an entertainment with some such programme as the follow- ing — one of an order which, it is to be feared, is not even yet quite extinct? 1 l Eighteen or twenty guests enter a room adapted at most to a dinner of twelve. It is lighted with gas ; the chief available space being occupied by the table, sur- rounding which is a narrow lane barely sufficing for the circulation of the servants. Directly — perhaps after oysters — appear turtle soups thick and clear. A con- somme is to be had on demand, but so unexpected a choice astonishes the servitor, who brings it after some delay, and cold ; with it punch. Following arrive the fish — salmon and turbot, one or both, smothered in thick lobster sauce ; sherry. Four entrees promenade the cir- cuit in single file, whereof the first was always oyster patties, after which came mutton or lamb cutlets, a vol- au-vent, etc., hock and champagne. Three-quarters of an hour at least, perhaps an hour, having now elapsed, the saddle or haunch of mutton arrives, of which gentle- men who have patiently waited get satisfactory slices, and currant jelly, with cold vegetables or a heavy, flabby salad. Then come boiled fowl and tongue, or a turkey with solid force meat, a slice of ham, and so on, up to game, followed by hot, substantial pudding, three or four other sweets, including an iced pudding ; wines in variety more or less appropriate, to be followed by a pate de foie gras, more salad, biscuits and cheese. Again two ices and liqueurs. Then an array of decanters, and the first 212 SELECT PRIVATE DINNER. appearance of red wine ; a prodigious dessert of all things in and out of season, and particularly those which are out of season, as being the more costly. General circu- lation of waiters, handing each dish in turn to every- body, under a running fire of negatives, a ceremonial of fifteen minutes' duration, to say the least. Circulation of decanters, general rustle of silks, disappearance of the ladies ; and first change of seat precisely two and a half hours after taking it. It may be hoped that a charming companion on either side has beguiled and shortened a time which otherwise must have been tedious. Now general closing up of men to host, and reassembling of decanters ; age, quality, and vintage of wine discussed during consumption thereof. At last coffee, which is. neither black nor hot. Joining the ladies ; music by the daughters of the house ; service of gunpowder tea, fatal to the coming night's rest if taken in a moment of forgetfulness ; and carriages announced. Admitted that such an exhibition is impossible now in any reasonable English circle, it nevertheless corre- sponds very closely in style with that of the public din- ner; a state of things without excuse. And the large private dinner is still generally too large, the menu too pretentious. Let me, however, be permitted to record, equally in proof of growing taste, and as a grateful per- sonal duty, how many admirable exceptions to the pre- vailing custom above described are now afforded. The dinner of society has, since the earlier editions of this work appeared, been greatly abridged in length, and improved by the substitution of lighter and more deli- cate dishes for the solid meats of the last generation. At the same time, a menu suitable for a large party must be framed so as to offer various dishes for choice to meet the differing tastes of numerous guests, and it must therefore be more comprehensive than that sup- plied to a small one, say of six or eight guests. Let us see how this is to be met. First the soups: it is the custom to offer a consomme, which ought to be perfect in clearness, color, and savor, and be served perfectly hot ; containing a few vegetables, etc. , variously treated — doubtless the best commencement, as it is the keynote SIR HENRY'S VIEW OF MODERATION. 213 of the dinner, revealing also as it does nine times out of ten the calibre of the cook to whose talent the guest is intrusted. But there is mostly an alternative of white soup, and this is almost always a mistake. Many per- sons refuse it, and they are right ; containing as it gen- erally does a considerable proportion of cream — an inju- dicious beginning when there is much variety to follow ; excellent sometimes as one of three or four dishes, but dangerous otherwise to the guest who has not an excep- tionally powerful digestion. But suppose that oysters, vinegar, and chablis have just been swallowed. A brown puree, as of game, or one of green vegetable less frequently met with, a ' Saint- Germain,' for example, would be safer. Two fish, of course, should always be served, as for instance a slice of Severn or Christchurch salmon just arrived from the water, for its own sake, and a fillet of white fish for the sake of its sauce and garnish, which should be therefore perfect. The next dish is in London a question under discussion : namely, the question of precedence to an entree, or to the piece de resistance. The custom was to postpone the appear- ance of the latter until lighter dishes had been dis- patched or declined. If, however, the English joint is required at a meal already comprehensive in the matter of dishes, and taken at a late hour, it seems more reasonable to serve it next to the fish, when those who demand a slice of meat may be expected to have an appropriate appetite, which will certainly be im- paired equally by accepting the entrees, or by fasting partially without them. But nothing so substantial as a joint is now required at a dinner of this kind; an entree of meat at all events replaces it, if wanted. Then one or two light entrees follow, and these must necessarily be either in themselves peculiarly tempting morsels, or products of culinary skill, offering inducements to the palate rather than to an appetite which is no longer keen. Then the best roast possible in season, a choice of two, and a salad ; a first-rate vege- table, a slice of really fine ham, to some a most fitting accompaniment ; two choice sweets, one of which may be iced; a Parmesan soufiie, a herring roe on toast, or a 214 FRUIT CONSIDERED AN ORNAMENT. morsel of fine, barely salted caviare, pale and pearly gray, which may be procured in two or three places at most in town, will complete the dinner. For dessert, which may be ushered in with a couple of companion ices of delicate texture, the finest fruits in season to grace the table, and for light amusement after ; or simply nuts in variety, and dry biscuits ; nothing between the two is tolerable, and little more than the latter is really wanted; only for decorative purposes fruit equals flowers. But it may be admitted that the diminished number of sweet entremets strengthens the plea for a supply of delicious fruits, rendering the dessert useful and agreeable, as well as ornamental. And now that dessert is over, let me say that I do not admit the charge sometimes intimated, although delicately, by foreigners of a too- obvious proclivity to self-indulg- ence on the part of Englishmen in permitting the ladies to leave the table without escort to the drawing-room. The old custom of staying half an hour or even an hour after- ward to drink wine, which is doubtless a remnant of barbarism, has long been considered indefensible. The best wines the host can supply should appear in appro- priate places in the course of dinner ; and after dinner drinking should be simply a demand for a glass or two of the excellent ' Mouton ' or ' Lafitte,' or of the perfect 1 Pommery and Greno,' 'Roederer' or 'Perrier Jouet' which have been known to repose these dozen years or more in some snug and quiet celler of the back base- ment, where goodly remnants still exist of the vintage of '74. Still, the separation of the party into two por- tions for fifteen or twenty minutes is useful to both, and leads perhaps more completely to a general mixture of elements on reunion after than is attained by the orig- inal pairs together. Whether this be so or not, the ladies have a short interval for the interchange of hear- says and ideas relative to matters chiefly concerning their special interests ; while the men enjoy that indis- pensable finish to a good dinner, an irreproachable cup of coffee and a cigarette, and the sooner they arrive the better. With the small dinners of men, it can scarcely too quickly follow the last service." ALL DEPENDS UPON THE POINT OF VIEW. 215 Everything is relative. The logical outcome of a crusade against the use of alcoholic drinks — after it is conceded that such drinks are at once poisonous and useless — is the entire banishment of these drinks from our tables and from use. Very many persons who greatly deprecate drunkenness are yet in favour of what they denominate a moderate use of wine and beer ; such persons are persuaded that the use of these drinks in moderation is a positive benefit to digestion and to health. The underlying thought of this book is that modern dis- eases and sickness are primarily the result of errors in diet — in food and in drink; that these errors can only be corrected by a knowledge of those foods, necessarily simple, which are at once adequately nourishing and most easily digested, and by ascertaining the requisite quan- tities to be used — how to eat enough and not too much ; and that in order to accomplish these results men must make a life habit, having ascertained what these foods and amounts are, of confining themselves to this simple diet day after day, and year after year. There are a large number of so-called moderate drinkers who take the view pointed out above, namely, that while intem- perance is a fruitful source of evil, and to be avoided, a moderate use of wine and beer with food is valuable and necessary. Nearly all persons at the present day are of opinion that what might be called moderation, in variety of dishes, and in the indulgence in the so-called pleasures of the table, is proper and desirable. Fifty to seventy-five years ago nearly every person thought — if they thought at all about the matter — that the position now espoused by the moderate drinker was the correct one ; it was taken for granted by nearly every person that wine and beer with food were desirable. One re- sult of the temperance crusade that has been waged in America and England has been to lessen the number of persons who are in favour of moderate drinking, ai6 AVOIDABLE ERRORS IN DIET. and to greatly increase the number of persons who demand total abstention from alcoholic drinks, and, as one means of bringing this about, demand the total sup- pression of all trade in such drinks. It is our belief that the positions taken by the temperance workers are im- pregnable, and that as time goes on the number of converts to so-called teetotalism will increase until alco- hol will be universally regarded as injurious and useless. So, too, it is our belief that a simplicity in diet bearing somewhat the same relation to the food that water bears to the drink of modern life is as firmly grounded in physiology and science as the crusade against alcohol, and that the more experiments in simplicity of diet are made the more converts there will be to this view. When the time comes that it is universally recognized that the present eating habits of civilization are such as necessa- rily tend to overeating, the undermining of the digestive powers, and the ultimate breakdown of health, it will be seen that the craving for variety, the effort to provide for our tables toothsome titbits and tempting flavors, is part and parcel of the mistake made now so generally of indulging in alcoholic and other stimulants. And as this agitation goes on, the time will come when not only abso- lute abstention from alcoholic drinks will be the rule, but the use of the simplest food in measured quantities will be universal. Sir Henry Thomson, in his work on "Diet in Relation to Age and Activity," tells us that he has come to the conclusion ' ' that a proportion amount- ing to at least more than one-half of the disease which embitters the middle and upper classes of the population is due to avoidable errors in diet." And in his book "Food and Feeding," already quoted from, he says: "The intake and the output should correspond. . . Many a man might indeed safely pursue a sedentary career, taking only a small amount of exercise, and yet maintain an excellent standard of health, if only he SIR HENRY THOMSON INCONSISTENT, 217 were careful that the intake in the form of diet corre- sponded with the expenditure which his occupations, mental and physical, demand." In the light of this teaching, how inconsistent and ridiculous become such recommendations as those given in the preceding quo- tations, recommending elaborate dining and wining. Sir Henry also tell us in "Food and Feeding" that alcohol and tobacco are probably not necessary to any person. This being true, and the evils resulting from the use of intoxicating drinks being so great, the tem- perance worker may very well wonder that so learned and enlightened a physician will lend his influence to the use of these injurious drinks ; in precisely the same light the hygienist, who has found that the most enjoy- able life and health is to be had on the simplest diet, will wonder how it is possible for Sir Henry Thomson to state in one breath that more than one-half of the diseases of middle life are caused by easily avoidable errors in diet, and that the intake and the output should correspond, while in another sentence he recommends to his readers a course of diet that can have but one result — the encouragement of those very errors in diet which he says causes more than half of the diseases of modern life. The error, almost universal in civilization, of seek- ing for a variety of dishes at meals, and for a change from day to day, is fraught with great evil. At the out- set the object that is sought to be obtained is in the nature of things defeated. The spectacle of the gour- met and rich man of the world seated in his carriage, stopped in the street by the exigencies of traffic, who witnesses with envy and indignation a street urchin munching a crust of bread with evident appetite and relish, and reflects that he has no relish for his own sumptuous dinners, is a good illustration of this whole question. Nature is the supreme guide; and we must 218 HUNGER IS THE BEST SAUCE. look to her and be guided by her teachings in every at- tempt to thread our way out of the forest of difficulties and diseases with which we are environed. If it be accepted that man's natural diet is fruit and nuts — and it will be found difficult to construct any other hypothesis that will fulfill all the conditions and requisites of the case — it is is easy to see not only that the diet of primi- tive man consisted of a single dish or food, but that such diet was continued meal after meal, and day after day, as long as the supply from a given tree or grove held out. Just so surely as the not-overfed lad of the street has a better appetite and relish than the pampered child of fortune, it is true that whoever will continuously pur- sue a diet of a single dish of simple and adequate food at a meal will find a distinctly better relish for such food than is possible to the luxurious diner-out, or to any person in the habit of eating a variety of foods from day to day. Soup is a mistake at the very outset. In a natu- ral state man would get all the water needed from his fruits ; digestion goes forward much better when the gas- tric juice is not diluted with fluids. If not enough fresh fruit is taken at meals to afford the needed amount of water — and most people will find their digestive powers too weak to properly digest and dispose of so large an amount of fruit as is needed for this purpose — it will be advisable to drink from a half-pint to a pint of water — preferably pure soft or distilled water — an hour before eating, which provision having been attended to, it will be found that no drink whatever is needed at meal- time ; and persistent following of this rule will show the great majority of persons that they not only will have no inconvenience in doing without drink at meals, but that they will enjoy such meals distinctly more than those in which drink forms so important a part. The experi- ments by Dr. Beaumont showed that soup made no pro- gress toward digestion until the larger share of the liquid SIMPLICITY MORE HEALTHFUL. 219 was absorbed into the circulation ; and it is now well known that many soups are very difficult of digestion. The custom of preceding a meat dinner with fish is altogether wrong. Fish and fruit is an adequate diet ; and it will be found by all persons who are fond of it that if they will make a meal upon fish, with a sufficient and not overmuch quantity of food- fruits, all legitimate delights of the palate may be enjoyed upon this simple fare. Meat and fruit is also an adequate diet, furnish- ing all the elements physiologically needed by man's organism, and whoever has meat at dinner is better off in not having fish as well, for several reasons. There is less liability to overeat ; and there is less difficulty for the stomach to digest a single article of food than a variety taken at the same meal. And surely, if these affirmations are found upon experiment to be proven correct, how manifestly absurd, in a dinner that pro- vides soup and fish and meat, to bring entrees which are invariably concoctions of rich meats with grains or vegetables, and which are usually an adequate food alone. And as if this folly must grow by what it feeds on, the jaded human stomach that has been filled to repletion with soup and fish, and entree and roast, is offered pudding, which is again generally a combination of grains with sugar and animal products, and forms of itself an adequate food. After this array of surfeiting dishes the tired digestion is offered cheese to goad it to action, and cheese is a highly nitrogenous compound which, with bread and sweet fruits, is alone adequate nourishment for prince or peasant. As for fruit, it is sufficient comment on the unnatural habits of modern dining that it is relegated to the last place, and used chiefly for ornamental purposes ; as Sir Henry Thomson naively remarks, * ' for decorative purposes fruit equals flowers." PART IIL THE NATURAL FOOD OF MAN. The Natural Food of Man. CHAPTER I. GENERAL SURVEY. " Yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years." — Genesis vi. 3. It is the office of the philanthropist as well as of the scientist to observe phenomena, to classify facts, and if possible to ascertain the causes of phenomena. Man has many points of essential difference from the lower animals, but in no way does he differ in the pres- ent condition of the race more conspicuously than in the matter of health. It matters not whether we scrutinize the beasts of the field and wood, the fishes of the sea, or the birds of the air; the prevailing condition is health and vigour. If the naturalist or huntsman finds a bird, a fish, or other animal ill or lame, he knows at once that there has been an accident, a combat, or an inadequate supply of food. Man, on the contrary, is found quite generally out of health. Note at the outset the differ- ence in the mortality of the young. The careful farmer has no difficulty in rearing nearly all the young of horses, cattle, sheep and the like born on his farm. Statistics show that fully one-half of the human race dies before the age of five is reached. Naturalists assert that the longevity of an animal is five or six times the 222 NATURAL TERM OF LIFE. period required for full development. Man does not reach this period until the age of 20 or 25, and hence, applying the same rule, if 20 years be taken as the time-, required for maturity, his natural lifetime is from 100 to 120 years; or taking the longer period, from 125 to 150 years. For the purposes of this inquiry the smaller figure is ample. We have the astounding fact that one- half of the human race dies in infancy, and the remain- ing half does not reach, on an average, a greater age than 50 or 55 years. If man's natural life be taken to be 100 years, one-half die at the average age of two or three, and the remaining half average over 40 years short of the full term; if 120 years be taken, then, while one-half 1 die in infancy, the remaining half live on the average to less than one-half of the full term; and if 120 years be taken, and no account be taken of infant mortality, the average is but slightly more than one- quarter of man's natural term of life. Such a wholesale destruction of human life undoubt- edly betokens wide-spread illness. What cause or causes are at work to bring about this result? Physiologists quite uniformly illustrate the physiology of man by that of the lower animals. If this method be sound, it is equally applicable in the search into the causes of man's diseases. When a horse is taken ill its owner investigates the animal's diet in search of the cause of illness. More- over, in his efforts to cure its ailments he usually lays I greatest stress upon the matter of diet. No food is given the sick animal, which generally shows no disposi- tion to eat. When the horse begins to regain health and appetite, care is taken as to the kinds and qualities of food given ; and after rest, and plenty of water, a regulation of the diet is the chief means relied on to effect a cure. Some forty years since, in studying the writings of ANIMALS IN NATURE ALWAYS WELL. 223 rail, Nichols, Shew and other writers and hygienic physicians I became convinced that what is sound rea- soning and good practice in the case of the illness of horses and cattle is equally wise and good in the treat- ment of human beings ; and since in the case of the sick horse the chief remedial measure for his recovery is a regulation of his diet, so I became convinced it ought to be in the event of a human being taken ill. Moreover, since, as before remarked, animals in a state of nature are quite generally in vigorous health and strength, just so, I argued, will man become and be if the causes un- derlying his illness are discovered; and I became con- vinced that when these causes are discovered they will be seen to relate chiefly to the matter of diet. In pursuance of this inquiry, and meditating upon the data which this theory furnishes, I noted that ani- mals in their natural state live upon foods which are spontaneously produced by nature, while man not only does not live upon foods so produced, but is almost un- iversally living upon artificial foods artificially produced. The thought occurred to me that since nature has provided a natural food for all animals below man, it is not unreasonable to suppose that no exception was made in his case, and that nature has provided a food that is as natural to man as grasses to the herbivora, or flesh to the carnivora. If so, what is this natural food of man ? Scientists are in agreement that man made his advent upon the planet in a warm climate ; also that primitive man was without tools and without fire. If this position be contested it is not difficult to substantiate it, If it be allowed without challenge, the inquiry as to what must have been the natural diet of man becomes simple and easily solved. If man first lived in a warm climate, and if, like other animals, he subsisted on foods spontaneously produced by nature, these foods must 224 WHAT IS MAN'S NATURAL FOOD? have been those which grow wild in such a climate, quite probably such foods as are still spontaneously produced in such localities. The woods of the south, as is well known, abound in sweet fruits and nuts. It is taught by botanists that wheat is an artificial product developed from some grass plant not now known. Moreover, cereals are the product of the temperate zone, not of those regions where there is no winter ; and it was there- fore a necessity of man's sustenance when he was without agriculture, without tools, and without fire, and had to depend upon foods spontaneously produced by nature, that he live in a region where these foods were pro- duced at all seasons of the year. This narrows or con- fines the inquiry to two articles of diet — fruit and nuts. When this thought was fully borne into my mind I first asked myself : How adequate is such a diet for man ? It is well known that there are three principal classes of food which are required in every healthy dietary, namely, the carbonaceous, the nitrogeneous, and the phosphatic or mineral. The function of the carbona- ceous food is to support the heat of the body and the vital power ; the office of the nitrogeneous is to support muscular activity; and that of the phosphatic is more especially to support the brain and nerve tissues. The proportionate amounts of these various food-stuffs daily required are said by physiologists to be about 22 ounces in the dry state, and of these about 16 ounces are needed of the carbonaceous, about 5 ounces of the nitrogenous, and less than an ounce of the phosphatic. How, I asked myself, does this natural food — fruit and nuts — answer these requirements ? I saw at a glance that, according to eminent chemists and authorities on the constituent ele- ments of these foods, they abound in the requisite elements for the adequate support of the human frame, and, moreover, that they contain these elements in about the right proportion. Furthermore, I saw that I had not FRUITS GIVE GREATEST RELISH. 225 only hit upon foods spontaneously produced by nature, but also upon foods which need no artificial preparation, no cooking, no sweetening, seasoning, or manipulation of any kind to make them palatable and attractive. If the dishes that are set before a gourmet, those that have been prepared by the most skillful chefs, and that are the product of the most elaborate inventions and pre- parations, were set beside a portion of the sweet fruits and nuts as produced by nature, without addition or change, every child and most men and women would con- sider the fruits and nuts quite equal if not superior in gustatory excellence to the most recherche dishes. Granting all this to be true, it does not follow that the problem has been solved. While fruits and nuts may be the natural food of man, and might have been an adequate diet for primitive tribes who had nothing to do but pluck and eat, and who had none of the severe mental strain inevitable to those in active pursuits in modern civilization, it does not follow that these foods are adequate for civilized man in his vastly changed nature and conditions. A scientist is said to be one who observes facts and classifies them, and science, then, is nothing more nor less than systematically classified facts. I saw that nothing but a scientific test could solve the problem. While it does not follow that sweet fruits and nuts are an adequate diet for man to-day because they undoubtedly formed the diet of primitive man, still, the fact that they contain every element needed for the sup- port of the human frame, and the fact that these foods were undoubtedly those on which primitive man sub- sisted, afforded a sufficient basis for justifying an experi- ment to ascertain what would be the effect of such foods upon modern man. The primal aim underlying this inquiry is the effort to determine what are the causes of modern diseases, and how man may be made as healthy as the animals are in a state of nature, 226 FRUIT AND BREAD— ESSENTIAL DIFFERENCES. Instituting a comparison between sweet fruits and nuts on the one hand, and the diet of civilization on the other, I soon detected an essential difference. I saw that while bread, cereals, and vegetables are the basis of the diet of the present day, that starch is the chief element in these foods. Scrutinizing the component parts of sweet fruits and nuts, I saw that these fruits contain very little starch, and hence I perceived that I had brought to light a fact that was not unlikely to bear an important part in the solution of the problem before me. What is the effect of starch upon the system ? Wherein does a diet that is without starch differ physiologically from one in which starch is the predominant element? In that the two foods involve a very different process of digestion. Sweet fruits are composed largely of glucose, with a fair proportion of nitrogen. As soon as such fruits are eaten the glucose is found ready, pre- pared by the hand of nature, to be absorbed and assim- ilated by the system. When first taken into the stom- ach, the nitrogenous portion of these foods is unassimi- lable, but when they meet and mix with the gastric juice they are readily converted into a substance which is at once soluble and assimilable by the system. When the nuts of southern climes — almonds, Brazil nuts, and the like — are ingested, the nitrogenous elements and fixed or free oils are the chief elements of nourishment. The nitrogenous portion, like the same elements in the sweet fruits, is made soluble and assimilable by the gastric juice; the oil is carried to the intestines and meets with the pancreatic juice before it is made into an emulsion which renders it assimilable. There is a small portion of starch in most nuts, and in some fruits. While the ptyaline of the saliva will convert a small fraction of starch foods into glucose, as will here- after be shown, only a small portion of this transforma- tion is effected in the mouth. As soon as the starch NATURAL FOOD DIGESTED IN MAIN STOMACH. 227 undergoing digestion by its admixture with the saliva reaches the stomach, the acid nature of the gastric juice at once prevents any further change of the starch into glucose, and therefore, although undergoing in the stomach mechanical processes of digestion sufficient to render fruits and nuts soluble and assimilable, the starch is still undigested, and must be passed on to the intes- tines to undergo a second process of digestion before it is soluble and assimilable. We are here confronted by a somewhat startling dis- covery. If it be granted that the sweet fruits and nuts of the south are the natural food of man, it follows that very much the larger proportion of the nourishing elements of man's natural food is digested in the main stomach. True, there is a small percentage of starch in some nuts and in some fruits, and nuts are rich in oil, and this oil and starch must be digested in the second stomach. This relatively small amount of food requir- ing intestinal digestion is somewhat in proportion to the relative size of the two stomachs, the main stomach in both man and the higher apes being a large organ, and the duodenum or second stomach a small one. Granting that fruits and nuts and like foods are naturally adapted to man's digestion, this adjustment of the relative sizes of the two stomachs is quite in harmony with the food to be digested. Since man, by artificial contrivance and agriculture, has developed and employed cereals and starchy vegetables as the basis of his diet, he has reversed what appears to be the natural order. He is now living upon a diet the larger proportion of which, although remaining in the first stomach to await the digestion of the nitrogenous portions, still remains mostly undigested, and is passed on to the second stomach before digestion takes place. That the main stomach is thus called on to perform but a relatively small part of the digestion of his food, and the second 228 MAN'S DIGESTIVE ORGANS UNCHANGED BY HABITS. stomach, although in point of capacity a relatively insig- nificant organ, is called upon to perform the digestion of the larger portion of his food. It has been urged as an objection that since the second stomach is provided with a digestive ferment that is adapted to the digestion of starch foods, this fact is to be taken as a proof that such digestion was de- signed in the formation of man's body. A satisfactory answer to this objection is found in the fact, as before stated, that man's natural food — granting that southern fruits and nuts constitute that regimen — has a propor- tion not only of oil but of starch, and hence there is a good reason why man's second stomach was provided with a digestive juice adapted to such digestion. But since in man's natural food the starch and oil constitute but a small fraction of his entire food, it is reasonable to expect that a smaller sized apparatus would be found adapted to their digestion; and such is the fact as regards the relative capacity of the two stomachs. It has also been urged by objectors that the thou- sands of years during which man has made cereals a chief portion of his diet have not unlikely modified his anatomy and physiology by evolutionary changes, and that, whatever might have been his diet and his physi- cal conformation originally, these thousands of years have developed him into a natural starch- eating animal. A conclusive refutation of this contention is the fact — more fully amplified in succeeding chapters — that the orang-outang and the several species of long-armed apes, which have, apparently since time began, fed upon nuts and fruits, to the exclusion of cereals and starchy vege- tables, have to-day the same digestive apparatus in sub- stantially the same proportion of parts as man, after his thousands of years of cereal eating. This fact is unde- niable evidence that man's organs have not undergone essential modification or change by these centuries of THE THEORY CONFIRMED BY FACTS. 229 unnatural diet. A further confirmation of the sound- ness of this position is found in the fact, also more fully discussed further on, that persons suffering from illness, and especially of the digestive organs, are invariably benefited by being placed upon an exclusively non-starch diet. If the organs had undergone the modification suggested, starch foods would naturally be those best adapted to man's restoration ; but if, as we contend, the race has been, during all these thousands of years of cereal eating, perpetually straining and overcrowding the powers of the second stomach, and thus deranging the digestive apparatus, — and if man is seen to be at once benefited by discontinuing that diet, and by tak- ing a food which is digested in the first stomach, — these facts tend to confirm the view that the adoption of a non-starch diet is in conformity with man's physiological structure and needs. I asked myself, what theories and practices are there in medical treatment of diet and digestion that have a bearing upon this point — this discovery that the natural food of man is substantially without starch, and that the diet of civilization is based upon starch ? The first illustration that occurred to me was that of the beef and hot water treatment which has had so sig- nal a success in America and been somewhat discussed in England. Dr. J. H. Salisbury, an American physi- cian and microscopist of some note, about thirty years since became convinced that an easily digested adequate food is the essential element to effect a cure of illness. His favorite statement is that lean of beef has the largest amount of nutrition for the least amount of di- gestive strain. Commencing practice in Cleveland, Ohio, Dr. Salisbury, in the treatment of chronic diseases by methods based almost exclusively upon this diet, achieved results so remarkable that his practice rapidly augmented, and he removed some fifteen years since to New York. 2 3 o THE SALISBURY MEAT DIET. The history of his career is a record of triumphs. The facts of his treatment fly in the face of many usually re- ceived axioms of the medical profession. It is usually considered that a variety of food is necessary both for the invalid and for the robust. Dr. Salisbury gave a uniform diet. The lean of beef run through a mincing machine until it is reduced to a pulp, cooked just enough to change the red color into a drab, and seasoned with a little salt and pepper ; no drink whatever at meals, but a half-pint to a pint of hot water is insisted upon from a half-hour to an hour before each meal, and before retiring at night. Let it be remarked that this food is absolutely monotonous ; that there is no provision what- ever for a variety ; that it is given to all classes and con- ditions of patients — the fat, the lean, and those in mod- erate flesh; to the consumptive, the rheumatic, the asthmatic, the dropsical — to all. If facts are at the foundation of science, it will be difficult for those physi- cians who maintain the necessity for variety in food to adduce anything in the way of observed facts at all com- parable to this tremendous fact of the success of the Salisbury treatment. It is also generally considered that meat is too con- centrated a diet, and also that it is excremental and in- flammatory. The results of the Salisbury treatment do not confirm these views. It is quite true that a Salis- bury patient is not wholly satisfied with his diet; that he has unanswered longings ; but at the same time all classes and conditions of patients thrive upon it to a sur- prising degree. What facts are the vegetarians or the anti-meat-eaters able to produce to sustain their view that meat is inflammatory and poisonous? Something very decided is needed to meet the unanimity of the testi- mony of these patients who have been greatly benefited by a uniform and exclusive diet of meat and hot water. When I began to meditate upon the facts of the THOUGH VEGETARIANS, PRESCRIBED FLESH FOOD. 231 Salisbury treatment I could see that it bears a relation to the discussion of the essential difference between natural food and the diet of civilization; I could see that Dr. Salisbury's diet is entirely free from starch; that he gives his patients a food which, excepting the free oil, is entirely digested in the stomach, and that the strain of starch digestion so inevitable in all bread and cereal diets is avoided. While engaged in medical practice in New York, Mrs. Densmore and I were strict vegetarians for years. At the same time, we found it necessary in treating patients for obesity to put them upon a flesh diet. We used no flesh ourselves ; we did not allow it to patients not obese ; but when it came to the reduction of obesity we found ourselves obliged to rely upon it. In the course of this practice we met with one set of phenomena that was very difficult to explain. Many patients came to us to get their obesity reduced — to get the twenty- five, fifty, or one hundred pounds, or the two, four, or six stone, of surplus flesh removed. It was our unvary- ing custom to make a memorandum of the patient's name, age, height, weight, and general condition of health. These patients usually complained of difficulty of digestion, of sick headache, neuralgia, or rheuma- tism, and kindred diseases. We prescribed for such patients a meat diet, with hygienic instructions as to ventilation of bedroom, bathing and the like, and a daily aperient. It was surprising to note the benefits that came to them over and above the reduction of the obesity. Sometimes in a week or two, and frequently in a month or two, the sick headache, or neuralgia, or rheumatism, or like troubles were greatly benefited, and often long before the obesity was entirely reduced these complaints were completely removed. I had never been able satisfactorily to account for these phenomena. When meditating upon what facts I might find bearing 232 THE MILK, GRAPE, AND SPA CURES. upon the difference between a natural food, or a non- starch diet, and that usually adopted, I saw that, like Dr. Salisbury's, our obese patients had been treated by a non-starch diet, and that our experience was like Dr. Salisbury's as to the remarkable cures that we were enabled to bring about. Most observers of the diet question, be they physi- cians or laymen, will have noticed the increasing favour that a milk diet has received during the last twenty years. Formerly a patient suffering from fever was often prohibited the use of milk ; in modern practice it frequently happens that milk is the only food allowed. An exclusive diet of milk has been found to be extraor- dinarily efficacious in diabetes, and, as before said, among physicians of all classes a diet largely composed of milk is rapidly growing in favour. I saw that this formed another illustration, like Dr. Salisbury's patients, and like our own obese patients, of the wonderful cura- tive results of a non-starch diet. I noted also that patients at the grape cures on the Continent are fed largely on a diet of grapes. Generally a small amount of plain bread is allowed, but the chief food of the patients is grapes. There is much testimony as to wonderful cures that are accomplished by this regimen. I could see that this was another instance of a non-starch diet bringing about beneficial results. Inquiring into the diet of the German Spas at Carls- bad, Wiesbaden, etc., I was surprised to learn that a minimum amount of bread is allowed the patient, and that he is given a greatly augmented amount of flesh, eggs, and milk. While our own patients for obesity were only a few hundreds, and while those who have been so wonderfully benefited by the Salisbury treat- ment are only counted by thousands, those who have been benefited at these Continental health resorts num- ber tens of thousands, and those who have been bene- THE AUTHOR'S PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. 233 fited by a diet mainly of milk may be computed by hun- dreds of thousands. At the foundation I was gratified to find the same basic fact that the diet is essentially non-starch, and one in which bread, cereals, and starchy vegetables are re- duced to a minimum. As before remarked, I could see that it did not fol- low, even if fruits and nuts are the natural food of man, and were the diet on which primitive man existed in abounding health, that such a diet would be adequate in our day. But I believed that the many facts to which I have adverted were sufficient encouragement to make the experiment, and experiment must ever be the only scientific method of determining such questions. I adopted this diet personally in September, 1889, and in the November following there was published in the London Vegetarian a statement of the leading features of the non-starch system, and an appeal to food reformers to give it the test of experiment. A few were induced to adopt it from the outset. This number has been increased from month to month as the agitation has increased, and as more and more people have been bene- fited by its adoption, until at the time of writing — June, 1892 — it is safe to say that some hundreds in England have adopted this diet, and have received marked benefit from it. It is worthy of note that, unlike the Salisbury system, the diet has been varied from one of fruits and nuts to an exclusive diet of meat and fruits. Mostly the sweet fruits — what I have denominated food-fruits — being chiefly dates, figs, bananas, raisins, prunes, apples, etc. , have formed the basis of this diet ; and it has been supplemented sometimes with nuts, at other times again with eggs and milk, or cheese, or with fish, poultry, or butchers' meat. It will be seen that there is one princi- ple uniting all these diets to each other, and connecting them with the Salisbury treatment and with that of the 234 IS ONE MAN'S MEAT ANOTHER'S POISON? German Spas and health cures before referred to, name- ly, the absence of starch foods. A person holding to the doctrine that what is one man's meat may be another man's poison, — to the doc- trine that there is no general law at the basis of physiol- ogy and digestion and diet in health and disease, and that what is most valuable to any person can only be determined by observation of the idiosyncracies of that person, — perhaps to one in this frame of mind it will be impossible to make a demonstration of the truth of the non-starch diet system — a demonstration of the truth of the doctrine that there is a general law underlying phys- iology, digestion, and diet, that all mankind are made amenable to this law, and that, in the main, hard and fast rules of diet are applicable to all men. In a com- pany of 10,000 invalids, if 9,999 are placed upon a non- starch diet and signally benefited thereby, there is a sense in which it may be said it is not demonstrated that the remaining one necessarily would have been improved by it. At the same time, many questions that are con- sidered as settled in science are settled on much less evidence. When Priessnitz first established his water cure, some sixty years ago, his doctrine met with as much incredulity and opposition on the part of the ortho- dox physician as the non-starch diet system can possibly encounter. Notwithstanding the opposition, the water- cure treatment marched steadily onward, with wonderful results and with an ever-increasing army of converts, until to-day it may be considered as having an estab- lished scientific position, one recognized by all schools of medicine. There is even a greater unanimity in favour of the non-starch diet system than there was in favour of the water-cure processes, because at the outset the water cure was not infrequently administered un- wisely, and sometimes very serious after-effects resulted. In the matter of the non- starch diet system, it is doubted CONFIRMED BY TENS OF THOUSANDS. 235 if a single individual can be found who has suffered illness upon commencing this diet, and who has not felt himself or herself signally benefited by even a few months' adoption of it; and generally a few weeks and sometimes even a few days are sufficient to show marked improvement. It is readily granted that if the demonstration of so grave and far-reaching a question as the injuriousness of bread and cereals be predicated on the testimony of the few hundred patients in our own practice who were signally benefited by a flesh diet, and the few hundred more who have been benefited by the adoption of the fruit and nut theory, — if this was all that could now be adduced in favor of this system, it could not be regarded as conclusive. But when there is added to it the testimony of thousands of patients who have been uniformly benefited by the Salisbury treatment, and the tens of thousands who have been similarly bene- fited by a like diet at the German Spas, and the hundreds of thousands who have been similarly benefited by a diet composed chiefly of milk, it will be difficult to point out why this doctrine that fruit and nuts are man's natural food may not be considered as demonstrated by this con- sensus of testimony. CHAPTER II. . OFFICE OF THE SALIVA. We do not rest our case upon experiment alone. The physiology of digestion, and what is known of the methods of digestion of the different food-stuffs in the stomach, have an important bearing upon the case. If search be made into the latest physiological hand- books, it will be seen that knowledge is very hazy and most indefinite as to the extent of the digestion of starch foods that is accomplished by the saliva and the mouth. So far as I have been able to ascertain, with the excep- tion of some experiments which were made by Professor Goodfellow, and which will be given in the following pages, no experiments have been made by physiologists to determine the amount of starch digestion performed by the saliva. That there is a conversion of starch into glucose in the mouth is easily proven ; and since bread is the basis of the diet of civilization, physiologists have taken it for granted that it is a valuable food, and that thorough mastication would largely assist in its adequate digestion. Writers on physiology and hygienists of all schools never tire of asserting that thorough mastication is necessary. With a view to ascertaining the extent to which starch is transformed into sugar in the mouth by the action of the saliva, Professor John Goodfellow, of the Bow and Bromley Institute, made a series of experi- ments which were first published in the Vegetarian of 20th June, 1891, and which are subjoined: PROFESSOR GOODFELLOW'S EXPERIMENTS. 237 E. Densmore, Esq., M.D. Dear Sir: — I have very carefully performed the fol- lowing experiments in accordance with your instructions. Experiment 1. Fifty grains of the crumb of white bread without admixture with anything else were thor- oughly insalivated for 60 seconds. The bolus was then expectorated into an acid medium, and the mouth rinsed out with distilled water. The washings were added to the tube containing the bolus. The diastasic action of pty aline was thus arrested at the end of about 65 sec- onds. The bread was then analyzed, and its composi- tion compared with that of the bolus, with the object of ascertaining how much starch had been converted into sugar by the action of pty aline. Albuminoids . . Starch Sugar Dextrine .... Fat Mineral matter 100 parts of the dry solids of the bread before insal- ivation contained 100 parts of the dry solids ofbolus, etc., free from acid and mucous contained 12.5 67.6 12.2 4.6 1.6 100. o From the experiment I conclude that about 10 per cent, of the gelatinized and broken-down starch of dry bread is converted into sugar and dextrine during thor- ough insalivation. Experiment 2. Fifty grains of the same bread were taken and moistened with tea, and insalivated for the average time that is allowed by most people for moist foods (15 seconds were allowed), and the bolus treated in the same way as in the first experiment in order to arrest the action of the ptyaline. The following table gives the amount of starch and sugar before and after insalivation : 238 GOODFELLOW'S EXPERIMENTS CONTINUED. Albuminoids . . . Starch Sugar Dextrine Fat Mineral matter . 100 parts of the dry solids of the bread before insal- ivation contained 12.5 75-4 6.0 1.6 i-5 100 parts of the dry solids of bolus, etc., free from mucous and acid contained ".5 73-8 6.5 4.1 1.6 1-5 100. o From this experiment I conclude that only 2 per cent, of gelatinized starch of moistened foods is con- verted into sugar and dextrine in the mouth under ordi- nary circumstances. Experiment 3. One hundred grains of ordinary oatmeal porridge mixed with milk and cane sugar were insalivated for four seconds (by a number of observa- tions it was ascertained that four seconds was the aver- age time during which porridge was allowed to stay in the mouth). The diastasic action was arrested in the same way as in previous experiments. The analysis of the porridge before insalivation, including milk and sugar, gave the following results in 100 parts of dry solids : Albuminoids Starch i7-5 60.4 Dextrose ) Maltose V Lactose ) Sucrose Fat 6.7 3-i 10.2 Mineral matter . . . 2. 1 IOO. o No very great difference in composition could be de- tected after insalivation. There was a very slight in- crease in the quantity of sugar (dextrose and maltose) representing not more than y 2 per cent, of the starch. The results of these experiments support the view EXPERIMENTS CONTINUED. 239 that very little starch of our foods is converted into sugar in the month during ordinary mastication. They also point to the conclusion that the function of the saliva is mainly mechanical, in moistening the buccal cavity, and in facilitating the formation of a bolus. I remain, dear sir, Yours very faithfully, (Signed) John Goodfellow, F.R.M.S., Professor of Physiology and Hygiene at the Bow and Bromley Institute, and co-author of ' Practical Physiology.' " The following is quoted from a letter from Professor Goodfellow, published in the Vegetarian of July 1 1 : ''For many years I have made the secretion and functions of saliva a special study. I have carefully ascertained in the above cases that the secretion has had all the characteristics of normal saliva. I have experi- mented on prepared starch mucilage with the saliva of at least a hundred different persons. The subject of this experiment was a young man in sound health, a partial vegetarian, a non-smoker, and a life abstainer. The saliva was tested on a standard preparation of starch mucilage before the experiments, and compared with the mean of a number of other re- sults which I had obtained in past years. It was also compared at the same time with the salivas of myself, my demonstrator, and a friend who happened to be present, and it showed an amylic power above the aver- age. The results of careful experiments and observa- tions, extending over a lengthened period, have con- vinced me that there is very little difference." Professor Goodfellow contributed to the Vegetarian, under date of June nth, 1892, an account of some further experiments as to the action of saliva on raw cereals and pulses, from which the following is quoted : ' ' It need hardly be pointed out that in raw vegetable foods the starch grains are inclosed in cells of cellulose, the latter being impervious to the action of ptyaline. Unless the cellulose walls are burst, the starch granules 240 EXPERIMENTS ON RAW STARCH. are never exposed to the action of the digestive juices. In cooked cereals the cells are burst by expansion pro- duced by heat, so that the digestion of the starch grains is greatly facilitated. Moreover, raw starch granules, even when set free, are extremely difficult to digest by the amy lie ferments of the body. Raw starch may be subjected to the action of pty aline for heat, without more than a trace of sugar being formed." The grains experimented upon were in one case a mixture of oats, wheat, barley, and rice. In a second experiment, a sample of lentils were used. In the third experiment, a mixture of cereals, linseed, coker- nut, and lentils. These samples were insalivated by being held in the mouth for five minutes, then expelled into a glass vessel, and there was added to the contents a two per cent, solution of pure hydrochloric acid, in order to arrest the action of the pty aline. Professor Goodf ellow sums up the results as follows : ' ' The total amount of sugar formed in the mouth from the mixed cereals was 2.61 grams. This equals about 3.48 grams of starch. Taking the percentage of starch at 60, about 4.4 per cent, of the total raw starch was converted into sugar during insalivation. In the second case, taking the percentage of starch at 50, about .9 per cent, of the total raw starch was con- verted into sugar during insalivation. " In the third case, taking the percentage of starch at 55, about .8 per cent, of the total raw starch was con- verted into sugar." It will be noticed that in the last two experiments the proportion of starch converted into sugar is less than one per cent. — practically an insignificant portion ; and when it is remembered that the samples of cereals were insalivated for five minutes, and that usually, during ordinary mastication of food, starch products are not insalivated one minute, it will be seen that the results of these experiments confirm our contention, namely, that STARCH NOT DIGESTED IN STOMACH. 241 only an insignificant portion of starch foods is converted into sugar by the action of the saliva. Since the change of starch into sugar can only go forward in an alkaline medium, and since normal gastric juice is always acid, it follows that nearly all of the starch used as human food remains undigested in the stomach, and must be passed on to the intestines before digestion can take place. The obvious fact that must be deduced from Professor Goodfellow's experiments is that only an insignificant portion of the starch is digested in the mouth, even when mastication and insalivation have been performed in the most painstaking manner. When it is considered that millions of human beings swallow all their food with the minimum amount of mastication, also that large portions of starch foods are used in the form of porridges and puddings so loaded with water that there is no excitement to the salivary glands, and which pro- voke only a minimum flow of saliva, — when these facts are considered it is plain that the main portion of starch is not digested in the stomach, but must wait for the action of the intestines. A physician or physiologist whose attention is now called to this fact for the first time is urged to consider some of the deductions that are involved in these experiments. While the act of digestion, like all natural processes, is easy enough when the individual is normal and vigorous, it is well known to the physiologist and physician that the process of digestion is in charge of the nervous system, and the very moment that there is any lack of vital power the matter of digestion becomes one of the greatest concern. When it is remembered that the starch portion of foods remains in the main stomach and undergoes unchanged its movements and churnings while the nitrogenous portion is being digested, and must then be passed on to the second stomach before it can be digested and assimilated, — when this is remembered, it only needs 242 FRUIT PRE-DIGESTED BY NATURE. common sense to perceive that the digestion of starch involves great loss of digestive and nervous energy. The reader is asked not to lose sight of the fact that starch is the nourishment commonly used for keeping up the heat of the body, and that as starch it is insoluble and unassimilable ; that it only becomes soluble and as- similable by a chemical change, first from starch into dextrine, and secondly from dextrine into glucose. Wheat usually contains about 70 per cent, of starch, and bread, because of the greater proportion of water, 35 to 40 per cent. The ordinary dried figs of commerce are said to contain about 68 per cent, of glucose, which glu- cose when eaten is in the identical condition that the starch of cereal food is converted into after a protracted and nerve-force- wasting digestion. It would seem to be, as before said, a matter of the merest common sense to perceive that a food that may be said to be pre -digested by nature, and that is all ready for absorption and assimi- lation when first ingested, requires much less strain upon the nervous system than a food having similar chemical elements, but which require complicated diges- tion before the system is able to make use of them. An interesting fact in regard to diet is in order in this con- nection. Invalids the world over are given their bread in the form of toast. The lay world is generally quite ignorant of why this is done, and the average physician is also ignorant. It is because toasting bread until it becomes brown largely converts the starch into dextrine ; and hence, so far as the brown portion is concerned, one of the processes of digestion is gone through before the bread is taken into the stomach. It will be found that the thinner the slices of bread, and the more thoroughly they are toasted, the easier digestion will be, and when all portions of the slice of bread are thoroughly toasted — not burned, but still changed to a deep brown color — it will be found to be still more easily digested than WHY TOASTING BREAD AIDS DIGESTION. 243 ordinary toast. The sweet fruits are removed a step beyond. If there was some method by which a piece of toast could undergo a second transformation and the dextrine be converted into glucose, it would then in all probability be substantially as easy of digestion as the sweet fruits, for the simple reason that it would already be glucose ; in a word, no digestion would be necessary. It would seem beyond dispute that to a system that is weakened or already broken down the substitution of an easily digested food, like the sweet fruits, for one of difficult digestion, like bread and starchy foods, is a very necessary measure to effect restoration. Again, it would seem plain that a human being in apparently robust health is much more liable to remain so upon a food that is adapted to his organism, and that is of easy digestion, than upon one that is a foreign body, and that must undergo a protracted and difficult digestion before being of use to the system. CHAPTER III. CAUSE AND CURE OF CONSTIPATION. The ease with which the heat-giving elements of fruit are digested, and the difficulty attending the diges- tion of the same elements in bread and cereals, is only one-half the problem. Constipation is a concomitant of illness. A free and open habit is always indicative of health. Upon examination of these two classes of heat- forming food-stuffs it will be seen that starch foods tend to constipation and that sweet fruits are aperient. As for the constipating effects of bread, we have the testimony of the army of converts to brown or bran bread to the fact that the ordinary white flour of com- merce tends to constipation. Indeed, the chief reason why these friends of brown bread extol the virtues of that product is because the bran stimulates the move- ments of the stomach and intestines. There is no dif- ference between the common white bread of commerce and the brown or wholemeal bread of the hygienists, except the presence of the bran in the one and its absence in the other. It is the universal testimony of physiologists and chemists that bran passes through the body without change, the process of digestion having no effect upon it. Furthermore, it is admitted by the hygienist that the aperient effect of the bran is the result of the irritation of the stomach and intestines by the bran particles, and that this result is mechanical. According to the testimony of the friends of brown bread, therefore, WHY FRUIT IS APERIENT. 245 white flour has a constipating tendency, and bran has no chemical action upon the system, so its aperient effect must of necessity be the result of mechanical action. Not so with the sweet fruits. While it is undoubtedly true that the ingestion of the skins, seeds, and coarse elements of fruits that are largely composed of cellulose and indigestible matter is likely to have some mechanical effect upon the stomach and intestines analogous to that produced by the presence of bran bread, still, the rasp- ing and cutting element of the bran is entirely wanting, even when the skins and seeds of fruit are ingested. Moreover, that fruit is aperient from chemical rather than from mechanical reasons is proven by the fact that the juice of fruit, wholly removed from any skin, seed, cellular or indigestible matter, is known to have a de- cided aperient effect upon the system. This is undoubt- edly the result of an acid present in fruits which excites an intestinal and rectal secretion, and the presence of water in the intestines aids natural movements. It will be found in practice that a person who habit- ually derives the heat-giving elements exclusively from fruits, while apt to have free enough natural movements, does not after a time experience a too greatly aperient effect; whereas the substitution of a portion of cereal foods for the fruits will leave the system inadequately purged of its waste matter. We are thus face to face with the fact that a reliance upon bread and starch foods for our heat-giving nour- ishment entails a nerve-force-wasting digestion and a habit of constipation ; whereas a reliance on sweet fruits for our heat-giving sustenance frees us from all diffi- culty of digestion, and insures natural and adequate ex- cretion of all waste matter. As before said, fruit contains a specific acid calcu- lated to insure an aperient action, but there are forces brought to bear other than the absence of fruit foods 246 WHY BREAD IS CONSTIPATING. which undoubtedly have to do with the constipating tendencies of a cereal diet. The first law of the animal economy is to provide for nutrition. Upon the presence of nutrition depends spirit; vigor, and life itself. Ade- quate nourishment is the foremost requisite of life. If a food be eaten which is not easily digested, which in fact must remain in the system for hours before any diges- tion takes place, the system in the meanwhile is not in any degree nourished by this undigested food. When the time comes that such food is carried to the intestines and rendered soluble and assimilable, the system must still have time in which to gain its needed nourishment from it. It is in obedience to this law that the system in dealing with starch food — and, for that matter, all food which require a considerable time in which to pre- pare for their assimilation — has a tendency to retain such food for a greater length of time than is natural or wholesome, to the end that its nourishment be ob- tained. Fruits and foods which are readily made assim- ilable in the first stomach in a short time yield up their nutritive elements, and the waste matter is promptly excreted from the system. Not so with the starch foods ; since hours have been wasted, so to speak, after their ingestion before they are rendered assimilable, there must still be provision made for adequate time in which to absorb their nourishment. The human organism is an automatic piece of machinery ; and when habitually fed upon starch foods a habit is engendered of retaining these foods within the system for a considerable period. Al- though this necessarily tends to constipation, and al- though the automatic machinery of the system is so con- structed that it aims to avoid all unheal thful or untoward conditions, still, as before remarked, nutrition being of the first consequence it must be provided for at all haz- ards, even if constipation be entailed. The inevitable obedience to this necessity of the system to be nourished, STARCH FOOD RETAINED TOO LONG. 347 and of all starch foods to be retained within the system an unnaturally protracted period before their nourish- ment can be extracted, constitutes an additional reason why cereals and starch foods necessarily tend to consti- pation. CHAPTER IV. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS. If the anatomy of the human organism be studied, the mind is filled with wonder and admiration at the beautiful adaptation of means to ends which it displays. The most elaborate machinery which has been invented and perfected by the mind and hand of man pales into insignificance when compared with the intricacy and harmonious working of the parts of this living machine. The human body is said to be a microcosm of the universe. Certain it is that as it becomes better under- stood, there are seen in its workings more and more illustrations of the sciences with which the human mind has become acquainted. The processes of digestion furnish the most interesting illustrations of the science of chemistry ; and the manner in which the assimilative elements of food find their way into the circulation reveals a most wonderful contrivance. In the peristaltic movements is seen an illustration of consummate skill in the science of mechanics. In the circulation of the blood the enormous amount of labor performed by that most marvelous of all engines, the human heart, often has been pointed out, and is a matter with which most readers are familiar. The extraordinary provision by which the returning venous blood is converted into the pure arterial fluid is a source of never-ceasing admira- tion. The office and function of the millions of pores of the skin is a contrivance of surprising ingenuity. FRUIT ALWAYS HARMONIOUS. 249 The provision of nature for healing wounds is mar- velous, and the harmonious co-operation of the mani- fold forces of the human body, all working toward the conservation and continuance of life and vigor, fills the mind with wonder. If one undertakes the labyrinthine study of astron- omy, and grasps the mighty spaces of the universe, filled with suns and systems of planets in perpetual motion, all working in harmonious relation, again the mind is filled with inexpressible admiration at the ex- tent of the harmonies of the universe. The same is true in a degree as regards all the sciences. The philosopher who will give this subject adequate attention easily will be convinced that all truth is homo- geneous ; that all its parts agree with all other parts ; in a word, that truth is always in agreement and accord with itself. In preceding chapters we have briefly ad- verted to the proofs of the contention that bread, cereals, pulses, and vegetables are unwholesome food for man. The proofs there adduced are scientific, and are believed to be unassailable ; and upon these proofs it would per- haps be well enough to rest our case. But believing as we do in the reign of immutable and universal law — that the universe and all it contains were built in accordance with one infinite plan, and every part of this creation is in harmonious relation with all other parts — we desire to point out some additional reasons for asking the reader to acquiesce in the above contention. It is hoped that the underlying thought of this brief chapter may be considered as a preface to each of the suc- ceeding chapters denominated "Confirmatory Proofs." CHAPTER V. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— ROWBOTHAM. We have come into possession of an old and rare pamphlet of less than ioo pages which is pregnant with striking scientific facts and philosophical deductions, and is remarkably pertinent to the main contention that bread, cereals, and pulses are unwholesome foods for man. It consists of " an inquiry into the cause of nat- ural death, or death from old age; and develops an entirely new and certain method of preserving active and healthy life for an extraordinary period ;" written by one S. Rowbotham, author of an essay on Human Par- turition, etc. ; and it was published by Abel Heywood, Manchester, in 1845. We are informed that Mr. Row- botham practiced medicine in Stockport some fifty years since. According to the English custom among sur- geons, he did not assume the title of doctor. His writ- ings give inherent proof of his culture and ability. The following is taken from the preface : ' ' Let it not be said that the life of man cannot be prolonged to many times the present period of his exist- ence, because it is not so ; as it was said that traveling by steam could never be accomplished, because passen- gers and luggage had been carried so long only by coaches and pack-horses. It does not follow that be- cause a thing is not, or has not been, that it therefore cannot be. Yet this is the common mode of reasoning adopted by the world ; this alone has been sufficient to bring down ridicule, and even punishment and death, A PLEA FOR PROGRESS. 251 upon those who have ventured to propose anything out of the common path, even though it has ultimately been the source of great delight to the persecutors them- selves. Human improvement, and progression toward a better state of existence, will ever be retarded if dis- coveries and inventions are to be judged in such a foolish, unbecoming manner. Let the groundwork of every new subject be examined, and if found to be cor- rect in principle — if truth be at the foundation — what has the world to fear from consequences ? Are we so far wedded to old notions and practices, even though they constitute a very personification of falsehood and misery, that we are afraid of truth, and tremble lest it make us happier ? " The following quotations are taken consecutively from the various chapters of this valuable work : ' ' The solid earthy matter which by gradual accum- ulation in the body brings on ossification, rigidity, de- crepitude, and death, is principally phosphate of lime, or bone matter; carbonate of lime, or common chalk, and sulphate of lime, or plaster of Paris, with, occasionally, magnesia, and other earthy substances . . . . ' i We have seen that a process of consolidation begins at the earliest period of existence, and continues without interruption until the body is changed from a compara- tively fluid, elastic, and energetic state, to a solid, earthy, rigid, inactive condition, which terminates in death — that infancy, childhood, youth, manhood, old age, and decrepitude, are but so many different condi- tions of the body or stages of the process of consolida- tion or ossification — that the only difference in the body between old age and youth, is the greater density, toughness, and rigidity, and the greater proportion of calcareous earthy matter which enters into its composi- tion. The question now arises, what is the scource of the calcareous earthy matter which thus accumulates in the system ? It seems to be regarded as an axiom, that all the solids of the body are continually built up and renewed from the blood. If so, everything which these solids contain is. derived from the blood ; the solids con- 252 WHY COMMON SALT IS HARMFUL. tain phosphates and carbonate of lime, which are there- fore derived from the blood, in which, as already shown, these earthy substances are invariably found to a greater 01 less extent. The blood is renewed from the chyle ; which is always found upon analysis to contain the same earthy substances as the blood . and the solids. The chyle is renewed from chyme ; and ultimately from the food and drink. The food and drink, then, which nour- ish the system, must, at the same time, be the primary source of the calcareous earthy matter which enters into the composition of the chyme, the chyle, and the blood ; and which is ultimately deposited in all the tissues, membranes, vessels, and solids of the body — producing old age, decrepitude, and natural death. . . . " Common table salt, which is used in the preparation of almost every kind of food, and along with many of our meals, contains a fearfully large amount of calcareous earthy matter ; and is productive of very great mischief to the animal economy. . . . . "Many elaborate articles have been written, and some by very learned philosophers, to account for the declared absolute necessity for the use of salt in carrying on the general functions of the body. But this supposed necessity for the use of salt is merely an opinion derived from some of the many theories held in the present day to account for the different phenomena connected with organization and life. There is no foundation in fact for such an opinion. Whole tribes and nations of power- ful, active persons are known to have subsisted without even the knowledge of salt. The author of these re- marks, and several of his friends, have lived without salt more than two years without any injurious conse- quences, but, on the contrary, with considerable advan- tage. There cannot be a doubt that if persons who have been in the habit of consuming salt freely should sud- denly abandon its use, much evil might arise, just as it might by any other change of habits ; but if the change is made by degrees, and the old articles of diet gradually removed by the substitution of new ones, such changes may be wrought in the body without injury as would appear at first sight incredible. BREAD THE STAFF OF DEATH. 253 ' ' Bread (from wheaten flour), when considered in reference to the amount of nutritious matter it contains, may with justice be called the staff of life ; but in regard to the amount of earthy matter, we may with equal justice pronounce it the ' staff of death.' ' ' Cheese contains a small proportion of earthy matter and is very nutritious. It bears a strong resemblance to the gluten of wheat, and may be eaten to great advan- tage with fruits and fresh garden vegetables, but should not be taken with bread. The latter combination is very dry and indigestible. . . . ' * Butter is the oily part of milk, and is much used as an article of diet. Although it is considered an animal product, consisting of butyrine, oleine, stearine, and butyric acid, some vegetables yield a substance very analogous to it. ' In the interior of Africa,' Mr. Park informs us, ' there is a tree much resembling the Ameri- can oak, producing a nut in appearance very like an olive. The kernel of this nut, by boiling in water, affords a kind of butter, which is whiter, firmer, and of a richer flavor than any he ever tasted made from cow's milk, and will keep without salt the whole year. The natives call it Shea Toulon, or tree butter. Large quan- tities of it are made every season.' Butter of cocoa, and palm oil are other vegetable specimens. The milk of sheep produces the greatest proportion of butter ; after the sheep, the goat and the cow give the largest amount. "... ' ' Spring water contains an amount of earthy ingre- dients which is fearful to contemplate. It certainly differs very much in different districts and at various depths ; but it has been calculated that water of an aver- age quality contains so much carbonate and other com- pounds of lime, that a person drinking an average quantity each day will, in forty years, have taken as much into the body as would form a pillar of solid chalk or marble as large as a good-sized man. So great is the amount of lime in spring water, that the quantity taken daily would alone be sufficient to choke up the system, so as to bring on decrepitude and death long before we arrived at twenty years of age, were it not for the kid- 254 CAUSE OF PREMATURE OLD AGE. neys and other secreting organs throwing it off in con- siderable quantities. These organs, however, only dis- charge a portion of this matter ; for instance, supposing ten parts to be taken during a day, eight or nine may be thrown out, and one or two lost somewhere in the body. This process continuing day after day and year after year, the solid matter at length accumulates, until the activity and flexibility of childhood become lost in the enfeebled rigidity of what is then called, though very erroneously, 'old age.' A familiar instance of earthy deposition and incrustation from water is observed in a common tea-kettle, or steam boiler. Every housewife knows that a vessel which is in constant use will soon become * furred up, ' or plastered on the bottom and sides with a hard, stony substance. Four and five pounds weight of this matter have been known to col- lect in twelve months. The reader must not mislead himself by thinking that because so much lime is found in a tea-kettle, the watei aftei boiling is there- fore free from lime. It is true boiling water does cause a little carbonate of lime to precipitate, but the bulk of the sediment is left from that portion of the water only which is driven off as steam, or boiled away. This can easily be ascertained by testing the water both before and after boiling. It will be found to contain earthy particles, however long the boiling may continue. Filter- ing it is also of no use ; for this only removes what may be floating or mechanically mixed in the water ; whereas the earthy matter here spoken of is held in solution. So that spring water, clear and transparent as it may appear, is nevertheless charged with a considerable amount of solid choking-up matter, and is therefore in any form unfit, or at least is not the best suited for internal use. The only means whereby it can be rendered perfectly pure and fit for unlimited consumption is distillation. A very simple apparatus might be attached to a kitchen fire so as to be of very little trouble, and yet to grad- ually distill as much water as would be required for a family. There cannot be a doubt that distilling the water intended for tea, coffee, soup, and other internal purposes, even without any other change in diet, would SUBSTITUTE FOR DISTILLED WATER. 255 diminish disease and add many years to our exist- ence. "A good substitute for distilled water may be had in rain, or snow or hail. If a large sheet was suspended by the four corners in an open yard or field, and a stone or other weight placed in the center so as to give it some- what the form of a funnel, the rain or melting snow would run to the center and might be caught in any ves- sel for the purpose. This would be almost equal in purity to distilled water. If this cannot be done, clear rain water filtered might be used, although it is liable to become charged with earthy and other substances in passing over the house-tops. 1 ' There are many places where the spring water is so very hard (which quality of hardness is owing to the amount of sulphate of lime and other earthy substances) that many strangers are unable to use the water beyond a few days without suffering greatly from gravel and other disorders. Dr. Thomson, in his ' Materia Medica,' p. 1047, savs : * The abundance of this earthy salt (sulphate of lime) in the water of Paris, and in the waters of many parts of Switzerland, produces uncomfortable feeling to strangers who first visit these places. It is also said to produce calculus complaints in the inhabitants. In weak and irritable stomachs hard spring water causes an un- easy sensation of weight at the stomach, and when long used as a daily beverage, produces a degree of dyspepsia, to which we must attribute the calculus deposits which Dr. Percival and others have observed to be common in places where hard water is drunk.' Again, at page 105 1, containing his remarks on water as an ailment, he observes : ' No water which contains so much foreign matter as to place it within the class of mineral waters can be employed as an ordinary diluent ; and even hard or well water when daily used proves injurious. This fact is well known to horse jockeys, who when they are desirous to sell a horse to advantage, give him either spring water or water which has been boiled for drink ; well knowing that the use of hard water makes his coat rough.' In these cases we have at least instances of the influence of drink containing earthy matter increasing 256 EXPERIMENTS UPON FOWLS. the formation of calculi, and even affecting- the skin. These effects do not arise unless the earthy substances are taken into the body with the drink. * ' Three common fowls were fed fourteen days upon a mixture of equal parts of wheat, oats and barley, with hard spring water to drink ; the amount of earthy matter in these four articles is represented in the table of diet by the numbers respectively 220, 1 18, 65, and 10 ; the average of which is 9 1 . In the fourteen days the number of eggs from the whole was 28. The shells from which weighed one ounce, two drams, one scruple, and fifteen grains, or 635 grains. The shells were then analyzed, and found to contain 93 per cent, of earthy matter ; and gelatine and water 7 per cent. The same fowls were then fed four- teen days upon cooked potatoes, greens, fish, and flesh, about equal parts, with filtered rain water to drink. The numbers representing these articles are, potatoes 90, greens 6, fish 18, flesh 26, and rain water o; the average of which is 28. In the fourteen days the number of eggs was 27. The shells from which weighed seven drachms and a half, or 460 grains, which for 28 would be 477 grains; being a difference of 158 grains, or one- fourth less. The shells were analyzed and found to con- tain 82 per cent, earthy salts, and 18 per cent, gelatine and water, being a difference of 1 1 per cent, in the amount of earth, and 1 1 per cent, in the amount of gela- tine, &c. These results will be perceived by giving them in a tabular form : Kind of Food. Amount of Earth in each. Average Amount Period of Feeding. No. of Eggs- Weight of Shells. Composition. Earthy Gelatine Matter. & Water Dif- ference. Wheat Oats Barley Hard or Spring Water Potatoes Greens , Fish Flesh Rain- Water 220 "I 118 10 J 90] A 14 days 14 days 635 grs. 460 grs. or for 28 eggs 477 grs. Per Ct. 93 Per Ct. 7 ' ' The fowls were then fed as at first, and again a corresponding difference was found in the character of the shells. UPON A DOG, HORSE, AND MAN. 257 " A dog that had always lived in the ordinary way, on bread, bones, meat, &c, was bled, and the blood analyzed. It was found to contain 14 per cent, of phos- phate and carbonate of lime ; the urine 1.5; and the excrements 2.75 per cent. The dog was then fed 14 days on flesh, potatoes, fruits (of which it was very fond), and distilled water. The blood was then found to contain 9 per cent, of phosphate and carbonate of lime ; the urine. 75 percent., and the excrements 1.5 per cent., being a diminution of 5 per cent, in the blood, .75 in the urine, and 1.25 in the excrements. At the end of this period the dog was fed in the ordinary way for a month, the blood being then found to contain 12.5 per cent., the urine 1.25, and the excrements 2.25 per cent ; being an increase again of 3.5 in the blood, ,5 in the urine, and .75 in the excrements. "A horse was fed freely upon oats, beans, meal, hay and spring water for several months. The blood was found to contain 10 per cent, of calcareous earth ; the urine 1.25 ; the excrements 4.5. It was then fed a month upon clover, grass, and such other fresh vege- table matters as are generally mixed with them, with a small portion of corn and filtered rain water (which was nearly as pure as distilled water) to drink. The blood was found to contain 7 per cent, of earthy matter ; the urine .75 per cent., and the excrements 2.5 per cent; being a decrease in the blood of 3 per cent. , . 5 in the urine, and 2 per cent in the excrements. 1 ' A man who had always lived as the working classes generally live, upon bread, puddings, potatoes, flesh, cheese, milk, coffee, ale, tea, &c, was induced to submit himself to various experiments for several weeks : first, the urine voided every morning was preserved and a portion carefully analyzed ; the amount of earthy matter was found to be 3.5 per cent ; the excrements 6 per cent ; the saliva 1 . 5 per cent ; and the blood 8 per cent. He then lived upon flesh, fish, greens, and a large quantity of ripe fruits for a fortnight. The urine, for several mornings, was collected and found to contain only 2 per cent, of earthy matter, the excrements 4 per cent ; the saliva .75 per cent; and the blood only 5 per cent. He 258 UPON MOTHER AND CHILD. was also induced to run until lie perspired freely, when as much of the sweat was scraped from the body as was capable of being analyzed, though not in quantity sufficient to be weighed. This was done both before and after the change of diet, and a very sensible differ- ence was found in the amount of earthy salts. The sweat obtained before the change of diet contained considerably more than that obtained at the end of the experiment ; though it was altogether so small that the exact amount could not be accurately ascertained. The man was then allowed to return to his old habits and food ; and at the end of a month the secretions and blood were again analyzed, and found to contain a much greater proportion of calcareous earthy matter than when last examined ; but not quite so much as they con- tained previous to the experimental change of diet being undertaken. The following very striking experiment was tried upon a female and her child, only three months old : a portion of the milk of the mother was obtained sufficient for analysis, and found to contain about 1.75 per cent, of phosphate and carbonate of lime. She then had lived upon bread, tea, coffee, flesh, potatoes and pastry of various kinds. A portion of the urine and stools of the child were obtained every day for six days ; when on being analyzed, the urine was found to contain . 5 per cent, of earthy matter, and the stools 2 per cent. The mother was then induced to live for a week — seven days — upon sago, puddings, roasted apples well sweetened, grapes, figs, and port and sherry wine. At the end of the fifth day a portion of the milk was examined, and found to contain .5 per cent; the urine and stools of the child were then collected, and repeated on the sixth and seventh days. On being analyzed the urine was found to contain only a trace of earthy matter, and the excrements only .25 per cent. The mother then quickly returned to her usual food, having found the change for a week rather a severe task. In about a fort- night the excretions of the child and the mother's milk were again examined, and the proportions of earthy ele- ments had greatly increased, approaching the amount found on the first analysis. CHILDBIRTH NATURALLY PALNLESS. 259 1 ' At an early period of the present inquiry it oc- curred to me that the degree of solidity and bulk of the bones of a child previous to birth must depend upon the amount of calcareous or osseous matter in the food of the mother taken during gestation ; and that the pro- cess of fetal ossification might be so far retarded, that a more elastic, yielding, or india-rubber-like condition of the child might be secured; and the mother thus re- lieved of much of the sufferings and danger usually at- tending the periods of delivery. I was more particu- larly impressed with the importance of such a view, by the fact that in various parts of the world the females are comparatively free from the evils generally attend- ing the females of European society. 'Among the Araucanian Indians of South America, a mother, imme- diately on her delivery, takes her child, and going down to the nearest stream of water washes herself and it, and returns to the usual labours of her station.' — Steven- son's i Twenty Years Residence in South America,' Vol. 9. Many accounts have been given of these and the females of other tribes requiring no more than ten or fifteen minutes for all purposes connected with their delivery. These easy births have generally been ac- counted for on the supposition of their being favored in physical structure and climate ; but that they are more favored in the first respect than our own females is expressly denied by Professor Lawrence, in his ' Lec- tures on Physiology,' who states: "The very easy labour of negresses, native American, and other women in the savage state, has been often noticed by travelers. This point is not explicable by any prerogative of physical formation, for the pelvis is rather smaller in these dark-coloured races than in the European and other white people.' That they are not favoured by cli- mate, is evident from the fact that the females of the North American tribes have as easy labours as those of the Central and South American. In our country also cases have occurred where females who have generally suffered severely, have occasionally given birth with such ease as to surprise both themselves and their friends. I remember speaking some time ago to a few 260 EFFECT OF FRUIT ON PARTURITION. friends on this subject, when one of them related the case of a lady of his acquaintance who had given birth to four children. The first two were born with all the dangers and difficulties usually attending parturition, the third was born with the greatest ease, while the fourth delivery was equally difficult with the two former. It was quite fresh in the memory of her friends, that from an early period, and during the whole time of ges- tation of the third child, she was excessively fond of oranges, limes, and even lemons, which she took in such abundance that she required very little of any other kind of food. Her desire for these fruits was so very great that, although her husband and those around her continually remonstrated, and enticed her to leave them off for fear of injuring herself, she con- tinued to live almost entirely upon them. To her sur- prise, and that of her friends, however, she gave birth with so much more ease and safety, that notwithstand- ing the supposed impropriety of so doing, she was able, and did resume her ordinary duties in a few days after- wards. During the pregnancy of the first, second and fourth children, she lived in the ordinary way. . . . * ' These considerations led me to the conclusion, that our civilized females might so adapt their food during gestation, that they might escape the suffering which endangers their lives, as well as the females of savage tribes. In the month of January, 1841, I induced a female who had suffered severely on two former occa- sions, and who was now a third time full seven months advanced in gestation, to try an experiment under my directions. She commenced by eating an apple or an orange, or both, the first thing in a morning, and again at night. This was continued a few days, until she found she could take more without inconvenience. At breakfast she took several roasted apples with a very small quantity of wheaten bread and butter, and one small cup of coffee. During the forenoon she took sev- eral oranges or apples. To dinner she had a little fresh animal food, with roasted apples or apple sauce, and a potato or green vegetables (no bread or pastry of any kind), sometimes a few boiled or roasted onions, and ANOTHER STRIKING EXAMPLE. 261 always took plenty of pickles and vinegar. In the after- noon she again partook freely of oranges, apples, grapes, or such other fruits as could be obtained. At tea she proceeded as at breakfast — a little bread, tea, and a number of roasted apples. Supper, sago boiled in milk, mixed sometimes with currants, raisins, or cut apples. She continued this course for about six weeks ; w\hen to her surprise and satisfaction her legs and feet, which when she began were considerable swelled and painful, and the veins, which were very large and full, almost ready to burst, had returned to their former state ; and she became altogether as light and active — or more so, than she was previous to her pregnancy. She was often seen to run up and down a flight of more than twenty stairs with apparently as much ease as any other person, and certainly with less fatigue than she could have done at any former period within her recollection ; such an influence had the fruit diet in rendering the body light and buoyant, and the spirits active and cheerful. Her health altogether became excellent — in fact she many times declared that she never felt so light and healthy before ; not an ache or pain of any kind was she troubled with, up to the night of her delivery. Even her breasts, which at the time she commenced the experiment were exceedingly tender and painful, became, and continued entirely free from pain. Between ten and eleven o'clock on the evening of the third of March, she, for the first time, expressed her belief that her time was come; about twelve the surgeon was sent for, he came about half-past, at a quarter to one the delivery was safely effected, and at one o'clock he left the room. Had she not been influenced by custom, she might have resumed her usual duties immediately after her delivery ; or, at all events, next day. Indeed, the prejudices which exist upon this subject, and the fear of violating the notions of propriety of her friends and neighbours, alone retained her.* However, on the fourth morning, such was her *" If there is one thing more than another which betrays a mind totally ignorant of the laws and purposes of Nature, it is the abuse which is heaped upon females, in proportion as they escape the dangers and sufferings of childbirth. Many otherwise intelligent persons do not blush to avow their 262 'THE MORE FRUIT AND LESS BREAD THE BETTER. condition, that she left her bed, washed and dressed herself and the child, and commenced her ordinary family pursuits. She had no assistance from medicine. It may be stated as a further proof of the influence of diet upon the fetus, and in diminishing the difficulties of parturition, that the same female, during two former periods of preganancy, subsisted very much on bread, puddings, pies, and all kinds of pastry, having an idea, like many others, that solid food of this kind was necess- ary to support and nourish the fetus* and she suffered very greatly in delivery. On this occasion, with only six weeks' adoption of a contrary course, she secured for herself a more easy labour than is ever perhaps experi- enced by females in this or other civilized countries. 1 ' This experiment has proved the truth of the con- clusion, that in proportion as a female subsists during gestation upon aliment free from calcareous earthy mat- ter, will she retard the consolidation of the child and thus prevent pain and danger in delivery. Hence the following may be given as an axiom for the guidance of females at these particular times. The more ripe fruits and the less of other kinds of food, but particularly of bread or pastry of any kind, they consume during preg- nancy, the less difficulty will they have in labour. . . . ' ' The urine of a female when pregnant contains less earthy matter than when she is not so. It is no doubt taken up in the formation of the bones of the fetus. belief that these miseries are really essential to the love of offspring — that females would have little or no regard for their young, did they not suffer in giving them birth. That a woman should suffer severely at such a time, is spoken of as a wise and inevitable law of nature ; and those who escape with the least amount of danger are taunted with being most analogous with the beasts that perish. It is to be hoped, however, that ere the close of the nineteenth century, such mischievous and foolish prepossessions will have ceased to disgrace mankind. For, surely, science and careful ob- servation of causes and effects will enable us, sometime or other, to dis- cover the sources of physical evil, and avoid not only one, but all the ills that flesh is heir to. Else all our labours in seeking truth and happiness are in vain ; these being the grand object of our exertions and existence. * " It is quite right to suppose that nutritious food is necessary to support and strengthen the fetus ; but the nutritious and the solid earthy matter EFFECT OF DIET ON TEETH. 263 ' * As age advances, or rather, as the consolidation of the body increases, the composition of the teeth grad- ually changes ; the amount of earthy matter increasing, and the gelatine, or animal glue, diminishing. Some- times the amount of earthy matter becomes so great, and the cartilage, or gelatine, which holds it together so little, that the teeth, even in young persons, will begin to crumble and wear away like a piece of chalk ; and this very often without the individual feeling much pain. Persons thus affected I have always found to be great consumers of bread, puddings, pies, and other flour prep- arations, all of which contain a large amount of phos- phate of lime. By a course of diet of a different nature, I have caused several persons to succeed in arresting the progress of decay, and fixing the remaining teeth firmly and usefully in the gums. ' ' The broken limbs of old people do not unite so readily as those of children and persons in the prime of life ; because in advanced age, although there is more bony matter in the system, the, vessels which should convey it to the injured part being obstructed the union cannot take place. ' ' The periods called puberty and maturity are sim- ply conditions or states of the body, depending on cer- tain degrees of arterial ossification. Both which may be brought on sooner or later, according to the intensity of the consolidating, or choking up-process. It is possible to force a child through the various stages of life much earlier than is usual, or to delay them for an extraordi- nary period, by simply regulating the amount of solid matter in its food. Children, when overworked, as in some manufacturing districts, necessarily devour a greater amount of solid food than would otherwise be sufficient ; they consequently deposit the greater amount of earthy matter which that food contains in the system ; the capillary vessels are sooner obstructed to those de- grees which constitute puberty and manhood, and thus in food are very different substances. Wheaten flour, on account of it containing so much earthy matter, is the most dangerous article a female can live upon when pregnant. The other grains are bad enough, but better than wheat. 264 EFFECT OF DIET ON COMPLEXION AND OLD AGE. they cease to grow, and become men and women (such as they are) at an earlier age than those around them who have been placed under different circumstances. Chil- dren who are not overworked, but who are great eaters of solid grain food, arrive at these states much sooner than others of different habits. The sooner an individ- ual comes to maturity, the sooner, if the same habits are continued, will he come to the periods of old age, decrepitude, and death. There seems to be no excep- tion to this principle either in the animal or vegetable world. So true is it, that the average age to which any species of organized beings exist may be almost deter- mined by knowing the time at which they arrive at maturity, or begin to propagate. " As manhood is attained, the skin begins to be in- crusted with a plaster-like substance which accumulates as age advances. If the linen of some persons, after being worn a few days, be well shaken, a quantity of dust-like flour will come from it. If the body be rubbed well with a dry, hard brush or cloth, the same flour-like substance will be obtained. This dust, when analyzed, is found to consist of gelatine, combined with earthy or bony matter. That it is originally derived from the food or drink, is evident from the fact that its presence on the skin is in proportion to the amount and quality of the food consumed. Aged people, for instance, having consumed through a period of sixty or eighty years an immense quantity of aliment, and therefore deposited a large amount of earthy matter into the system, are in- crusted to a much greater extent than young persons. Old people of the same age also differ much in this respect; those who have taken freely of grain foods always being much worse than such as have been more sparing in their habits, and have consumed less flour preparations, and more fresh vegetables, fruits, fish, flesh, etc. " Women generally eat less food, and labor and per- spire less than men, and are therefore less incrusted with calcareous matter. Their skins are much smoother and more pliant, and on this, as well as on other accounts, they may be justly styled the ' softer sex.' In ad- CEREAL FOOD INDUCES EARLY DEATH. 265 vanced age, however, even they are more or less af- fected with this external impurity. For the same rea- sons we observe that the skin of a child is much softer and cleaner than that of an adult. This collection of gelatinous and calcareous matter upon the surface of the body is highly injurious to health ; inasmuch as it pre- vents the elimination of the superfluous vapours and gases which the skin is alone calculated to discharge. It is, in fact, a part of that general ossification of the system which is the source of disease and ultimately of death itself. It ought very forcibly to remind us of the absolute necessity of keeping the body clean, not only by frequent washing, but by actual grooming or scrub- bing with a rough cloth, or a close, strong brush; or what is perhaps the best of all, the horse-hair gloves and belts which are sold for this purpose by every re- spectable chemist in the kingdom. As the earthy mat- ter which often incrusts a common tea-kettle is depos- ited in consequence of the water which held it in solu- tion being converted into steam and driven off ; and as therefore the more the water contains, the more will be the quantity deposited in the vessel, and the sooner will it become incrusted or ' ' furred up' ; so, in the same manner, the fluids of the body constantly passing off in the shape of sensible and insensible perspiration, or in other words, changing into vapour and gas — boiling away, as it were — the more we eat and drink of substances con- taining calcareous earth, the more will enter into the composition of the blood, the more will be deposited in- ternally as well as on the skin ; and therefore the sooner will the whole system become ossified, or filled or choked up, and the sooner will rigidity or decrepitude and death take place. " Persons of a dull, cadaverous appearance, with harsh, rough skins, who are thin and bony, and continu- ally troubled with some complaint or other, I have always found to be greatly attached to food of a solid, earthy nature, such as bread, puddings, pies, tarts, cakes and flour preparations in general. I do not mean to assert that such persons never partake of much of other substances, for they are generally fond of rich, 266 FRUIT AND MEAT PROMOTE HEALTH AND LIFE. strong food as well ; but that bread and pastry composed of oats or other grain constitute the basis of their diet. The same may be said of such as are troubled with bad teeth, ulcers, pimples and blotches of every kind, and who are susceptible to headaches, colds, etc. ; and more particularly is this the case when the individuals are of costive habits of body, because then much injurious matter is retained, that would otherwise have been discharged. On the contrary, those who are bright and lively in appearance, who have clear and shining skins, full in fleshy bones sjnall and flexible ', seldom troubled with disease of any kind, and who are generally stirring and animated, I have always found to partake more of fresh vegetables, greens, fruits and animal food, fish, fowl, eggs, and all kinds of albuminous and saccharine substances, * and who cared but little for gross, solid, grain food, such as flour in its various forms. ' ' Heavy, clumsy persons, whose movements — when they do move — are stiff and awkward, are always great consumers of solid food, especially of bread and pastry of all kinds; some of such persons I have known, who could and did devour half a quartern loaf at a meal, and who always preferred a pie with a crust approaching the thickness of the rim of a coach- wheel, to one of a more delicate and decent construction. ' ' Among children and young persons too, it may be seen that the dull, heavy, ill-tempered ones are mostly great eaters of solid grain foods ; while the more active and lively are less anxious for food of a solid character, but mostly fond of light, fluid, and saccharine substances. If the reader will look around him, and inquire into these matters for himself, he will soon be convinced of the truth of these remarks. If, for instance, he should at any time observe a big, clumsy, stupid lad, whose greatest pleasure consists in doing all kinds of mischief, and in teasing and tormenting everyone about him, upon inquiry it will certainly be found that he is fonder of eating and destroying than producing anything in return. If he could be seen at his meals he would ap- pear more like a hungry wolf than a human being, * The italics are ours. — E.D. HISTORICAL PROOFS. 267 devouring all that comes in his way, yet never being satisfied. . . . ''These facts and many others which could be ad- vanced all tend to support and prove the position, that the food and drink alone are the source of the calcareous earthy matter which is gradually deposited in the body, and which by degrees brings on a state of induration, rigidity and consequent decrepitude, which ends in a total cessation of consciousness, or death. We have seen that different kinds of food and drink contain these earthy elements in different proportions ; and we cannot avoid the conclusion, that the more we subsist upon such articles as contain the largest amount, the sooner shall we choke up and die ; and the more we live upon such substances as are comparatively free, the longer will health, activity, and life continue. 1 ' Proofs that the duration of life is proportionate to the amount of earthy substances presented in the food and drink: "In Pinnock's edition of Goldsmith's History of England, the following note appears : ' It is stated by Plutarch that the ancient Britons were so temperate that they only began to grow old when a hundred and twenty years of age. Their arms, legs and thighs were always left naked, and for the most part were painted blue. Their food consisted almost exclusively of acorns, berries and water.' "Other historians mention fish, fowls, and the fruit, leaves, and roots of the forest, as occasionally forming portions of their diet. These articles contain a much smaller amount of earthy matter than the farinaceous, or grain food, used in the present day, and their absti- nence from these grains accounts for their extraordinary longevity. Such food must also produce a wonderful degree of activity and strength. Dr. Henry, in his History of England, states that they were remarkable for their ' fine athletic form, for the great strength of their body, and for being swift of foot. They excelled in running, swimming, wrestling, climbing, and all kinds of bodily exercise ; they were patient of pain, toil, and sufferings of various kinds ; were accustomed to bear 268 SOUTH SEA ISLANDERS. HERODOTUS. fatigues, to bear hunger, cold, and all manner of hard- ships. They could run into morasses up to their necks, and live there for days without eating.' ' ' The food of the inhabitants of New Zealand and many of the South Sea Islands consists of flesh, fish, fowls, eggs, fruits, roots, berries, leaves, and sometimes sea- weeds, all which contain, on the average, a com- paratively small amount of earthy substances; and we learn from the account of those who have visited and lived among these people, that often they are healthy and energetic beyond the age of ioo years. They are said to be able to go to war, to follow the chase, to obtain a full supply of their wants by hunting, fishing, and roaming the forest ; and in short to be equal to the finest young men in Europe, long after they have reached ioo years of age. A gentleman who has spent seven years among them, declares that he has known many who could not remember their ages to within ten or twenty years. " Herodotus gives us an account of a people of Ethiopia, who, because of their longevity, were called Macrobians. Their diet consisted entirely of roasted flesh and milk ; both which contain a small amount of earthy matter; and they were remarkable for their 1 beauty, and the large proportion of their body, in each of which they surpassed other men/ They lived to 1 20 years old, and some to a much longer period. ' ' The ancient Gymnosophists of India subsisted en- tirely upon fruits and fresh vegetables. It was a part of their religious ordinances to eat nothing but what the sun had ripened, and made fit for food without any fur- ther preparation. This diet contains a very small pro- portion of earthy elements; and it is said that these people were perfectly healthy, and lived to 150 and 200 years. . . . ' ' It was a doctrine commonly taught by the pagans of various parts of the world, that the Goddess of Justice, usually named Astrea, a daughter of Jupiter, and repre- sented with her eyes bound, a sword in one hand and a pair of scales in the other, came down from heaven to live with mankind during the golden age; but at WHY THE IRISH EXCEL THE ENGLISH. 269 length the world became so corrupted, that she left the earth and returned to heaven, where she formed the con- stellation Virgo. She still looks down with regret upon the iniquities and consequent sufferings of man ; and whenever the world becomes virtuous, she will return and live among us. ' ' The peasantry of those parts of Ireland where wheaten bread or any kind of grain food is scarcely ever tasted, but where potatoes, fish, turnips, green and fresh vegetables generally form their principal diet, all which things contain a moderate amount of earthy matter, are proverbial for health, activity, and general longevity. "The English peasantry consume a much larger quantity of solid grain food, as bread and pastry of all kinds, than the Irish, and are greatly inferior both in health, activity, duration of life, and in temper and dis- position. Although the same external conditions, fresh air and exercise, and much better clothing and lodging are enjoyed by the English, they are more bony, rigid, clumsy and stupid than the Irish. Neither have they as much generosity, attachment, or affection ; for it can be demonstrated that the moral qualities of the people depend greatly upon their habits of living — upon the nature of their diet.* ' ' Fishermen and others near the sea, who live prin- cipally upon fish, with a large proportion of potatoes and green vegetables, enjoy good health and live to consider- able ages. ' ' Writers on natural history inform us that the wild hog lives free from disease to the age of 300 years. Its food consists of fruits, chestnuts, acorns, roots, and grass, with grains occasionally. This food contains little earthy matter. 1 ' The swan is said to attain the age of three hundred years. Its food consists of fish, worms, grass, weeds, and fresh-water mussels, or swan mussels, as they are called. This food contains a small proportion of earthy elements. "Rooks and crows live to a great age, more than a hundred years ; and they feed, the latter on fish, carrion, and putrid offal, the former on worms, fresh-water 2 7 o WILD HOG, AND LONG-LIVED BIRDS. mussels, and other shell-fish, grubs, snails, caterpillars, and some times grains and seeds. This food is not very earthy. " When crows find the shells too hard for their bills, they carry them up to a considerable height in the air, when, by dropping them down upon a rock or stone, the shells are fractured, and they can then easily pick out the fish. ' < The raven, hawk, goose, and other birds of similar habits are known to live for a long period ; their food consists of flesh, fish, worms, and all kinds of garbage ; which contains but little earthy matter. 1 ' The pelican lives to .more than a hundred years of age. Its food is principally fish. "The heron, crane, sea-gull, and others of a like nature live to great ages. Their food is chiefly fish. 1 * The eagle is said to attain a great age ; Tacitus says to 500 years. Its food consists of flesh and fish, which contain a much less amount of earthy ingredients than the flour food of human species. " Some of the parrot species are believed to live in their native state for five and six hundred, and even seven hundred years ; and their food to consist princi- pally of the pulp of fruits, which is also free from earthy matter. ' ' Common fowls, the sparrow, tame pigeons, singing and other domesticated birds, that feed upon bread, seeds, and grain of different kinds, which food is highly charged with earthy substances, live only from ten to twenty years. ' ' The elephant subsists upon fruits, flowers, meadow- plants, and the leaves and tender shoots of trees — partic- ularly the banana, cocoa palm and sago trees, all of which contain a small proportion of calcareous earth, and this animal lives to a great age. ' ' The horse, cow, pig, dog, and other domesticated animals subsist upon food which contains a larger amount of earth than their natural food or that which they choose in a wild state, and we perceive a corre- sponding difference in the periods of their existence. It is well known to carters and others who feed and drive ELEPHANT, HORSE, DOG, AND MONKEY. 271 horses, that corn food, although it makes them plump and fleshy, soon renders them rigid, and materially shortens their existence. It is a common remark, when a horse is stiff and lifeless, ' that it is no wonder when we consider what a quantity of corn he has had.' It is customary for sportsmen, when they require greyhounds of unusual activity and swiftness in cours- ing, to give them as little solid food as possible ; and to feed them upon rice or sago pudding, mixed with a large quantity of grocer's currants. ' ' The monkey tribes are supposed to live in their wild state to a considerable age c They consume a great deal of fruits and herbs; and they are known to eat e gg s > small birds, and cocoa and othei nuts. When brought to this country, however, their food is changed, and they are fed chiefly upon bread and potatoes, which food is veryisolid and earthy when compared with their natural aliment ; and however young they may be when brought to this country, they seldom live for more than five or six years. Symptoms of decrepitude rapidly come on, and they die of apparent old age. If the pro- prietors of these animals would allow them plenty of fruits — their natural food, they would live in this coun- try much longer than they do at present, notwithstand- ing the difference of climate, which is urged as the cause of their premature -death. . . . "The inhabitants of England, on the average, con- sume more animal food, fish, fowl, fresh vegetables, fruits, spirits, wine, ale, and other fermented drinks and (except in Ireland) less bread or flour in any form, than the people of most other nations ; the necessary conse- quence of which is that a less amount of earthy matter is consumed, the process of ossification is less rapid, and natural death less premature, than in places where more grain or flour food is consumed. The poorer classes of society consume a much larger quantity of bread, or flour, and potatoes, than the middle and higher classes, chiefly because their scanty means will not enable them to purchase more costly food. The wealthier classes use more animal food, fowls, fish, fresh vegetables, fruits, wines, and other luxuries. Mr. Cobden, M.P. for 272 WHY THE POOR DIE SOONER THAN THE RICH. Stockport, in a speech before a conference of preachers, at Manchester, on the 17th August, 1841, says: 'I think it might be said that the poorer the family the greater amount of bread will that family consume. It has been further estimated by a very important body, the hand- loom commission inquirers, that the average of the working-class families in the kingdom earn ten shillings a week, and of that ten shillings every workingman's family spends five shillings upon bread.' "The Rev. T. East, of Birmingham, in a speech on the same occasion, stated: ' In proportion to the paucity of the man's income, is the proportion of bread he consumes. For, as his wages rise, he purchases a little meat, and other gratifications, and the use of these diminish his consumption of bread.' Bread and potatoes constituting so large a proportion of the diet of the work- ing classes, and containing so large a quantity of earthy matter, must inevitably render them more liable to dis- ease and premature old age and death. And so it is found that the rate of mortality among the poor is much greater than among the rich, as the following table will show: " From the age of 25 to 40 . 40 " 50 50 " 60 . 60 " 70 . 70 " 80 . 205 rich and 550 poor die. 244 " 426 " 349 " 7i8 737 " 1501 1489 " 2873 1 ' From this table it appears that at every stage of life, up to the age of eighty, the number of poor who die is double that of the rich. " 'The Egyptians arrive at a great age. Dr. Clott speaks of a man whom he had seen, one hundred and thirty years old, without any other infirmity than cata- ract in one eye ; and he knows another now living, at one hundred and twenty- three years of age, who enjoys a perfectly sound state of health, and has several chil- dren, the eldest of whom is eighty, the second seventy- four, the third three years old, and the youngest only a few months. This man at the age of eighty-two cut six new teeth, which he was obliged to have immediately DIET OF LONG-LIVED EGYPTIANS. 273 extracted, on account of the pain and inconvenience they occasioned him.' " — Foreign Quarterly. ' ' Fruits and fresh vegetables enter largely into the ordinary food of the Egptians. These contain a small proportion of earthy substances, and must tend, by pre- venting the consolidation of the system, to preserve their health, and lengthen out their existence. " Women are generally more analogous to children in the choice of their food than men ; they also consume a smaller quantity, but are mostly fond of the best de- scription. Instead of a large amount of rough, solid food, they prefer a smaller proportion of aliment, and that of a more fluid, pulpy, and nutritious nature. It is not so much the quantity as the quality they care for. The consequence of this course is the avoidance of a large amount of earthy matter, and they are therefore softer and more flexible — less ossified than men, and require more time to harden, and to \ fur up ' to that degree which produces death ; hence women are found to live longer than men. . . . "On this principle we may at once account for the fact that, notwithstanding the causes of disease and dan- gers peculiarly incidental to females, by the census just taken (1841) it appears that the number of females in this country is above half a million greater than the number of males and this, too, after more than twenty years of comparative peace. So that this difference can- not be attributed to the sacrifice of male lives in war ; but solely, or chiefly at least, to the greater longevity of females; which extra longevity is the consequence of their being less attached to solid, earthy food. It is true that many women are as stout and bony, and as rough as men, and are as liable to premature decrepitude and death ; but these will always be found to eat and drink like men. . . . ' ' Henry Jenkins lived to the extraordinary age of one hundred and sixty-nine years. He was born on the 17th of May, 1500, at Ellerton, in Yorkshire, and died in 1670. He assisted his father in his early years as a fruit-grower and market gardener. All his family were remarkable for longevity. An only sister of his died at 274 EXAMPLES OF LONGEVITY. the age of one hundred and twenty- five, and his grand- mother lived to the age of one hundred and thirty-eight years. Old Jenkins was always a great admirer of nat- ure, and extremely fond of fruits, flowers, and herbs. It was his daily custom to rise very early, with the song of earliest birds, and wander through the woods or over hill and meadow at peep of day in quest of divers medicinal herbs, the study of which he was so fond of. "With regard to the diet of this wonderful old man, it was always simple, consisting mostly of cold meat and salads, of which he partook with water for his drink in moderate supplies. It was in the year 1524, during the reign of Henry VIII., that the hop plant was introduced into England from Flanders, and cultivated for the preparation of beer ; which Jenkins, being a great advo- cate for bitters, used for that purpose; and he never found a moderate portion of that beverage, taken once a day, at all disagree with him, or hurt him. He partook of light suppers, frequently walking out in his garden afterwards for a short time to promote digestion. Water was, however, his favourite beverage, and he usually drank nearly half a pint of it every morning when he first arose. Besides abstemiousness in the article of food, his general habits were regular and sober. Fol- lowing the directions of his mother, he always con- tinued the use of flannel and warm clothing, which had been commenced in infancy. He was robust and healthy to old age — a hearty, respectable, good-looking old man, who never knew what real illness was until a year or two before his death. He warded off the first attacks of disease by resorting, at the first appearance of the enemy, to defensive or preventive measures, never waiting to parley with the insidious foe ; and he always found his plan successful. "When Jenkins was near his 160th year, King Charles II., being informed of his astonishing longevity, expressed a desire to see him in London, and sent a carriage purposely to convey him thither. He preferred, however, to go on foot, and actually walked to the metrop- olis in easy stages — a distance of two hundred miles. On his arrival in London, the hoary patriarch was intro- JENKINS AND THE PATRIARCHS. 275 duced to his majesty. The king held a long conversa- tion with him, and made many inquiries as to his mode of living; but nothing particular being observable in that, inquired by what means he contrived to live so much longer than other people. To this he replied that temperance and sobriety of living had been the means, by the blessing of God, of lengthening his days beyond the usual limit. The king, who was fond of dissipation and luxury, seemed not much pleased with some of Jen- kins' homely maxims, and dismissed him ; but allowed him a comfortable pension, which he enjoyed the re- mainder of his life. < ' In the Scriptures we are told that, for several cen- turies after the deluge, one hundred and twenty was about the average period of human life. Abraham lived to one hundred and seventy-five years of age ; his sons, Isaac and Ishmael, the former died at one hundred and eighty, and the latter at the age of one hundred and thirty-seven. Jacob lived to be one hundred and forty- seven years old, and his son Joseph reached one hun- dred and ten years of age. Long after this, Moses lived to be one hundred and twenty years old, " and his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated." Joshua died at the age of one hundred and nineteen years. . . " It is also clear, from what has already been ad- vanced, that even if two persons, or two classes of per- sons, subsist upon the same kind of food and drink, if one consumes less than the other, a less amount of earthy matter will be taken into the system, the process of ossifi- cation will necessarily proceed less rapidly, and therefore life will be enjoyed for a longer period. A direct practi- cal proof of this is found in the statistics of prisons and workhouses. A writer in Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 366, after describing the different articles of diet consumed in several English and Scotch workhouses, proceeds in the following language : ' ' ' It thus appears that paupers in England are fed in a much more liberal style than those of Scotland ; the former getting about thirty ounces of solids per day, in- cluding three ounces of the best animal food ; while the latter have only nineteen ounces, whereof less than two 2'/0 THE MORE FOOD TAKEN THE MORE DEATHS. are of meat, and that of the least nutritious kind. It now becomes of importance to learn how the paupers in the two countries thrive on their respective allowances, and here a very surprising result meets our eye. The deaths in the Manchester workhouse, from September ist, 1837, to August 31st, 1838, were 295; the average number of inmates being 708. In the Edinburgh Char- ity workhouse, during the five years preceding 1831 the average annual mortality among an average of 400 in- mates was 61 3-5, say for the sake of round numbers 62. Thus in the Manchester workhouse, 1 dies for every 2 8-20, — or about 2 1-2 ; while in the Edinburgh work- house 1 dies for every 6 9-20, or about 6 1-2 ; the mortal- ity in Manchester, where the greatest amount of food is given, being nearly three times greater than in Edin- burgh.' * ' The same principle is confirmed by the returns of the Prison Discipline Society, as shown by the following statements : Weekly cost of food per head in the Wakefield House Amount of sickness of Correction, in in same place per Yorkshire, is . . .is. sy 2 d. annum . . . 6 per ct. Ditto in the County Jail of Suffolk . . 1 9 a (i 10 " Ditto in Woodbridge Jail 3 6 n << 18 " Ditto in Northaller- ton . . . .5 oy 2 n tt 37 " ' ' By this we clearly perceive that sickness and dis- ease increase just in proportion as food increases. . . . ' ' From the returns of the Poor Law Commissioners respecting the diet and mortality in sixty different prisons, sickness and mortality appear to increase on proportion as the consumption of food increases. Sickness. Deaths. 3 per ct. i in 622 18 " i in 320 23 " 1 in 266 ABSTAINING FROM BREAD SAVES LIFE. 277 In 20 prisons the average weekly consumption of solid food was 188 ounces. In 20 others the amount was 213 " K (< << 2I g « "Although we have seen by the foregoing tables. and other evidence, that sickness and death advance with an increase of solid food ; it by no means follows that this is applicable in the contrary direction beyond a certain point. It certainly would appear at first sight, that the less food we take the better will be our health, and the longer shall we live ; but when we know that the human body is continually wasting — that its ele- ments are constantly being thrown off, we shall see the necessity for supplying at least as much nourishment as will equal the amount wasted. This is the minimum point. Below this we cannot go without producing injury to the system. If we fail to take in as much nutriment as the body throws- off, sickness and death will speedily and inevitably follow. But through all degrees above this minimum point, we may consider it as an axiom that the less we eat and drink the more shall we retard the process of ossification ; the longer will it take to choke up or consolidate the body to that degree which constitutes old age or decrepitude ; and the longer shall we enjoy existence. Abstemiousness, so far at least as it regards the food in ordinary use, as bread, potatoes, and other gross, solid articles, will cer- tainly conduce to health and long life. . . . ' ' The facts tend to prove that in proportion as indi- viduals, classes, or^ even nations subsist upon aliment containing the sm&est . proportion of earthy elements, do they prevent or retard the process of ossification, maintain a state of health and activity, and prolong their existence." CHAPTER VI. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— DR. DE LACY EVANS. In a former publication, but under the same title as chosen for Part III. of this volume,* I have already qioted largely from the writings of Dr. De Lacy Evans in his admirable work entitled " How to Prolong Life/'f Dr. Evans, writing more than a third of a century after Mr.Rowbotham, announces substantially the same truths. He starts with the proposition that the ossifica- tion and deposit of earthy matter in the joints and tissues of the aged, with the resultant weakness and decrepitude, is not the result of old age, but that this manifestion of what has been mistaken for old age is the result of ossi- fication and the deposit of earthy matter in the system ; and that this deposit of earthy matter is directly traceable to easily avoidable errors in diet. Dr. Evans acknowl- edges his indebtedness to " Patriarchial Longevity," by " Parallax," in which he tells us " ossification as a cause of old age was first pointed out " ; and also his indebted- ness to " Records of Longevity," by Easton and Bailey; and to Hufeland's ''Art of Prolonging Life," edited by Erasmus Wilson, F.R.S. The great interest attaching to this subject is my excuse for the following somewhat lengthy extracts from Dr. Evans' book : * " The Natural Food of Man." By Emmet Densmore, M.D. Fowler, Ludgate Circus, London, E. C. Price, I shilling. ■j- "An Inquiry into the Cause of Old Age and Natural Death, Showing the Diet and Agents for a Lengthened Prolongation of Existence." By Charles W. De Lacy Evans, M.R.C.S.E., &c, Surgeon to St. Saviour's Hospital, and author of several scientific works of great interest. Beilliere, Tyndale & Co., King William Street. Price, 5 shillings. THE MACROBIOTIC ART. 279 "In every being- thoughout animated nature, from the most insignificant insect to the most enlightened, ennobled, and highly developed human being, we note a deeply rooted love for one possession before all others, and that is the possession of life. What will not a man give to preserve his life? What would he not give to prolong it? The value of riches, title, honor, power, and worldly prospects are as naught compared with the value which every sane man, however humble and even mis- erable, places on the preservation of his life. . . . "The laws of life and death, looked upon in this light, form the basis of a fixed science — the Macrobiotic, or the art of prolonging life. There is, however, a dis- tinction to be made between this art and the science of medicine, but the one is auxiliary to the other. ' ■ There is a state of body which we term health ; plus or minus divergences from this path we call disease. The object of medicine is to guide these variations to a given centre of bodily equilibrium ; but the object of the Macrobiotic art is, by the founding of dietetic and other rules, on general principles, to preserve the body in health and thereby prolong life. 1 ' In the present work the author has attempted to go beyond this, by inquiring into the causes which have a share in producing the changes which are observed as age advances, and further, by pointing out a means of checking them. ' He who writes or speaks or meditates without facts as landmarks to his understanding, is like a mariner cast on the wide ocean without a compass or rudder to his ship.' If he conceives an idea, a phantom of his own imagination, and attempts to make it a reality by accepting only those facts or phenomena which accord with his premature conception, ignoring those which contradict this shadow or idea, but which may nevertheless be demonstrably true, he presents a theory which may be incorrect, and if so, is doomed, sooner or later, to destruction. Although it possibly required but a few hours to construct, centuries may elapse before it is finally destroyed. The founder of an erroneous hy- pothesis creates a monster, which only serves to combat and stifle truth. 280 BACON ON FACTS. "It has long been the opinion of scientific man, that by a suitable life and regularity the blessings of life may be enjoyed in fair health to a 'green old age.' The pur- pose of this work is to show that we may for a time curb the causes which are visible in effect as age advances, and thus prolong life; and further, that by other means, founded upon simple facts, we may accomplish this for a lengthened period.* ' ' The author's attempt to deal with a matter of such vast importance as the prolongation of life will neces- sarily subject him to severe and probably adverse criti- cism. In the first edition of a book hurriedly written in moments snatched from the turmoil of a general practice, many minor errors are sure to be found; but, as the author takes facts for a beacon, there is no error in prin- ciple. He will only ask those who criticise to imagine themselves for the time in the position of Astraea, the goddess of Justice, and not to weigh the evidence with one scale heavily laden with prejudice. . . . 1 ' With all our physiological, anatomical, and philo- sophical discoveries, there are left many questions at pres- ent not solved ; among others, the action of the brain, thought, motion, life, and the possible prolongation of existence. Nature speaks to us in a peculiar language, in the language of phenomena. She answers at all times questions which are put to her ; and such questions are experiments. ' ' In ' old age ' the body differs materially from youth in action, sensibility, function, and composition. The *" 'The true philosopher always seeks to explain and illustrate nature by means of facts, of phenomona ; that is, by experiments, the devising and discovery of which is his task, and by which he causes the object of his investigation to speak as it were intelligibly to him ; but it is by carefully observing and arranging all such facts as are in connection with it, that insight into its nature is attained. For we must never forget that every phenomena has its reason, every effect its cause. " 'Let no man be alarmed at the multitude of the objects presented to his attention ; for it is this, on the contrary, which ought rather to awaken hope. ... If there were any among us who, when interrogated respect- ing the objects of nature, were always prepared to answer by facts, the discovery of causes and the foundation of all sciences would be the work of a few years.' — Bacon. CAUSES OF OLD AGE. 281 active, fluid, sensitive, and elastic body of youth gradu- ally gives place to induration, rigidity, and decrepitude, which terminate in 'natural death.' In nature there are distinct reasons for every change, for development, growth, decomposition, and death. If, with our minds free from theory, and unbiased by hypotheses, we ask Nature the cause of these changes, she will surely answer us. Let us ask her the cause of these differences between youth and old age — why the various functions of the body gradually cease ; why we become ' old ' and die. The most marked feature in old age is that a fibrinous, gelatinous, and earthy deposit has taken place in the system; the latter being composed chiefly of phosphate and carbonate of lime, with small quantities of sulphate of lime, magnesia, and traces of other earths. "Among physiologists and medical philosophers gen- erally, the idea prevails that the 'ossification' (or the gradual accumulation of earthy salts in the system) which characterizes 'natural death' is the result of 'old age,' but investigation shows that such an explanation is un- satisfactory. For, in the first place, if 'old age' (which is really the number of years a person has lived) is the cause of the ossification which accompanies it, then, if 'like causes produce like effects,' all of the same age should be found in the same state of ossification ; but investigation proves beyond all doubt that such is not the case. How common it is to see individuals about fifty years old as aged and decrepit as others at seventy or eighty ! . . . ' ' We now come to the most important change of all, which fully accounts for the many differences in the brain existing between youth and old age, that is,- the changes in the blood-vessels supplying it. The arteries in old age become thickened and lessened in calibre from fibrinous, gelatinous, and earthy deposits. This is more easily detected in the larger vessels ; but all, even to the most minute subdivisions, undergo the same grad- ual change. Thus the supply of blood to the brain be- comes less and less ; hence the diminution in size of the organ from the prime of life to old age ; hence the functions of the brain become gradually impaired ; the 282 YOUTH AND OLD AGE CONTRASTED. vigorous brain of middle life gradually giving place to loss of memory, confusion of ideas, inability to follow a long current of thought, notions oblivious of the past and regardless as to the future, carelessness of momen- tary impressions, softening of the brain, and that imbe- cility so characteristic of extreme age." After quoting from Copland, Hooper's "Physician's Vade Mecum," and from the experiments of M. Rayer, M. Cruveilheir, M. Rostan, M. Recamier, and others, Dr. Evans continues : * ' We have quoted from the above authorities to show that ossification and thickening of the arteries of the brain has not been overlooked, but that it is a fact which has been known for many years ; also to show that this gradual process of ossification is not due to any inflam- matory action. And we shall show that this earthy matter has been deposited from the blood, and increases year by year with old age, thus lessening the calibre of the larger vessels, partially, and in some cases fully, ' clogging up ' the capillaries, gradually diminishing the supply of blood to the brain, causing its diminution in size in old age, and fully accounting for the gradual loss of the mental capabilities before enumerated. ' ' As age advances, the energies of the ganglial system decline; digestion, circulation, and the secretory func- tions are lessened ; the ganglia diminish in size, become firmer, and of a deeper hue. In old age the nerves become tougher and firmer, the medullary substance diminishes, and their blood-vessels lessen in calibre. The sensibility of the whole cerebro- spinal system de- creases, hence diminution of the intellectual powers, less- ened activity and strength in the organs of locomotion in advanced age." We quote further from pages 27 and 28 : "In the foregoing pages we have pointed out the differences existing between youth and old age. In the former the various organs and structures are elastic, yielding, and pliable; the senses are keen, the mind active. In the latter, these qualities are usurped by OSSIFICATION CAUSED BY WRONG FOOD. 283 hardness, rigidity and ossification ; the senses are want- ing in susceptibility, the mind in memory and capacity. "Further, that these changes are due, firstly, to a gradual accumulation of fibrinous and gelatinous sub- stances; secondly, to a gradual deposition of earthy compounds, chiefly phosphate and carbonate of lime. These, acting in concert, diminish the calibre of the larger arterial vessels, and by degrees partially, and sometimes fully, obliterate the capillaries. By these depositions every organ and structure in the system is altered in density and function ; the fluid, elastic, pli- able, and active state of body gives place to a solid, inactive, rigid, ossified, and decrepit condition. The whole system is ' choked up ' ; the curtain falls, the play of life is ended, terminating in so-called 'natural death.' 1 ' The general impression is that this accumulation of fibrinous, gelatinous, and osseous matter is the result of old age — the result of time, the remote effects of the failure of that mysterious animal principle, life. But in an after chapter we shall show that this great vital principle, which is centered in the cerebro-spinal axis, gradually wanes because the brain and nerves by degrees lose their supply of blood, their powers of selection and inhibition, and are deprived of their ordained nourish- ment by means of this gradual process of induration and ossification. . . . ' ' We will now inquire into the source of these deposi- tions, which gradually accumulate from the first period of existence to old age. . . . 1 ' As the blood is built up from the chyle (which is formed from the chyme by the action of the bile and pancreatic fluid), we should expect to find in the latter the same calcareous matter; and such is the fact, that, on analysis, we find the same earthy salts in the chyle as exist in the blood. As the chyle is formed from the chyme (which is the product of action of the stomach and its secretions on food), we should in it find the same calcare- ous matter ; and such, again, is the fact. But as the chyme is the product of digestion, we expect to find the same calcareous matter in the contents of the stomach ; and such also is the fact. The contents of the stomach 284 PROPER DIET PREVENTS OSSIFICATION. consist of food and drink taken to nourish and support the system, and in that food and drink we ought to find the same calcareous substances; and chemical analysis gives to us the certain answer, that the food and drink taken to support the system contain, besides the ele- ments of nutrition, earthy salts, which are the cause of ossification, obstruction, old age, and natural death. 1 ' We have now traced these earthy compounds which are found in the system, and which increase as age advances, to the blood, from which they are, by the pro- cess of transpiration, gradually deposited. From the blood we trace them to the chyle, from the chyle to the chyme, and from the chyme to the contents of the stomach and thence to articles of diet. Thus we eat to live, and eat to die. ' ' As we have traced these earthy salts to our food or articles of diet, we naturally inquire whether the different kinds of food and drink which we have for our selection contain the same proportion of ossifying and ' old age ' producing matter. Here chemical analysis answers in the negative ! Some of the most generally used aliment- ary substances contain a comparatively large proportion of earthy compounds, some a moderate, and others a very small amount. ' No matter what kind of food we eat, or what fluid we drink, the earthy salts contained therein have all the same source — the earth.' " If we eat vegetable food, plants derive their earthy salts from the earth in which they grow. If animal flesh be our sustenance, they have the same source, through the medium of the animal we eat, which derives its sup- ply from vegetation. Fish in the sea, fowls in the air, animals upon the earth, all derive the earthy salts con- tained in them originally from the earth, in the food on which they live. Any organ, or all the organs put to- gether, of man or any being, cannot generate any element ; hence all that is earthy in man is derived from the earth. " From this it follows, that if we can so regulate our diet — food and drink — that the amount of earthy matter taken into the system be sufficient only for the growth and nourishment of the bones, without which our powers of strength and motion would be useless (the body being AGE OF THE PATRIARCHS. 285 deprived of its mechanical levers), the many organs and structures would not, and could not, harden and ossify ; the arteries would not become indurated and lessened in calibre, capillaries would not become obliterated, the brain would not decrease in size by age, sight would not fail, hearing, taste, and smell would not lose their sus- ceptibility, hair would not turn grey, the skin would not become dry and wrinkled, the body would retain its fluid- ity, elasticity, and activity, and the brain its mental cap- abilities. If we can so regulate our diet that these earthy compounds are taken into the system in smaller quanti- ties, and therefore take a longer period to accumulate — if we can even partially accomplish this — we can prolong life! y ' We have shown ' old age ' and ' natural death ' to be due to two causes — firstly, to the action of atmospheric oxygen, which consumes our bodies and causes fibrinous and gelatinous accumulations ; secondly, to a deposition of earthy matter (ossification). If, therefore, we can, by artificial means, partially arrest the never-ceasing action of atmospheric oxygen, and at the same time pre- vent the accumulations of these earthy compounds, or even remove them from the system — that state of body termed * old age ' would be deferred, and life would be prolonged for a lengthened period ! " Liebig says : ' Many of the fundamental or leading ideas of the present time appear, to him who knows not what science has already achieved, as extravagant as the notions of the alchemists.' ' ' In all the animal kingdom there is a beauty of structure manifested, wondrous, marvelous, and ex- quisite ; but man alone has been endowed with knowl- edge, wisdom, and understanding, as a sole and exclu- sive gift to him. 1 * Speaking of the patriarchs, Josephus affirms : ' Their food was fitter for the prolongation of life ; and besides, God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries.' Many authors contend that the years, at the time of the patriarchs, were shorter than at the present time — not more than one-fourth the 286 FRUITS ARE BEST, CEREALS ARE WORST. period. If this were true, Methusaleh would have lived only two hundred and forty-three years, Terah fifty-one, and Abram forty-four. Enoch would have been only sixteen when he begat Methusaleh, Arphaxed eight and three-quarters when he begat Salah, Salah seven years old when he begat Elber, and Adam would have been more than a great-grandfather at thirty-three. There is no evidence to show the years were less than at the present time. It is probable, and quite possible (presum- ing that their diet tended to longevity), that the patri- archs lived to their recorded ages. Who, therefore, can deny that, with all our knowledge and discoveries, which are daily increasing, man may not again re-discover the secret of long life, which has been lost for so many ages, and which secret may probably be summed up in the following few words : ' ' If a human being subsists upon food which contains a large proportion of lime, a large proportion will enter into the composition of the chyme, the chyle, and the blood; and as from the blood the deposition of lime takes place, the greater the amount of lime that blood contains, the greater will be the amount deposited in the system, the greater the degree of ossification, and the sooner will be produced that rigidity, inactivity, and decrepitude, which make him old and bring him to premature death. ' ' On the other hand, if the food and drink taken to nourish and support the body are selected from the arti- cles which contain the least amount of lime, the least amount will enter into the composition of the chyme, the chyle, and the blood, the less amount will there be to deposit, the less degree of ossification, the less the rigidity, inactivity, and decrepitude, and the longer the life of the man / " Dr. Evans gives over twenty pages to tables of the analysis of foods, which show that fruits and nuts have the least proportion of earthy matter, as compared with their nourishing properties, of any of the foods now used by man ; next in order are animal foods ; then come vegetables; and fourth and last are the pulses and TESTIMONY OF HESIOD. 287 cereals, which are shown to have the largest amount of earthy matter. The following quotation is from page 79 : 1 ' From the foregoing analyses we see that fruits, as distinct from vegetables, have the least amount of earthy matter ; most of them contain a large quantity of water, but that water in itself is of the purest kind — a distilled water of nature, and has in solution vegetable albumen. 1 ' We also notice that they are to a great extent free from the oxidized albumens — glutinous and fibrinous substances, and many of them contain acids — critic, tar- taric, malic, etc. — which, when taken into the system, act directly upon the blood, by increasing its solubility, by thinning it ; the process of circulation is more easily carried on, and the blood flows more easily in the capil- laries (which become lessened in calibre as age ad- vances) than it would if of a thicker nature. By this means the blood flows easily in vessels which have been perhaps for years lost to the passage of a thicker fluid. Further, these acids lower the temperature of the body, therefore the process of wasting combustion, or oxida- tion, which increases in ratio to the temperature of the body, as indicated by the thermometer. . . . "Speaking of the ancients, Hesiod, the Greek poet, says : ' The uncultivated fields afforded them their fruits, and supplied their bountiful and unenvied re- past.' Porphyry, a Platonic philosopher of the third cen- tury, a man of great talent and learning, says : ' The ancient Greeks lived entirely upon the fruits of the earth.' Lucretius, on the same subject, says: " ' Soft acorns were their first and chief est food, And those red apples that adorn the wood. The nerves that joined their limbs were firm and strong; Their life was healthy, and their age was long. . . . Returning years still saw them in their prime ; They wearied e'en the wings of measuring Time : Not colds, nor heats, on strong diseases wait, And tell sad news of coming hasty fate: Nature not yet grew weak, not yet began To shrink into an inch the largest span.' " In addition to those arguments in favor of fruit-eat- ing with which many are familiar, — namely, that fruits 288 EXPERIENCE OF PRIMITIVE MAN. abound in cooling and corrective acids, that they are filled with water more exquisitely distilled than science can yet compass, and that their free use opens the por- tals of the system and cures and prevents many dis- eases, — Br. Evans has made, in our judgment, a most important contribution to science in pointing out that nuts and fruits are the most free of all foods from earthy matter, and hence from liability to cause ossification and decrepitude. Attention is called to the following further extracts from Dr. Evans' book. It will be observed that he places fruits and nuts as first in their fitness for the pro- motion of health and longevity ; animal foods are placed second; vegetables third; and last, and worst, are placed the pulses and cereals, which, from their alleged excess of earthy salts, are of all foods best calculated to induce ossification of the joints and tissues, thickening of the arteries, and consequent and inevitable premature old age, and that decrepitude and imbecility almost universally but wrongly reckoned a necessary condition of senility. It is curious and interesting to note that this order in which Dr. Evans has classified foods corresponds with what all philosophical students will agree must have been the experience of the race since its entry upon our planet. At first man, with no tools, agriculture, or fire, could neither kill nor catch animals, raise cereals, or cook either the one or the other ; and must have sub- sisted, like all animals below man, on foods spontane- ously produced by nature ; hence nuts and fruits must have been the first foods utilized by man. Next came the slaying, cooking, and eating of animals ; wild tribes of men existing on the earth to-day are substantially unacquainted with cereals and agriculture, subsisting on foods spontaneously produced, supplemented by the ties" of animals. And last comes agriculture and cereal eating. THE RETURN TO NATURE. 289 The consensus of writers, from the time of the Greeks to the present day, unite in saying that the primitive peoples had health and vigor ; while it has been reserved for civilization to breed diseases whose name is legion, and to witness imbecility, decrepitude, and premature death go hand in hand with luxury and plenty. The race has strayed far from the path of health and peace ; and most likely must return by the route whence it came ; (1) discontinue the use of cereals and vegetables, and the multitudinous cooking and concoctions to which the use of these products gives birth ; (2) make fruits and nuts the basis of human food, supplemented with such animal products, with the minimum of cookery, as in the present condition of the race may be found necessary ; (3) an absolute return to nuts and fruits, uncooked and unseasoned. After which there will be no diseases, and no doctors upon the face of the earth. " It is one of nature s laws and a very simple one, that we are built up from what originally was vegetable albumen ; and, with the exception of the alkaline and earthy salts, every structure and organ in our bodies was developed from and is nourished by albumen. It was one of the laws of Eden that man should eat albumen — vegetable albumen — in its purest form, as it exists in fruits. "There is, therefore, a simplicity, a reason, a won- derful philosophy in the first command given to man. Man may live entirely upon fruits, in better health than the majority of mankind now enjoy. Good, sound, ripe fruits are never a cause of disease; but the vegetable acids, as we have before stated, lower the temperature of the body, decrease the process of combustion or oxida- tion — therefore the waste of the system — less sleep is required, activity is increased, fatigue or thirst hardly experienced ; still the body is well nourished, and, as a comparatively small quantity of earthy salts are taken into the system, the cause of ' old age ' is in some de- gree removed, the effect is delayed, and life is prolonged 2 9 o DIET OF AMERICAN INDIANS. to a period far beyond our 'threescore years and ten.' " 'Animal flesh , taken as a class, contains next to fruits the least amount of earthy salts. . . . "The amount depends, firstly, upon the quantity contained in the food of the animal ; secondly \ upon the duration of time the animal has eaten such food — that is, its age. Younger animals of every class contain a less amount of earthy salts in their flesh than older ones : thus veal, in the analyses generally given, contains only about one-fourth the amount of earthy salts found in an equal weight of the flesh, of an adult animal, and it further contains from 12 to 15 per cent, more phosphoric acid than is necessary for the formation of salts. . . . ' ' ' The true unsophisticated American Indians near the sources of the Missouri, during the winter months, are reported to subsist entirely upon dried buffalo flesh — not the fat portions, but the muscular part. . . . Dur- ing their subsistence on dried pemmican, they are de- scribed by travelers who were intimate with their habits of life, as never tasting even the most minute portions of any vegetable whatever, or partaking of any other variety of food. These facts, then, tend to show that albuminous tissue is of itself capable of sustaining life. ' — Dr. Thompson. * ' In other articles of animal food we have milky un- skimmed, skimmed, and buttermilk; they all contain about . 7 per cent, of salts ; but the latter contains a large quantity of lactic acid, which has a great tendency to prevent the accumulation of earthy matter in the system, 1 ' Cheese contains salts in about the same proportion as milk deprived of its water. It seems by its analysis to have a large quantity of salts (nearly 5 per cent.), but they exist in ratio to its highly nourishing properties. " Eggs contain 1.5 per cent, of salts (.5 per cent, less than beef and mutton). . . . ' ' The cereals constitute the basis of man's food ; they mostly contain large quantities of mineral matter and as a class are the worst adapted as a food for man, in re- gard to a long life. Man's so-called ' staff of life ' is, to a great extent, the cause of his premature death. ' ' In the twenty-second and twenty-third chapters of PERSIANS AND ETHIOPIANS. 291 the Third Book ('Thalia') of Herodotus, describing a visit of some Persian ambassadors to the long-lived Ethiopians (Macrobii), the Ethopians ' asked what the Persian king was wont to eat, and to what age the long- est-lived of the Persians had been known to attain. They told him that the King ate bread, and described the nature of wheat — adding that eighty years was the longest term of man's life among the Persians. Hereat he re- marked, ' ' It did not surprise him, if they fed on dirt (bread), that they died so soon; indeed, he was sure they never would have lived so long as eighty years ex- cept for the refreshment they got from that drink (meaning the wine), wherein he confessed the Persians surpassed the Ethiopians." The Ichthyophagi then, in their turn, questioned the King concerning the term of life and diet of his people, and were told that most of them lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, while some even went beyond that age ; they ate boiled flesh, and had for their drink nothing but milk.' . . . ' ' We, therefore, see that the different kinds of food, in regard to longevity, have the following order : fruits, fish, animal food (flesh, eggs, etc.), vegetables, cereals. In the same order do we trace the age of man by his diet. It is written that man in the first ages lived for a period which to us seems incredible ; but in the present generation the average time of life is so short, that a man at eighty or ninety years is truly a modern ' patriarch.' Man's first and ordained diet was fruits ; he then ate animal food, which was subsequently permitted to him ; after this he gained a knowledge of agriculture — he grew vegetables and cereals ; and not content with this, during the last few years he has learned to add lime artificially to them — to shrink and lessen an already shortened existence. ' ' In nature a curious yet simple phenomenon is often observed — a rise and fall. If perpetual, it alternates and becomes a fall and rise. We notice it in the sun, in gravity, in fluctuation, in the tides, and even in the rise and fall of empires. Man has degenerated — this degen- eration is due solely to his diet. He has fallen \ but we hope that he has risen to the highest point in the art of 292 WHY HUMAN MILK IS BEST. shortening his days, and that in the present generation he will commence to gradually/^// back on his original and ordained diet. Since the creation, the days of man's existence have been little by little decreasing — it has been a gradnal fall ; bnt both science and religion tell us that he must rise again, that his life on earth must be prolonged. . . . " It is a well-known fact that children brought up on human milk are healthier and more robust than children fed on cow's milk. The reason is obvious. The salts in human milk exist in ratio to its nourishing properties, as one part of salts to seventeen and a half parts of ni- trogenous matter ; in cow s milk, as one part of salts to six and one-third parts of the same nourishing sub- stances. Therefore, in round numbers, the nutrient part of cow's milk contains nearly three times the amount of salts as compared with human milk. The proportions of alkaline and earthy salts are proximately the same in the ashes of both, so that one ounce of caseine taken from cow's milk contains nearly three times the amount of earthy salts found in an equal weight of caseine from human milk. ' ' A human being takes four or five times longer to mature than a cow ; the latter therefore grows more quickly, and its bones ossify in a less period of time than the former, whose organs are more gradual in their development and growth — whose bones should take a longer time to ossify, and therefore nature gives a food which contains less earthy matter. If we do not follow nature's laws some bad result must follow, and one-half of our strumous children, who, besides their milk, are as a rule fed on bread and other farinaceous foods — most of them rich in earthy compounds — are for their age in years and months bodily older than healthy and robust children of the same age. Rickets and mollities ossium are in themselves diseases, not necessarily caused by a deficiency of earthy salts in the food, but by a lack in the system of power to assimilate them. ' ' We can stunt the growth of the lower animals by giving them an excess of earthy matter ; we can ossify them, make them permanently old, and shorten their CAUSE OF CRETINISM. 293 days, by the same. In human beings we need not look further than the Cretins found in the valleys of the Alps, Pyrenees, and other regions. Although cretinism has two distinct causes, the first and most important is that an excess of earthy matter — lime or magnesian lime — is taken into the system in solution in water used for drink- ing purposes. Hereditary it must be to children born of parents suffering from this disease, if not removed from the cause; but sound, healthy children brought into districts where cretinism exists are, at an early age, equally subject to the disease with children born in them. ' ' Now these beings are, in their infancy, literally prematurely ossified, the development of the bones is arrested, the height being seldom more than four and a half feet. The bones of the cranium, which in a natural state should expand to allow the brain to grow and develop, at an early age becomes thickened, hardened, and ossified to such an extent that expansion is impos- sible; the brain, therefore, cannot develop; it is grad- ually deprived of its blood supply from below; it is incased and imprisoned by its own shield ; its intellect- ual part cannot develop ; the being is subservient to the animal portion ; he becomes voracious and lascivious, and in many cases sinks in intelligence below the level of many of the brutes. The age of Cretins is short ; few of them reach thirty years, and as Clayton remarks, 1 although they die early, they soon present the appear- ance of age.' This miserable state of existence is due, to a great extent, to premature ossification. ' ' It is therefore clear that infants should be fed on human milk; that children, during their growth, should not be fed almost entirely on foods rich in earthy salts — on a cereal or farinaceous diet ; lime 'should be given for the expansion and development of their bodies. They should therefore eat a mixed diet — fruits or animal food in excess of the farinaceous ; and further, as use determines the shape of a limb, exercise and athletic games should be encouraged ; and as the mind influences the character, sympathies, and welfare of man, and places him by its activity and development at the head 294 FRUIT AND TEMPERANCE REQUIRED. of all animated creation, education — the fountain of intellectual manifestations, of sound principles of action and conduct, of the elegancies, accomplishments, and endearments of life — should be carried out in a manner which will be attractive to, and appreciated by, the re- ceiver of knowledge ; so that, in decomposing the infor- mation thus acquired, and recombining it in useful and attractive forms, he may lay the foundation in learning from the supervision and experience of the good, and construct upon it a castle of wisdom — but not at the ex- pense of bodily health. "To return to the subject of quantity of food re- quired to sustain life, we affirm that most men eat more than is requisite for this purpose — more than is actually good for them. Man does not require four or five meals a day ; he would be in far better health on two, or at most three meals in the twenty- four hours. "Fruits are nutritious in themselves; but should they not contain sufficient nitrogen to satisfy a theoreti- cal appetite, we have shown that all other elements are present, and that man may absorb the deficient nitrogen from the surrounding atmosphere, the combination re- sulting in albumen, or protein. For this reason, to- gether with the fact that they contain little earthy matter, fruits are man's best diet if he truly desires a long life." Lack of space forbids more than a brief quotation from Dr. Evan's chapter on " Instances of Longevity in Man and in the Animal and Vegetable Kingdoms." The following is from the 104th and succeeding pages: ' * On reviewing nearly two thousand reported cases of persons who lived more than a century, we generally find some peculiarity of diet or habits to account for their alleged longevity ; we find some were living among all the luxuries life could afford, others in the most ab- ject poverty, begging their bread ; some were samples of symmetry and physique, others cripples ; some drank large quantities of water, others little ; some were total abstainers from alcoholic drinks, others drunkards; some smoked tobacco, others did not; some lived en- INSTANCES OF LONGEVITY. 295 tirely on vegetables, others to a great extent on animal foods; some led active lives, others sedentary; some worked with their brain, others with their hands ; some ate only one meal a day, others four or five; some few ate large quantities of food, others a small amount ; in fact, we notice great divergence both in habits and diet, but, in those cases where we have been able to ob- tain a reliable account of the diet, we find one great cause which accounts for the majority of cases of longevity, moderation in the quantity of food, . . . " < Margaret Robertson, or Duncan, the oldest woman in Scotland, died at Coupar Angus yesterday. She was born in 1773, and her husband, a weaver, died fifty years ago, and left her with a daughter, who is still alive, and over sixty. Mrs. Duncan was a heavy smoker, and until recently, when she became blind, was in pos- session of all her faculties. Her last illness was only of a week's duration.' — Daily Telegraph, September 17, 1879. 1 ' We do not advise either drinking or smoking, as a means of prolonging life ; but still there is a philosophy noticed in the cases before us. Both drinking and smok- ing take away the appetite; less food is eaten, therefore a less amount of earthy salts are taken into the system, and the cause of old age is delayed in its results ; still, sufficient food is taken to support life, and great age follows. . . . "Among other instances of longevity we have the ancient Britons, whom Plutarch states ' only began to grow old at 120 years.' " ' They were remarkable for their fine athletic form, for the great strength of their body, and for being swift of foot. They excelled in running, wrestling, climbing, and all kinds of bodily exercise ; they were patient of pain, toil, and suffering of various kinds; were accus- tomed to fatigue, to bear hunger, cold, and all manner of hardships. They could run into morasses up to their necks and live there for days without eating.' — Henry. 1 ' Boadicea, Queen of the ancient Britons, in a speech to her army, when about to engage the degenerate Romans, said : ' The great advantage we have over them is, that they cannot, like us, bear hunger, thirst, 396 HARVEY AND OLD PARR. heat, or cold; they must have fine bread, wine, and warm houses ; to us every herb and root are food, every juice is our oil, and every stream of water our wine. ' " ' Their arms, legs, and thighs were always left naked, and for the most part were painted blue. Their food consisted almost exclusively of acorns, berries, ana water. ' — Goldsmith. ' « From the above we may justly infer that the ancient Britons lived on a diet which contained compara- tively a small amount of earthy salts ; further, the acorn contains tannogallate of potash, which would harden the albuminous and gelatinous structures : they would there- fore be less liable to waste and decay. Their endurance of hunger, cold, and hardships, and their love of water (probably from a hardened state of the skin), cannot be considered as mere fables. . . . " Thomas Parr, a native of Shropshire, died in 1635, aged 152. He married at the age of eighty-eight, ' seem- ing no older than many at forty.' He was brought to London by Thomas, then Earl of Arundel, to see Charles I., 'when he fed high, drank plentifully of wines, by which his body was overcharged, his lungs ob- structed, and the habit of the whole body quite dis- ordered ; in consequence, there could not but be speedy dissolution. If he had not changed his diet, he might have lived many years longer.' — Easton. 1 ' On his body being opened by Dr. Harvey, it was found to be in a most perfect state. ' The heart was thick, fibrous, and fat; his cartilages were not even ossified \ as is the case in all old people,' and the only cause to which death could be attributed was ' a mere plethora, brought on by more luxurious living in London than he had been accustomed to in his native country, where his food was plain and homely.' ' ' He was married a second time at the age of a hun- dred and twenty-one, and could run in foot-races and perform the ordinary work of an agricultural laborer when a hundred and forty-five years old. . . . " Miguel Solis, of Bogota, San Salvador, who is sup- posed to be at least one hundred and eighty. At a con- gress of physicians, held at Bogota, Dr. Louis Hernandez A MAN ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY YEARS OLD. 297 read a report of his visit to this locally famous man, a country publican and farmer. ' ' ' We are told that he only confesses to this age (one hundred and eighty years) ; but his neighbors, who must be better able to judge, affirm that he is considerably older than he says. He is a half-breed, named Miguel Solis, and his existence is testified to by Dr. Hernandez, who was assured that, when one of ' ' the oldest inhabi- tants" was a child, this man was recognized as a centena- rian. His signature, in 1712, is said to have been dis- covered among those of persons who assisted in the construction of a certain convent (Franciscan convent, at San Sebastian). Dr. Hernandez found this wonder- ful individual working in his garden. His skin was like parchment, his hair as white as snow, and covering his head like a turban. He attributed his long life to his careful habits ; eating only once a day, for half an hour, because he believed that more food than could be eaten in half an hour could not be digested in twenty-four hours. He had been accustomed to fast on the first and fifteenth of every month, drinking on those days as much water as possible. He chose the most nourishing foods, and took all things cold.' — Lancet, September 7th, 1878.' ' ' From this and other sources we gather the follow- ing habits of this man: (1) He eats but once a day, and only for half an hour. (2) He eats meat but twice a month ; from which we may justly infer that he is to a certain extent abstemious in his daily meal. (3) He drinks large quantities of water. (4) He fasts two whole days every month. ' ' From these habits it follows that, compared with the majority of mankind, he eats little, yet enough to support life ; he therefore takes into his system a small amount of earthy compounds, which therefore take a longer period to accumulate, and produce the symptoms of decrepitude and old age at a far later period than they occur in most individuals who live upon an ordi- nary quantity of food, whose bodies become rigid, de- crepit, and ossified, we will say, at about ' three score years and ten.' Further, that his drinking large quan- 298 LONGEVITY IN ANIMALS. tities of water, which, if not unusually hard, will tend to dissolve and remove those earthy compounds, which are not the effect but the cause of old age. We have not thought it necessary to make further inquiries concern- ing the diet and habits of this man. Our information is derived from numerous periodicals, and we only arrive at the above conclusions because we are convinced, from ascertained facts and experiments, that man may by diet alone attain the age * which Miguel Solis is supposed to be." We take the following from a lengthy enumeration of instances gleaned from various historians and scien- tists going to show the extraordinary longevity attained, under natural conditions, by the mammal as well as the reptile and fish tribes : 1 ' The horse in his wild state lives to upwards of fifty years; but when brought. to subjugation by the severity of man, he seldom attains half this age. " It is a well-known fact that when a horse does little work, and passes the greater part of his days — especially the early ones — in his pasture, he lives to nearly forty years ; but when a horse is hard- worked and the process of transpiration thereby increased, and is, moreover, fed upon beans, oats, and other 'ossifying' foods, his days are much shorter ; few in fact reach twenty years, and even ' Eclipse,' a race-horse which for speed is said to have never been defeated, with all the attention which man could bestow, died at twenty-five years. ' ' This faithful servant of man soon becomes prema- turely old from the diet on which he is fed ; in fact, his food contains so much earthy matter that concretions (hippolithi) of phosphates of lime, magnesia, and am- monium, in the cacum are of very common occurence ; the deposition of earthy salts in the system is also accel- erated by hard work, which increases the process of transpiration. " From the above few cases of the ages of reptiles, birds, and animals, which we have selected as illustra- tions, it is clear that those of them which attain the greatest longevity in animated nature are those which ADVANTAGES OF DISTILLED WATER. 299 are subject to or possessed of one or more of the follow- ing peculiarities or qualities : 11 (1) Those which are only slightly susceptible to the action of atmospheric oxygen. 1 ' (2) Those which are possessed of a restorative power, or are enabled to throw off from the system fibri- nous, gelatinous, and earthy matter, and the more per- fect this renovation, the greater the duration of life. ' l (3) Those which subsist upon food which contains a small quantity of earthy compounds. . . . * * Rain-water is the purest form of water occurring in nature ; however, even during its fall to the surface of the earth it acquires impurities from the air, but directly it touches the land it falls upon it dissolves some of the materials with which it comes in contact and becomes still more impure. Most salts are more or less soluble in water, which is the most general solvent of chemical substances in nature ; rain-water thus dissolves and com- bines with portions of the soluble constituents from the strata through which it percolates, and becomes spring- water or river- water, and ultimately passes into the sea to again take part in this vast process of distillation. The solid matter in solution in water is deposited when the water is evaporated ; in order to obtain pure water it is therefore necessary to distill it, that is, to boil it, and collect the water produced by the condensation of the steam. . . . 1 ' Distilled water, used as a drink, is absorbed directly into the blood, the solvent properties of which it increases to an extent that will keep salts already existing in the blood in solution, present their undue deposition in the various organs and structures, and favour their elimina- tion by the different excreta. If the same be taken in large quantities, or if it be the only-liquid taken into the system, either as a drink, or as a medium, for the ordi- nary decoctions of tea, coffee, etc., it will in time tend to remove those earthy compounds which have accumulated in the system, the effects of which usually become more manifest as the age of forty or fifty years is attained. The daily use of distilled water facilitates the removal of deleterious compounds from the body by means of the 300 IMPORTANCE OF HEALTH STUDIES. excreta, and therefore tends to the prolongation of ex- istence. The use of distilled water may be especially recommended after the age of thirty-five or forty years is attained; it will of itself prevent many diseases to which mankind is especially subject after this age; and were it generally used, gravel, stone in the bladder, and other diseases due to the formation of calculi in different parts of the system, would be much more un- common." The concluding quotations from Dr. Evans' erudite, logical, and remarkable book begin on page 163 : ' ' Science dictates, and even the most casual observer who — for purpose or principle — attempts to comprehend the truths and phenomena of universal Nature, unhesi- tatingly admits, that ' every phenomenon has its reason, every effect its cause. ' This is a fact established and in- disputable ; but how often are the laws of life and of death doomed to be overlooked by the deluded, and even removed from their legitimate situation, which they of necessity embrace in forming volumes in the library of the academy of Nature! For the sake of method, we classify and arrange under many heads, which are but servitors to avoid a chaos of observations, descriptions and deductions; the confusions thus avoided obviously present themselves, but one branch of science is de- pendent upon another — each forms a part, all united a whole — for Nature is one. To recognize one and ig- nore another portion or an entirety — each part of which is dependent upon unity — is to break a rule which re- mains unbroken. To say that everything dies simply because it has lived — that the age of man is fixed irre- spective of reason or cause — is not only presumption, but confessedly a want of conception, a disbelief in what is and therefore must be, and an assault on the fixed and immutable laws of natural phenomena. ' ' When we reflect or meditate on the progress of civ- ilized man, we notice wonders and improvements in his surroundings, for his welfare and comfort ; we discover a spirit of inquiry among men, a silent march of thought — a steady progress, impelled forward by an eternal law THE UNIVERSAL TERROR. 301 — Nature's law — experience. This law we may com- pare to a circle ; the beginning we know not, the end we know not. This circle enlarges, expands — where is the limit? Opposition, reproach, threats, and violence can only be a temporary check ; they cannot control, abate, or arrest the progress of inquiry, the keenness of re- search, the results of experience. But among the varied and expanding objects of research, is not inquiry which appertains to the preservation of life the most im- portant of all to humanity? " What is man without health, even if endowed with riches? Take away the latter and their accompanying luxuries — only give him health ; this accomplished, the first desire is a return of the riches. But with both a word remains which we hate to utter, a thought we dread to contemplate, a thing which gives sorrow, pain, and grief. That word, that thought, that thing, is Death. Even in cases where life appears a burden, how tenaciously do men cling to it ! How the spirit recoils from a struggle with Death ! How fondly it retains its grasp of life ! Man's great desire is for health and long life on earth ; to this there are but some few exceptions — the result of incidental impressions. ' Man clings to the world as his home, and would fain live here for ever.' 1 ' ' And can we see the newly-turned earth of so many graves, hear the almost hourly sounding knell that announces the departure of another soul from its bodily fabric, meet our associates clad in the garb of woe, hear of death after death among those whom we knew — perhaps respected, per- haps loved — without pausing to consider if we may not seek and haply find more than the mere causes, find the means of checking the premature dissolution that so painfully excites the deepest and most hidden sympathies of our nature ? The prolongation of the life of the people must become an essen- tial part of family, municipal, and national policy. Al- though it is right and glorious to incur risks and to sacrifice life for public objects, it has always been felt that length of days is the measure, and that the completion by the people of the full term of natural existence is the groundwork of their felicity. For untimely death is a great evil. What is so bitter as a premature death of a wife, a child, a father ? What dashes to the earth so many hopes, breaks so many 302 THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE. auspicious enterprises, as the unnatural death ? The poets, as faithful interpreters of our aspirations, have always sung, that in the happier ages of the world this source of tears shall be dried up. ' — Registrar-General of England. 1 ' In the present day, when we are so accustomed to wonders that they no longer excite our wonder ; when we send our thoughts almost round the world with the velocity of lightning ; when we hear voices miles away by the agency of the telephone ; the tick of a watch — even the tramp of a fly — by the microphone ; when we transcribe the vibrations of sound with the precision of a mathematician ; when we freeze water into ice in white hot crucibles ; when we cast copper into statues without the aid of heat ; when it is possible to illuminate cities without gas — with lamps devoid of flame or fire ; when some of the most precious minerals are produced from their elements; when we believe that to-morrow even the diamond may be artificially produced ; with all these wonders recently brought to light for the benefit of man- kind, is man himself "to be debarred from that social pro- gress which is daily manifested ? Are the achievements of science of no avail in benefiting his degenerated ex- istence ? Will not our daily increasing knowledge of Nature and the behaviour of her elements eventually tend to this end ? In reference to which Liebig asks : ' Is that knowledge not the philosopher s stone, which prom- ises to disclose to us the laws of life, and which must finally yield to us the means of curing diseases and of pro- longing life ? ' < ' The fields of research become richer and wider with every new discovery, which is often as precious, if not more useful, than gold — actually a transmutation for the benefit and comfort of man. But as yet he has himself been little benefited by science, which must of necessity ultimately dictate a means of curing diseases and of prolonging life. Is it even just, in the present day of so-called wisdom, to ridicule the alchemists of old who diligently laboured and searched for a ' virgin earth ' - -a mysterious substance which would ' change the baser metals to gold, and be a means of curing diseases, of re- storing youth to the exhausted frame of age, and of pro- FRUITS COMPARED WITH CEREALS. 303 longing life indefinitely ' ? Such a view would be utterly unjust. For the present science of chemistry owes its position, its existence — perhaps its origin — to the untir- ing observations and researches of the alchemists, which were instilled into them in their labourious searches for the 'philosopher's stone.' All they sought for exists, and may ultimately be found in the illimitable science of chemistry. . . . ' * The beneficial effects of fruit as an article of diet, both in health and disease, cannot be overrated. In health, the apple, the pear, the grape, the strawberry, the gooseberry, the tomato, the fig, the date, wall- Tuits, the melon, and numerous others, present such a deld for choice that the most capricious appetite need never be disappointed. The supply of fruit in the United Kingdom is not great, but considerable quanti- ties of both fresh and preserved fruits are imported from all parts of the world, and are rapidly becoming popular among all classes ; and it is to be hoped that our fellow- countrymen will gradually become more alive to the benefits to be derived from a more general and frequent use of fruits as an article of daily food. 1 ' * When pain and anguish wring the brow, ' in slight and temporary indisposition, or during prolonged febrile diseases, what is more refreshing and beneficial than the juice of the luscious orange? Indeed, in many parts of the world, especially in tropical regions, the juice of the orange taken in large quantities has been found to be a specific for many descriptions of fever; it is, in fact, Nature's remedy, and an unsurpassed one. ' ' Cereal and farinaceous foods form the basis of the diet of so-called ' vegetarians,' who are not guided by any direct principle, except that they believe it is wrong to eat animal food. For this reason vegetarians enjoy no better health, and live no longer, than those around them. Our remarks, therefore, apply to fruits as dis- tinct from vegetables." CHAPTER VII. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— PROFESSOR GUBLER If the investigation of Rowbotham in the years 1840 to 1850 may be said to be confirmed by the writings of De Lacy Evans in 1879, still stronger may this claim be made for the following essay on the Cretaceous Degen- eration of the Arteries, by Monsieur Gubler, Professor of Therapeutics, Paris College of Surgeons, and published in the Annales d' Hygiene, Paris, 1877 (2d Ser., Vol. 48). Professor Gubler does not take either as positive or as broad ground as that of Rowbotham and Evans ; but it is manifestly a spontaneous growth from his own mind, and is valuable confirmation of these English authorities, since it arrives at substantially the same conclusions from manifestly independent sources. The translation is liberal, and shortened somewhat, but will be found to be correct. "The title of this communication sufficiently indicates that I do not here submit a definite solution of the prob- lem, but simply some personal views, and the sugges- tion of a new method to be followed in the study of this difficult and interesting question of atheromatous degen- eration. ' ' As age progresses, and under the influence of con- ditions still imperfectly determined, the inner wall of the arteries, supple and elastic in its normal state, thick- ens gradually and becomes indurated in such a manner as to offer, to the exploring finger, similar resistance to that of a bird's feather or the windpipe of a chicken, ac- cording as the degeneration is uniform or disposed in THE GREATER IMMUNITY OF THE RICH. 305 circular zones alternately with rings relatively healthy. ' ' By anatomic examination it is found that the thick- ening and induration of the vascular membrane is due to the accumulation of a whitey yellow granulous and fatty substance, but essentially of mineral composition, the greater part of which is represented by the carbon- ates and earthy phosphates. ' ' This degeneration spares no one and affects all classes, but in a manner very unequally ; indeed, the con- trast is something astonishing in this respect between the well-to-do and the working classes, between town and country people, the difference being entirely to the advantage of the first. While among those high in the social scale, supple arteries are to be noted until the approach of confirmed old age, if not even of decrepi- tude, in the inferior classes, on the contrary, arterial induration often shows a striking precocity. It evi- dences itself not only in the wane of life but in maturity and even in youth. In our hospitals, for example, men of 40, 30, and even 20 and under, exhibit the radial ar- teries already thickened and resistant. In short, while that at about 45 or 50 years confirmed degeneration is the general rule amongst labourers from the country, such as navvies, masons, etc., the deterioration only commences to show itself at about the age of 60 among the higher classes. Whence comes this strange disparity? Is there nothing for it but to ascribe this condition as one more of the baneful effects of alcohol- ism? No doubt alcohol is a great evil, and it is not easy to put the working classes too much on their guard against its deplorable influence. Still, there is no need to exaggerate, and for my part I am convinced that modern physicians have not always been able to avoid imputing to alcoholism (so fruitful in dangers to health and life) symptoms the real cause of which they were unable to discover. * * I do not pretend absolutely to exonerate alcohol from all share in this atheromatous and calcareous degenera- tion. I merely believe I can establish that this poison- ous agent is neither the sufficient, nor the principal cause of the pathological phenomena under consideration. 306 THE DIET OF THE POOR CAUSES EARLY DEATH. "As a matter of fact, I have had occasion to see many subjects of premature arterial induration who have emphatically affirmed their sobriety. Among these there are those whose sincerity can hardly be questioned, and respecting many of them I obtained information entirely favourable ; without counting that the youth of some of them made it impossible that habits of drunken- ness, which they wholly repudiated, and of which they manifested no other distinctive symptoms, could have manifested themselves. " On the other hand, wealthy people are not exempt from the vice that is attributed (and justly) to the town working classes. I know many gentlemen who never put water in their wine, who drink plentifully of the best wines, and do not abstain from spirits, yet who remain free from all atheromatous and calcareous degen- eration. " It may be urged, perhaps, that in the higher ranks of society alcoholic drink is taken with the meals, and that, consequently, being mingled with the chymous matter and slowly absorbed, it is not so liable to reach the hepatic gland or the blood in sufficiently large quantity to work great harm. The habits of the two classes, however, from the alcoholic point of view, are not so very dissimilar, and consequently they are not capable of accounting for the profound difference that exists between rich and poor in respect of the precocity and intensity of this deterioration of the arterial system. 1 'It seemed to me that the nourishment, so different in the cases respectively of each class, poor and rich, country and town, would be able to furnish us with a satisfactory explanation of the facts noted. While the one class live principally on flesh (their favourite vege- tables — mushrooms, truffles, asparagus — are themselves largely provided with the nitrogenous principle), the other class is sustained on vegetable substances, bread, potatoes, cabbages, salads, and the bean species, as well as fruits, forming the basis of their food. ' ' Now, meat and the albuminous substances contain very little mineral elements ; while the pulses and the fruits are well supplied with them. It is the leaves of HOW OSSIFICATION IS CAUSED. 307 plants that possess the function of condensing and retain- ing in their tissues the mineral matter in solution in the ascending sap, and these organs, in decaying, yearly restore to the soil the earthy salts the plants have re- ceived. Such is the physiologic reason for the enormous proportion of earthy mattei which the consumption of green portions of plants (and consequently of the pulses) introduces into the human economy, and into that of the herbivorous animals. ' ' This aliment is principally composed of phosphates and earthy carbonates, which, easily soluble in the liquid acids of the organism and even in the blood by virtue of an excess of carbonic gas, are no longer so either in the alkaline secretions or in the serum of the blood, devoid as the latter is of carbonic acid. These saline or chalky matters, then, accumulating and being precipitated in the liquid secretions of various organs, tend, among other prejudicial conditions, to the formation of calcareous incrustations throughout the system. This tendency has a two-fold action, not only causing the fossilization of the arteries involved, but, by introducing alkaline salts to organic acids, it serves to further alkalize the fluids of the body and so favour the precipitation of earthy matters. ' ' Now, whence comes this tendency of mineral sub- stances to deposit themselves in the membranes of the arteries? The following considerations borrowed from experimental physiologists and the observation of nat- ural facts will help us, I hope, to understand the phe- nomena. 1 ' We have seen, above, that leaves traversed by the sap-flow retain from the current the earthy matters which it holds in solution. The marine algae (seaweed) per- form the same function in regard to iodine and bromine, of which they store considerable quantities, though the water in which they float gives scarcely perceptible traces of these two metals. In one respect this fact does not apply to those we are considering, as mineral substances in vegetables that are in their normal health and vigour do not take the place of the living tissue — they simply line the interior of the cellular walls in 3o8 EXPERIMENTAL PROOFS. the tissue, or, rather form crystalline accumulations there. 1 ' But here is a case altogether analogous to that which occupies us, and the knowledge of which can throw light upon the history of the morbid process from which atheromatous and calcareous degeneration results. "In an unopened abscess charged with purulent matter, the pus globules become markedly granular, opaque, and irregular, some of the smaller masses unit- ing partially in larger ones, others breaking up and giv- ing birth to numerous molecules endowed with motion, while the older agglomerations are transformed into a veritable milk of lime. ' ' On the other hand the cancerous growths in a dis- eased liver, in proportion as they increase, waste away in their centers, become yellow and granulus, and finally show in the affected tissue molecular granules of mineral substance. The healing of the tubercules which form in lung disease by cre'tification is, again, a phenomenon of the same order, in which the abnormal tissue has almost disappeared from the center of a calcareous mass mixed up with anthrocoid particles and crystals of the chloride of sodium. ' ' The interpretation of these facts would not seem to offer serious difficulties. It may be summed up as fol- lows : A tissue very enfeebled, whose renovation can only be very slowly, if at all effected, becomes coated gradually with earthy and insoluble matters held in solu- tion by the serous liquid which flows by its walls unceas- ingly ; in course of time a relatively enormous accumu- lation of the incrusting substances takes place in or on the organ. ' ' An experiment easily performed demonstrates al- most to conviction the certainty of this process. A clot of blood is introduced into the peritoneum or gland of a cock, the wound is closed, and a few weeks allowed to elapse. When the bird is killed, there is found in the peritoneal cavity in place of the clot of blood or of the gland, a mass less voluminous, greyish, slightly coher- ent, almost entirely composed of earthy material, and the size of which is yet so considerable that it would be THE PEASANTS OF ORLEANS. 309 absurd to suppose such a quantity of carbon and of phos- phate of lime should originally have formed part of the coagulum introduced. "The tendency to incrustation is shown by experi- ment, other things being equal, to be inversely to the vitality of the tissue — that is to say, to its power of reno- vation. "On the other hand, the quantity of mineral sub- stances introduced must be directly proportional, not to the blood current, but to the rapidity with which the alkaline solution filtrates and penetrates the tissues, pro- vided of course that this alkaline solution which has been deprived of its carbonic acid is ready to give up the earthy matters it is no longer able to hold in a dis- solved state. So that we find this tendency greatest in tissues deprived of vessels, or in which the vascularity is very poor, and which are sustained by imbibition at the expense of the blood vessels of adjacent parts. For all these reasons the internal anhistical membrane — scarcely living middle membrane — of the arteries, which is but little irrigated with the blood, and which is fed by the serum which filters continuously through the internal lining, is particularly predisposed to suffer atheromatous and calcareous degeneration. ' ' The correctness of these views may be easily veri- fied. If, as I think, the cretaceous incrustations of the arteries have their origin in the earthy matters supplied in a vegetarian regime, concurrently with drinking waters charged with earthy salts, they will be more frequent, more premature, and more serious in chalky districts; rarer, and even absent in siliceous districts. Well, Dr. Leblanc tells me that he has been struck by the prev- alence of this morbid state among the peasants of l'Orleans. On the other hand, in a region absolutely devoid of lime, and where the fowls can scarcely make shell for their eggs, one of my friends, who is not a doctor (although he can feel the pulses of his work- people) but who is well read in science, has not remarked any hardening of the arteries except in case of those well advanced in years. My friend, Dr. Vibert, who occupies a good medical position at Puy, informs me 310 DEGENERATION OF TRAPPISTS. that in this granitic and volcanic region atheromatous degeneration is rare. ' ' In short, if I am right, atheromatous and calcare- ous degeneration affects particularly the sects pledged to pulse- eating, whose recruits come from the better class, as well as the religious orders vowed to the mon- asticism and to the vegetable nourishment. Such was the case in a convent of Trappists recently visited by Dr. Raymond. My friend, who had acquaintances in the place, was able to assure himself that among some ten monks still young, and especially in the case of the prior, who was only thirty- two years old, the radial arteries were already markedly indurated. " Here, then, if I am not mistaken, is an early confirmation of the correctness of my ideas. But the opinions that I have submitted herein can only be solidly established after a careful inquiry by observers through- out the country and by the medical fraternity generally . " CHAPTER VIII. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— DR. WINCKLER (ALANUS). Truth is confined to no nation, nor language, nor condition of man. I have always pointed out the simi- larity in the obscure writings of a man formerly in the north of England with Dr. Evans' well-known book. There is every reason to believe that the investigations of Professor Gubler are entirely independent of, and were not the reflections of the writings of Mr. Row- botham or of Dr. Evans. Mr. Rowbotham and Dr. Evans lay especial stress upon the importance of refrain- ing from the use of bread and cereal foods because of the danger of ossification of the tissues, and thereby hastening premature decrepitude and old age. Professor Gubler, while pointing out that these foods are favour- able to the precipitation of chalky deposits in the tissues, is especially concerned with calcareous incrustations of the arteries. A degeneration of the arteries is a prime source for the multiplication of all diseases, and for the weakening and shortening of human life in all direc- tions. As soon as the inner lining of the arteries is enlarged and encrusted, hardened, the size of the tube is lessened, a smaller quantity of blood is carried to the tissues ; this in its turn results in inadequate nutrition, and this again in corresponding and consequent weak- ness and decrepitude. Professor Gubler is in turn confirmed by the experi- ence and writings of a German physician, Dr. Winckler, who had been converted to vegetarianism, and who con- 312 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, tributed to vegetarian publications articles commending it, under the name of Dr. Alanus. After some years of enthusiastic work in food reform Dr. Alanus was horri- fied to find his radial arteries resistant, plainly showing cretaceous degeneration; and the doctor earnestly set about the solution of the problem as to the cause of the difficulty. Dr. Alanus contributed an account of his ex- perience and investigations to the New York Medical Record, from which the following is taken : 1 ' Having lived for a long time as a vegetarian with- out feeling any better or worse than formerly with mixed food, I made one day the disagreeable discovery that my arteries began to show signs of atheromatous degenera- tion (chalky degeneration) ; particularly in the temporal and radial arteries this morbid process was unmistakable. Being still under forty I could not interpret this symptom as a manifestation of old age, and being, furthermore, not addicted to drink, I was utterly unable to explain the matter. I turned it over and over in my mind with- out finding a solution of the enigma. I, howe ver, found the explanation quite accidentally in a work of that ex- cellent physician, Dr. G. Monin, of Paris. The follow- ing is the verbal translation of the passage in question : 1 In order to continue the criticism of vegetarianism we must not ignore the work of the late lamented Gubler, on the influence of a vegetable diet on a chalky degeneration of the arteries. Vegetable food, richer in mineral salts than that of animal origin, introduces more mineral salts into the blood. Raymond has observed numerous cases of atheroma (chalky deposit) in a mon- astery of vegetarian friars, among others that of a prior, a man scarcely thirty-two years old, whose arteries were considerably hardened. The naval surgeon Freille has seen numerous cases of atheromatous degeneration in Bombay and Calcutta, where many people live exclu- sively on rice. A vegetable diet, therefore, ruins the blood-vessels and makes prematurely old, if it is true that man is as old as his arteries. It must produce at the same time tartar, the senile arch of the cornea and phosphaturia. ' DRS. MONIN, RAYMOND AND FREILLE. 313 * ' Having unfortunately seen these newest results of medical investigation confirmed in my own case, I have, as a matter of course, returned to a mixed diet. I can no longer consider a purely vegetable diet as the normal diet of man, but only as a curative method, which is of the greatest service in various morbid states. Some patients may follow this diet for weeks and months, but it is not adapted for everybody's continued use. It is the same as with the starvation cure, which cures some patients, but it is not fit to be used continually by the healthy. I have become richer by my-experience, which has shown me that a single brutal fact can knock down the most beautiful theoretical structure." Attention is called to the fact that Dr. Alanus found a solution of the problem in the work of Dr. G. Monin of Paris, who confirms the suggestion of Professor Gubler, and cites the writings of Drs. Raymond and Freille as further confirmation. CHAPTER IX. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— HOLBROOK. Years ago S. Rowbotham pointed out the danger aris- ing from the use of salt, owing to its tendency to leave earthy deposits in the system, resulting in stiffening of the joints and degeneration of the arteries. Hygienists and many workers in the temperance cause have pointed out the intimate connection between seasonings and stimulants, and that the use of one predisposes to the use of the others. It is a fact of no slight significance that science has already indicated that the use of cereal and vegetable foods demand the use of salt. The fol- lowing quotation is taken from " Eating for Strength," a work by M. L. Holbrook, M.D., Professor of Hygiene in the New York Medical College and Hospital for Women, beginning on page 28 : " Let us now look at the potash and soda salts. Potash is a very remarkable material ; phosphate of pot- ash is an 'essential constituent of the muscles, and also of the blood corpuscles. In the serum of the blood, however, it is an abnormal constituent, causing paralysis of the heart and frequently sudden death. One may, without especial danger, take chlorate or carbonate of potash through the stomach, as is often the case by pre- scriptions of physicians. The same dose, or even a less one, however, introduced directly into the circulation, causes death. . . Johannus Ranke says that potash is a substance which, if it accumulates in the flesh cells or nerve cells, causes irritation of the muscles and paralysis of the nerves. We find here a riddle. How is it that CHEMICAL ACTION OF POTASH. 315 this material is a necessary constituent of the firm ma- terial of our bodies, but so deadly in the serum of our blood? Dr. Bunge suggests that the potash and soda salts decompose each other, as is the case when mixed in the laboratory and allowed to crystalize, new com- pounds being formed, one being chloride of potassium and the other carbonate of soda. ' ' Another fact comes to light in this investigation, that the plant- eating animals require more common salt than the flesh-eating ones. Some of them are so greedy for salt that they will travel long distances to salt-licks in order to obtain it, which is never the case with carniv- orous animals. Now, if we compare the food of the flesh-eaters with that of the herbivora, we find about the same amount of chloride of sodium (common salt), but the amount of potash salts in the food of vegetable-eat- ing animals is from two to four times as great. Bunge suggests that the reason why the vegetable- eaters re- quire more salt is to decompose or change the form of the great excess of potash salts, which we have seen may be very injurious ; or may not the potash draw so heavily on the chloride of sodium in the body as to make the addition of it in our food necessary in order to maintain the equilibrium of the body? In order to test this question scientifically, Bunge made an experiment on himself. First, he ate food for five days with such exactness as to bring the excretion of the salts to a regu- lar and constant amount. On the fifth day he added to his food eighteen grammes of phosphate of potash. Al- though he had not added any chloride of sodium, there was not only an immediate increase of excretion of pot- ash salts, but of soda salts also. Repeated experiments gave the same results. He estimated that, by the addi- tion of twelve grammes of potash salts to the food, nearly half of the soda salts of the blood would be ex- tracted. This, he thinks, proved his hypothesis. Pot- ash in small quantities withdraws from the body chloride and sodium, or its oxide, and soda, both constituents of common salt, and this requires the addition of it to our food. ' ' It may be seen at a glance that all vegetables con- 3i6 STARCH FOODS DEMAND SALT, tain less soda than milk; and they all contain, rice excepted, more potash than this article. If potash, as shown by Bunge, withdraws soda from the body, it may be seen that the addition of common salt to the food poor in soda is a scientific necessity. 1 ' We also see why a babe nourished on its mother's milk does not require the addition of common salt. Its food contains less potash salts and more soda salts than almost any other article of food. ' ' Liebig remarked that there seemed to be a popular instinct to add more salt to those articles of food which were rich in starch, as, for instance, wheat-meal, peas and beans, and it seems that these are the very ones which contain most potash. 1 ' In this connection it may be remarked that potash salts in large quantities affect unfavourably the mucous membrance of the digestive tract, and especially the stomach. Consequently, all those who suffer from weakness of the stomach should avoid potatoes, and sub- stitute rice instead. Rice is also more easily digested than potatoes for other reasons. It contains less cellular or woody and indigestible matter inclosing the starch cells. One writer on food (Mulder) goes so far in his op- position to potatoes as an article of diet as to declare it would be a blessing to the race to banish them from the planet and substitute rice. " Dr. Bunge has collected facts concerning the use of salt among various people. He finds that those who live mainly on flesh, as hunters, fishermen, and nomadic tribes, do not care for salt. Of the Samoyden he says : 1 They know nothing of bread, and but little of roots. Flesh and fish constitute their daily food. The use of salt is unknown, though easily attainable from the sea. The Tungusen eat no raw flesh, but cook it in fresh water and use no salt on it. The Dolganen and Jural- kan, in North Siberia, possess many salt mines, but they never use salt, unless as a medicine. Their food is fish and reindeer flesh.' Wrange writes concerning the Tschuktschen : ' Their food is flesh and they use no salt, but have actual repugnance to it.' ' ' Prof. Schwartz dwelt in the land of the Tungusen THE DIET OF AFRICANS. 3x7 three years ; lived on the flesh of wild birds and rein- deer without the addition of salt, and felt no need for it. ' ' There are tribes of flesh-eating men in both tropi- cal India and Africa who use no salt ; they even laugh at those who do use it. "On the other hand, most of the native tribes of Africa cultivate the soil. Mungo Park says : ' The Man- digos breakfast early on porridge made of meal and water, flavoured with the rind of tamarind to give it relish. About two they eat a meal consisting of pudding made of corn meal, milk, and vegetable butter. Their chief meal is eaten late at night, and consists of broth made with corn meal, wheat meal with vegetables, with sometimes a little flesh and vegetable butter. They are principally vegetarians.' Concerning salt, he says: 1 They have a great craving for it. If a child gets a piece of rock salt from a European, it eats it as our children do sugar. The poorer classes look up a man who can afford salt as a rich man. 1 Park's own experi- ence was that he had a painful craving for salt, which could not be described. On the west coast of Africa a man would sell his wife or child for salt. A war for a salt-spring between different tribes is not uncommon. To them salt is no luxury, but a necessity. . . . 1 ' Many of the facts and statements of this chapter are drawn from German sources, and especially from a little work entitled ' Die Modernen Principien der Erna- hrung,' nach v. Pettenkofer und Voit, von. Dr. Aug. Guckerston, a most valuable little work, putting in popu- lar language the scientific experiments of the most learned German students of man's food — a subject now attracting more attention than at any former time." We have in this a direct and conclusive proof that salt is needed in a diet of cereals, pulses, and potatoes. The well-nigh universal experience of mankind proves that a diet of fruit does not call for salt, and its presence in such food would be an offense. CHAPTER X. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— DR FOTHERGILL AND HERBERT SPENCER A large business is done in England and America in the preparation and sale of foods for infants and invalids. It is proclaimed in the literature of the various firms who offer these foods for sale that they are quite free from starch ; that this substance has been converted into soluble dextrin by pre-digestion. The late Dr. J. Milner Fothergill, of London, was a very successful physician, an able writer, and a painstaking student. From a pamphlet entitled " Nutrition for Infants and Invalids, with Suggestions from J. Milner Fothergill, M. D.," I quote: "Gentlemen: — Having requested me to give you my opinion, as a food expert, upon your ' Lactate d Food,' I do so herewith. You state tkat it contains ' the purified gluten of wheat and oats, with barley diastase and malt extract combined with specially prepared milk- sugar ; ' in other words, that it is self- digestive as regards the conversion of insoluble starch into soluble dextrine and maltose. My experiments with it lead me to hold that this is correct. When lactated food is placed in water hot enough to be sipped, a rapid transformation of the starch remaining in it (by the diastase it contains) goes on; and a nutritive fluid is the result, which requires but a minimum of the digestive act. The resort to farinaceous matters, pre-digested, must become greater and greater as our knowledge of digestion and its derangements waxes greater. It is not merely in the PRE-DIGESTED FOOD RECOMMENDED. 319 case of feeble infants that such pre-digested starch and milk-sugar are indicated and useful: persons of feeble digestion require these soluble carbo-hydrates, which they can assimilate." Attention is called to the last two sentences of this remarkable utterance. Dr. Fothergill tells us that we must resort to the pre-digestion of bread and cereal foods as our knowledge of digestion increases, and as the power of digestion decreases. It will be noticed that Dr. Fothergill does not confine these suggestions to infants, but includes all persons of feeble digestion — a class rapidly increasing, and it would seem, unless something be done to avert it, soon to include a majority of mankind. There can be no doubt that it would be an advantage to discover a food which needs no pre- digestion, and which would take the place of those farinaceous foods — bread and cereals — that must be pre- digested to be easy of assimilation. From a valuable chapter in Dr. Holbrook's book en- titled " Eating for Strength," the following quotation is taken (pages 133 and 134): ' ' An important part of the grape is its sugar, which may be as high as 30 per cent., or as low as 10 per cent. The warmer and drier the weather at the time of the ripening the more sugar in the grape, and the less acid it is found to contain. . . . From 70 to 80 per cent, is water. . . . Grapes are nourishing, but their nourish- ing properties are not the same as those of bread and meat, for they contain only a small proportion of the protein which is required daily." If we examine the nourishing elements in bread we find that the chief one, starch, is carbonaceous, and that it forms about 70 per cent, of the entire nourishing con- stituents. This starch subserves precisely the same pur- pose in the animal economy that sugar does in the grape, the only difference being that the carbonaceous element in the bread must undergo two processes of digestion 320 FRUITS CONTRASTED WITH BREAD. before it is assimilable by the system, whereas the same element in the grape requires no digestion, and is ready for assimilation as soon as eaten. It is quite true that the gluten of wheat is nitrogenous, and when digested serves to sustain muscular action; but it is also true that this portion of bread is very difficult to digest, and that nitrogen in this shape is apt to pass through the system without digestion. This is at the foundation of the term " bread and meat " which Dr. Holbrook uses; the bread is eaten chiefly for its heat-giving elements, and the meat for it nitrogen and oil. If grapes be sub- stituted for bread, we have the phrase " grapes and meat," or, more generically, " fruit and meat." Let us analyze this statement, and note the results. Since flour has about 70 per cent, of starch, and bread is about half water, a pound of bread will have 3 5 to 40 per cent, of carbonaceous food. According to Dr. Holbrook, under favourable conditions of the grape, a pound furnishes 30 per cent, of carbonaceous food (dif- fering from that of bread only in the greater ease of its digestion), and when we can obtain such grapes a pound is equal, so far as the principal nourishing element is concerned, to three-quarters of a pound of bread. In the most unfavourable condition of the grape three pounds are required to equal one pound of bread. It is to be remembered, however, that the water of which 70 to 80 per cent, of this fruit is composed is dis- tilled water, not only free from all earthy matter, but free from any danger that may be lurking in the ma- chinery which is used for the production of artificially distilled water; and hence, even if three pounds of grapes were eaten in lieu of the one pound of bread, with the meat, or eggs and milk, or nuts, there is the great advantage of its providing the system with the needed liquid in the healthiest and most desirable possi- ble condition. We quote further from Dr. Holbrook : ADVANTAGES OF A FRUIT DIET. 321 1 1 The physiological effects of the grape are signifi- cant. Eaten with other suitable food . . . they increase nutrition, promote secretion, improve the action of the liver, kidneys, and bowels, and add to the health. The sugar of the grape requires no digestion, but is taken almost at once into the blood, where it renders up its force as required; so also, of the water. The dextrin of the grape promotes the secretion of pepsin, and this favours digestion. . . . The phosphoric acid, of which there is considerable, acts most favourably on all the bodily functions, and especially on the brain. . . . Grapes, say several authorities, act very much like min- eral waters upon the system ; but they must be more beneficial than mineral waters because they nourish, and their effect on the nerves is augmented by their more agreeable taste. Eaten moderately, with a suitable diet, they will not produce cathartic effects, but a more nat- ural action of the bowels, so important to health ; or, if eaten in large quantities, they are generally laxative. As soon as this occurs, obstructions disappear, and a feel- ing of comfort arises which is very gratifying to the sufferer." It is not strange that Dr. Holbrook and other able physicians should be aware of the nourishing elements of the grape, the very great importance of its distilled water, and its highly beneficial effect upon the nerves and system generally; still, it did not occur to these physicians to substitute the grape for bread. It is a new proposition involving a mental readjustment to wholly appreciate its bearings. But when all these facts are brought to the impartial reader's mind, — when we con- sider that, according to Dr. Fothergill, bread and cereals are of such a nature that it is desirable to predige k st them in order to avoid vital strain and an undue waste of nervous energy, and when we consider that according to Dr. Holbrook the grape is rich in the same nourishing elements that constitute the larger share of the nourish- ment in bread, that this element in the grape needs no 322 CONFIRMED BY HERBERT SPENCER. digestion, that it is taken up and assimilated by the sys- tem without the expenditure of any vital energy, that it abounds in that liquid which perhaps is the only natural and wholesome drink for man, that it is rich in acids that stimulate the excretory functions of the system, and en- sure the purification of the blood, and evoke ' ' a feeling of comfort very gratifying to the sufferer," — when all these facts are considered, are there not the strongest grounds for the contention that bread and cereals are not a wholesome food, and for asking the reader to make the experiment of a diet of fruit and meat instead of the bread and meat in use throughout the civilized world. The claim that bread is relatively insipid, — that fruit, as compared with bread, is more sapid and enjoyable, — ■ that there is a crying need, in the selection of food, for the choice of those varieties allowing greatest economy in the expenditure of vital force, and that the great desideratum is to have a * ' diet which combines, as much as possible, nutritiousness and digestibility, " is well supported by the following quotations from the writings of Herbert Spencer, taken from his work on education, pages 135, 136, and 140: ' ' Consider the ordinary tastes and the ordinary treat- ment of children. The love of sweets is conspicuous and almost universal among them. Probably ninety- nine people in a hundred presume that there is nothing more in this than gratification of the palate ; and that, in common with other sensual desires, it should be dis- couraged. The physiologist, whose discoveries lead him to an ever-increasing reverence for the arrangement of things, suspects something more in this love of sweet than is currently supposed; and inquiry confirms the suspicion. He finds that sugar plays an important part in the vital processes. Both saccharine and fatty matters are eventually oxidized in the body ; and there is an ac- companying evolution of heat. Sugar is the form to which sundry other compounds have to be reduced be- BREAD INSIPID, FRUIT WHOLESOME. 323 fore they are available as heat-making food; and this formation of sugar is carried on in the body. Not only is starch changed into sugar in the course of digestion, but it has been proved by M. Claude Bernard that the liver is a factory in which other constituents of food are transformed into sugar; the need for sugar being so imperative that it is even thus produced from nitrog- enous substances when no others are given. Now, when to the fact that children have a marked desire for this valuable heat-food, we join the fact that they have a usually marked dislike to that food which gives out the greatest amount of heat during oxidation (namely, fat), we have reason for thinking that excess of the one com- pensates for defect of the other — that the organism de- mands more sugar because it cannot deal with much fat. Again, children are fond of vegetable acids. Fruits of all kinds are their delight ; and, in the absence of any- thing better, they will devour unripe gooseberries, and the sourest of crabs. Now, not only are vegetable acids, in common with mineral ones, very good tonics, and beneficial as such when taken in moderation ; but they have, when administered in their natural forms, other advantages. 'Ripe fruit,' says Dr. Andrew Combe, 'is more freely given on the Continent than in this country ; and, particularly when the bowels act imperfectly, it is often very useful.' See, then, the discord between the instinctive wants of children and their habitual treat- ment. Here are two dominant desires, which in all probability express certain needs of the child's constitu- tion ; and not only are they ignored in the nursery regimen, but there is a general tendency to forbid the gratification of them. Bread and milk in the morning, tea and bread and butter at night, or some dietary equally insipid, is rigidly adhered to. . . . We contend that, were children allowed daily to partake of those more sapid edibles for which there is a physiological re- quirement, they would rarely exceed, as they now mostly do when they have the opportunity; were fruits, as Dr. Combe recommends, ' to constitute a part of the regular food' (given as he advises not between meals, but along with them) there would be none of that craving which 324 VITAL FORCE SAVED BY PROPER FOOD. prompts the devouring of crabs and sloes. And simi- larly in other cases. . . . "This relatively greater need for nutriment being admitted, as it must be, the , question that remains is — shall we meet it by giving an excessive quantity of what may be called dilute food, or a more moderate quantity of concentrated food ? The nutriment obtainable from a given weight of meat is obtainable only from a larger weight of bread, or from a still larger weight of pota- toes, and so on. To fulfill the requirement, the quantity must be increased as the nutritiveness is diminished. Shall we, then, respond to the extra wants of the grow- ing child by giving an adequate quantity of food as good as that of adults? Or, regardless of the fact that its stomach has to dispose of a relatively larger quantity even of this good food, shall we further tax it by giving an inferior food in still greater quantity? "The answer is tolerably obvious. The more the labour of digestion is economized, the more energy is left for the purpose of growth and action. The func- tions of the stomach and intestines cannot be performed without a large supply of blood and nervous power ; and in the comparative lassitude that follows a hearty meal, every adult has proof that this supply of blood and nervous power is at the expense of the system at large. If the requisite nutriment is obtained from a great quan- tity of innutritious food, more work is entailed on the viscera than when it is obtained from a moderate quan- tity of nutritious food. This extra work is so much loss, which in children shows itself either in diminished energy or in smaller growth, or in both. The inference is, then, that they should have a diet which combines, as much as possible, nutritiveness and digestibility." The foregoing quotations are especially remarkable because Mr. Spencer stigmatizes bread and milk and bread and butter as insipid, and also praises fruit as savoury and wholesome. Mr. Spencer had the insight to perceive the important part which sugar plays in the animal economy, and that starch must be changed into sugar before it is available for the organism. Mr. DRS. FOTHERGILL AND HOLBROOK CONFIRM. 325 Spencer goes further, and points out that conformity to physiologic law requires that we should have a diet " which combines, as much as possible, nutritiveness and digestibility," — in other words, that we must seek that food which gives the greatest amount of nourishment for the least amount of digestive strain. The claim put forward in this work is that the sweet fruits of the south constitute the larger share of man's natural food, and this theory explains why it is that all sorts and conditions of people demand large portions of sugar, in some form or other, in their dietary ; and is a still further explana- tion of why children are so persistent in their efforts to obtain it, and of their eagerness for fruit. If it had occurred to Mr. Spencer that starch foods, after remain- ing in the first stomach during the time that nitroge- nous substances are being digested, must then be passed on to the intestines for digestion ; and that in the sweet fruits we are abundantly provided with the same heat- giving nourishment which, in the words of Dr. Hol- brook, " requires no digestion, but is taken almost at once into the blood, where it renders up its forces as is required," — if Mr. Spencer's attention had been called to these facts, he would have had additional and con- firmatory reasons for his objection to the ' ' insipid " bread, and for favouring the substitution of fruit in our diet. Mr. Spencer pleads for a food that is nutritious and digestible ; Dr. Fothergill, acquainted with the physio- logic difficulties in the digestion of bread and cereals, seriously proposes their pre-digestion ; and the logical deductions from Dr. Holbrook are, however unconscious to himself, in favour of the substitution of fruits for that which has heretofore been considered the staff of life. If there arises in the mind of the reader the objection that grapes are only in their best estate for a few weeks, and therefore make but a poor shift as a substitute for bread, reply is made that in most extensive areas in 326 GRAPES INSTEAD OF BREAD. America, including Ohio, Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kan- sas, and other states, the Concord grape is grown quite as free from uncertainties as wheat, and quite as sure to yield yearly crops. Moreover, this grape ripens to per- fection, and is most delicious and wholesome — rich in sugar, distilled water, and those acids which at once give gustatory pleasure and make for the health of the sys- tem. A little care and skill in plucking these grapes at the proper time, packing in cotton or sawdust, or like material, and storing in a suitable dry room, insures their keeping for six months or more in an excellent state of perservation ; and when a small fraction of the capital and skill now expended in the storing and preser- vation of wheat is given to the preservation of this fruit, it will be found to keep in a very wholesome condition, at slight expense. When they are fully ripe and in the best condition for eating, if heated to the boiling point, and then placed in glass jars and hermetically sealed, they will keep a long time. This fruit would of itself furnish in the areas mentioned all the distilled water and carbonaceous food required by millions of human be- ings. Perhaps an objector suggests that this food would become monotonous. No such objection obtains against bread. It is the custom everywhere to eat it daily, and almost at every meal ; and it will be found by all who give the fruit diet a trial that fruit taken daily, and at each meal, in conjunction with those foods which yield nitrogen and oil, does not pall, but, on the contrary, con- tinues to yield gustatory satisfaction for an indefinite period. CHAPTER XI. CONFIRMATORY PROOFS— COMPARATIVE ANATOMY. Powerful proofs in support of the hypothesis that fruit and nuts are the natural food of man are found in the teachings of naturalists, and in the science of com- parative anatomy. Linnaeus, in his work ' ' De Februm Intermitt. Causa" (Vol. X., p. 8), speaking of the cause of intermittent fevers, says : ' ' Fruit-eating also is blamed without reason. This food is the very best suited to man, as the races of quadrupeds testify. By analogy, men of the wood — apes — by the formation of the mouth, and belly, and hands, testify. The same experience holds good with the wood-inhabiting Scanes, whose land is so fertile in fruit of this kind that they sell their su- perfluous quantities to their neighbours, and yet fevers are exceedingly rare among them." Linnaeus is also quoted by Knight as asserting that the region of palms was the first country of the human race, and that man is essentially palmivorous. Cuvier, in his "Animal Kingdom" (Vol. I., p. 38), thus alludes to the subject in an article on the " Peculiar Conformation of Man" : " The natural food of man, judging from his structure, appears to consist of the fruits, roots, and other succulent parts of vegetables ; his hands afford him every facility for gathering them ; his short and but moderately strong jaws, on the one hand, and his canine teeth being equal in length to the remaining teeth, and his tubercular molars, on the other, would allow him neither to feed 328 TESTIMONY OF HUXLEY AND HA ECKEL. on grass nor to devour flesh were these aliments not previously prepared by cooking." Professor Huxley says : ' ' Whatever part of the animal structure, whether series of muscles or viscera, we select as a basis of comparison, the result is the same. The lower monkeys and the gorilla differ more widely than do the gorilla and man." The following is quoted from " Fruit and Bread," by Gustave Schlickeyson, translated from the German by Dr. Holbrook:* "MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE. "Concerning man's true place in nature, Haeckel says : ' Whatever part of the body we consider, we find, upon the most exact examination, that man is more nearly related to the highest apes (pure frugivora) than are the latter to the lowest apes. It would therefore be wholly forced and unnatural to regard man in the zoo- logical system as constituting a distinct order, and thus to separate him from the true ape. Rather is the scien- tific zoologist compelled, whether it is agreeable to him or not, to rank man within the order of the true ape (simia). "To whatever minutse of detail the comparison is carried, we reach in every case the same result. Be- tween man and the anthropoid apes there are the closest anatomical and physiological resemblances. In form and function there is the most exact agreement between all the corresponding bones of the skeleton of each ; the same arrangement and structure of the muscles, nerves and entire viscera, and of the spleen, liver, and lungs — the latter being a matter of especial significance, for between the manner of breathing and the process of nutrition there is the closest relation. "The brain, also, is subject to the same laws of development, and differs only with regard to size. The minute structure of the skin, nails, and even the hair, is *New York, M. L. Holbrook & Co., $i; London, L. N. Fowler, Ludgate Circus, 4 shillings. PROVEN BY THE MICROSCOPE. 329 identical in character. Although man has lost the greater part of his hairy covering, as Darwin thinks in consequence of sexual selection, yet the rudimentary hairs upon the body correspond, in many respects, to those of the an- thropoids. The formation of the beard is the same in both cases ; while the face and ears remain bare. An- thropoids and men become gray-haired in old age. But the most remarkable circumstance is that upon the upper arm the hairs are, in both cases, directed down- ward, and upon the lower arm upward; while in the case of the half-apes it is different, and not as soft as that of man and the anthropoids. * ' The eye, on account of its delicate structure, is peculiarly suitable for comparisons of this kind ; and we find here the greatest similarity ; even inflammation and green cataract occur, under the same circumstances, in both. See, also, Darwin upon this point. 11 There is no more striking proof that man and the anthropoid apes have the same anatomical and physio- logical nature, and require the same food, than the similarity of their blood. Under the microscope the blood corpuscles are identical in form and appearance ; while those of the carnivora are clearly different from them. ' ' It may now be interesting, in confirmation of what has been said, to refer to the family life, and, if one may so speak, to the mental and moral life of the an- thropoids. Like man, the ape provides with exceeding care for its young, so that its parental affection has become proverbial. Connubial fidelity is the general and well-known virtue. The mother ape leads its young to the water and washes its face and hands in spite of its crying. Wounds are also washed out with water. The ape when in distress will weep like a human being, and in a manner that is said to be very affecting. Young apes manifest the same tendencies as human children. When domesticated, they are in youth docile and teach- able, and also, at times, like all children, disobedient. In old age they often become morose and capricious. Most apes construct huts, or at least roofs, as a protec- tion from the weather, and sleep in a kind of bed. 330 MANY TRAITS IN COMMON. One peculiarity is alone common to them and man, and this is the habit of lying on the back in sleep. In battle they defend themselves with their fists and long sticks ; and, under otherwise like circumstances, they manifest like passions and emotions with man : as joy and sorrow, pain and envy, revenge and sympathy. In death, especially, the ape face assumes a peculiarly human- like and spiritual expression, and the sufferer is the object of as genuine compassion as exists in the case of man. It is also well known that apes bury their dead, laying the body in a secluded spot, and covering it with leaves. Regarding the domestic life of the ape, Darwin says, in his 'Descent of Man' (Vol I., p. 39): * We see maternal affection manifested in the most trifling details. Thus Rengger observed an Ameri- can monkey (a cebus) carefully driving away the flies which plagued her infant, and Duvancel saw a hylobates washing the faces of her young ones in a stream. So intense is the grief of female monkeys for the loss of their young, that it invariably caused the death of certain kinds, kept under confinement by Brehm in North Africa. Orphan monkeys were always adopted, and carefully cared for by other monkeys, both males and females. One female baboon had so capacious a heart, that she not only adopted young monkeys of other species, but stole young dogs and cats, which she con- tinually carried about with her. Her kindness did not go so far, however, as to share her food with her adopted offspring ; at which Brehm was surprised, as his mon- keys divided everything quite fairly with their own young ones. An adopted kitten scratched the above- mentioned affectionate baboon, who certainly had a fine intellect, for she immediately examined the kitten's feet and without more ado bit off the claws.' " In Wylde's " Royal Natural History" mention is made of the diet of the long-armed ape or gibbon, as be- ing that of fruits and nuts of all kinds. On page 65 of Cassell's " Natural History" (Vol. I., 1883, pp. 65-78), a quotation is given from the Travels of A. R. Wallace, concerning the diet of the orang-outang, as follows : DIET OF LONG-ARMED APES. 331 " * Their food consists almost exclusively of fruit, with occasional leaves, buds, and young shoots. They seem to prefer unripe fruits, some of which were very sour, others intensely bitter, particularly the large, red, fleshy arillus, or rind of one which seemed an especial favourite. In other cases they eat only the small seed of a large fruit, and they always waste and destroy more than they eat. The durion is an especial favourite, and quantities of this delicious fruit are destroyed wherever it grows surrounded by forest, but they will not cross clearings to get at them. It seems wonderful how the animal can tear open this fruit, the outer covering of which is so thick and rough, and closely covered with strong conical spines. It probably bites off a few of them first, and then, making a small hole, tears open the fruit with its powerful fingers. On page 75 of same work, it is said as to the gibbons : ' They are quiet, in- offensive animals. Liking milk occasionally, they still mainly feed on fruit and leaves, and hence the nature of their teeth, the size of their jaws, and the capacity of their brain-cases may be fairly anticipated.' " J. G. Perceval Wright, in his translation of L. Figuier's "Mammalia," says on page 579: ' ' The gibbons live in numerous troops or families in the great forests of Cochin China and the kingdom of Siam. They are omnivorous, but prefer fruits and roots. In the wild state they refuse animal food (flesh), but are extremely fond of insects." (From p. 572:) " The food of the guenon monkey or cercopitheci is varied : they chiefly live on roots, leaves, and fruits. They also eat the eggs of birds, insects, sometimes even molluscs, and they are particularly partial to honey." In the same book, at page 589, a quotation is given from DuChaillu concerning the diet of the gorilla : ' ' The gorilla lives in the loneliest and most sombre parts of the forests of western Africa. It always keeps near a running stream, but being essentially a nomadic animal it rarely remains for many days together in the same place. The reason for this wandering habit is to be found in the difficulty it experiences in procuring 33 2 WHY THE GORILLA EATS SEEDS. its favourite foods, which are fruits, seeds, nuts, and banana leaves, also the young shoots of this plant, the juice of which it sucks, and other vegetable substances. Notwithstanding its powerful canine teeth, and its ex- traordinary strength, the gorilla is really an exclusively frugivorous animal. As it eats much, when it has dev- astated for its personal consumption a somewhat exten- sive space it is forced to go elsewhere in order to pro- vide for the exigencies of its stomach. This is the rea- son why it periodically abandons certain regions to reach others which have become more fruitful through changes in the season." It will be noted that Mr. Wallace reports that in some instances these animals eat only the small seeds of a large fruit, wasting and destroying the fruit itself. This is undoubtedly because at such times they have al- ready had all the carbonaceous elements which the sys- tem requires, and their instinct teaches them to seek for nuts, and the small seeds contained in these sweet fruits are largely nitrogenous, undoubtedly oily, and the near- est approach to nuts within their ability to procure. Mr. Wright reports that while these animals live chiefly on fruits and refuse animal flesh, they are extremely fond of insects. In this we find a hint of the origin among mankind of the habit of eating snails, shrimps, and the like, and some tribes of Indians are said to be especially fond of ants. While undoubtedly primitive man would, like the gibbon, refuse the flesh of animals, he would be very likely, in the absence of nuts, with their stores of nitrogen and oil, to substitute similar foods, as those be- fore mentioned; and the habit of eating oysters and other shell-fish is analogous to the custom of eating such insects and birds' eggs as prove to be within the reach of those wild men who are chiefly supported by sweet fruits, and who are not able to procure nuts from which to get their needed nitrogen and oil. As before remarked, mankind has been so long APES DO NOT USE CEREALS. 333 accustomed to the use of bread and cereals that writers on natural history have taken it as a matter of course that the ape subsisted on fruits, nuts, and grains ; but any student who will search authorities on this topic will see that there is no foundation for the supposition that these animals used grains, or starch foods in any form. In the first place, nature does not often provide them ; secondly, naturalists and travelers who have reported on their habits do not mention cereals and starch foods as forming any part of it ; and third, there is every proba- bility that if such foods were offered to them in their wild state they would be refused as long as fruits and nuts could be found. It is quite true that in captivity these animals eat grains as readily as man, but, like man, they do not eat them until they are cooked ; and, like man again, those animals in captivity are full of disease and short-lived. The following table, which is largely made up from the one given in Schlickeysen's " Bread and Fruit," page 68, gives a bird's-eye view of the salient arguments in favour of the hypothesis that man belongs to the fru- givorous species, and has no relation whatever either to the carnivora, the omnivora, or the herbivora. The reader has but to give a casual glance at the anatomi- cal differences between man and the before-mentioned species, and at the identity between man and the ape in his anatomical and physiological conformation, to be convinced that whatever is the natural food of the ape is surely the natural food of man. Taking the seventeen anatomical and physiological characteristics tabulated — excluding the matter of diet — the extraordinary fact presents itself that man is identi- cal with the ape in every single particular, and widely differs from the other three species given in nearly all. Not to dwell upon these points in detail, — not to point out the matter of teeth, which is universally recognized 334 MAN'S STOMACH UNCHANGED BY EVOLUTION. as having an important bearing in the classification of animals, — attention is called to the first point, the matter of the placenta, ■ which Professor Huxley favours as being the best basis for the classification of species. Since the non-starch hypothesis has been put forward, and during the past two years, in answer to the point to which especial emphasis has been directed, viz., that a large proportion of the digestion of starch is relegated to the duodenum, or second stomach, and is an unnecessary waste of vital force, it has been urged that, not un- likely, these organs in man have been developed from the long use of such starch foods; and, in accordance with the theory of evolution, that whatever man might have been in his primitive condition, he may be now in possession of a physical organism developed and spe- cially adapted for the digestion of starch foods. It will be seen that the ape has precisely the same stomach and duodenum, and hence there is not the slightest evidence that the theory of sexual selection, or race development, has changed the problem in the slightest degree; and while man, like the ape in captivity, can subsist on cooked cereal foods, there is every reason to believe that man, as he is to-day, is, like the wild man of the woods, naturally adapted to the digestion of fruit and nuts ; and in so far as he can be prevailed upon to substitute these I fruits for the cereal foods which are now the basis of his diet, he will regain by degrees a vigour as superior to that he now enjoys as the anthropoid in his native wilds is superior to the same animal after years of an artificial life in captivity. The following is the table referred to above; and which, in itself alone, points out the natural food of man; I! ft :d o "S 3 * &s T3 CO a, q > -d£ i-i CO II a, o o Is pqQ 44 C O CO •a c £ w> £ S £ S^ g'cn o Cd CD > to jj "d c .5 „_. -h " aJ ^JH-g^ g S ^ CO bjO-ii rt c d^ 3 IS 1* -a ** o ° d .d o fcuD — -m ® 0) 3 > C ft ,►» d J3 > 2| C-H cu -d .53 a ft en ^d rt c So .22 £ c o co d . at v -So W3^ CO e £ M "• £.£ .2 £ SB-Si** n co ±* d 0) CO ,J o p ^ 6 !2yr-.S a)-d g d.d CO W)^ Ctf fl d X> d o i»d — ' o u co d > c d 'o -s co ^ JS o CUttH E^S § |8L&§§ a . en ojS s • --2^-c $ ftb^ d vd >>c d d •d ai S ■V ft . u a as > co t3 p- CO W)CId £ o .§8 0) C f_ d OX3 btfd-H lis U .d CO tyO •d*9 s - .5 c o m ° S 43 co ■e-d ft cd d co --.5 o d"go jg-a • - > cy <- — c ir.d ^ ftc ca ■d S?^rt"^ CO .-d 'd ^ « en "d «J d bj . P w>42 > d S c « o ft 3 w>' O c ^ a co "d co d t> cci to ^ to CO g "d b •d to CO 73 CO f-< i— i < . > J .5 3 00 00 0) ^ ^ S M M ^ cu co o Jf>5T> ^ c3^3 ^ ^ .55 o o co«x» ^ 2Q •d d g- ■§ co *d > « s co -d d *? d a) ^^ > co b/j'-d d co +• c JS o O en C/3H cS a 3i8 m ^2 CO C-S C— en § on -J3 W>*43*3 8-85151 d a cj3 ft tn *d co c > a CO •43 "d 73 cj . c-dx: OVM O - ° 2 2^ £ c is to "+j W> e 31. Acid, Aperient : Office of, 45 ; of fruit, 66, 144, 148, 287-8, 321; re- moves constipation, 245-6; in gestation, 260. Alcohol : A poison, 46 ; destruc- tive effects of, 74-5, 175, 305, 381; moderate indulgence in weakens, 155 ; Dr. Whitmore on, 205. Anatomy : Of man and animals compared, 327-35. Apes : Digestive organs of, 227-8; anatomy, habits and diet of, 328- 335. 347- Apples : Stewed or baked, 44 ; con- tain much nutrition, 59, 303; with flesh diet, 133; in natural-food diet, 233, 348. Arteries: Athomatous degenera- tion of, 304-10. B Bananas: Constituents of, 59; rich in nourishment, 139, 344-5; in natural-food diet, 233; interesting facts regarding, 343-5- Bath: Hot, 32; hot air, 32, 105; sitz, 33; in convalescence, 41; for children, 51; daily necessary in civilization, 99; before retiring, 99; on rising, 100; cold damag- ing, ioo-i, 107; cleanliness first object of, 101 ; tepid, 101 ; hot for invalids, 101, 105; Turkish, 102, 1 14-19; temperature of, 102, 104, 108, 1 15-16; luxurious, 108; Father Kniepp's use of, m-12; in typhus, 112; for insomnia, 113; home Turkish, 114-19; regularity in, 118-19. Bedroom: Essentials of, 43; venti- lation of, 80-9; heating of, 81. Bed: Clothing for, 43, 81-2. Bread: Elements of, 58, 242, 319-20; coarse irritates and inflames, 144, 146; wholemeal bad, 145-50, 244; induces obesity, 163, 166, 226; with grapes, 232; as toast, 242; "the staff of death," 253; in an- cient times, 291 ; hastens old age, 3ii- Breathing: Advantages of nostril, 87; through nostrils natural, 91- 7; through mouth leads to disease, 91-7; mental attitude affects, 96; through mouth cured, 98. Butter: In Salisbury diet, 129; as a food, 140, 253. Cathartics, Herb Tea: Found ben- eficial, 30; a hygienic aid, 31. 408 INDEX. Catlin, George: Valuable writings of, 91 ; experience among savages, 92; on cholera infection, 94; cured mouth breathing, 96. Cheese: A food for convalescents, 58; contains oil and nitrogen, 140; in natural-food diet, 233; as a food, 253, 290. Children: Treatment for, 51-2; milk best for, 53, 292; prepared foods for, 54; fruit recommended for, 54; fed too often, 54-5 ; starch foods especially unfavorable for, 55; effect of diet on, 263-4; diet for, 293-4, 322-4. Chocolate: Constituents of, 73; should not be used, 143. Climate: Advantages of southern, 86-7; exposure in cold damaging, 150-3; effect of trees on, 351. Clothing: Of bed and patient, 43; woolen best, 81-3. Cocoa-nut: With milk and eggs, 142. Coffee: A poison, 46; compared to opium and brandy, 73-4, 381; ad- vised against, 143, 154, 384. Constipation: A result of starch food, 28-30, 244-7; present in ill- ness, 39, 185; hot water for, 127-8; action of wholemeal bread in, 147; 244-5; fruit removes, 148,321,323. Convalescence: Treatment in, 41-8; avoid starch foods in, 58; diet in, 59- Cooking: Not natural, 135; 288-9; °f fruits, 135-6; of starch foods, 136; 357-9*» °f meat, 137; of proper food, 138-44. Crichton-Browne, Sir James: Re- marks on old age and its cause, 368-80. Croup: Treatment for, 52. Cure: Law of, 8; Father Kneipp's, 110-13; Dr. Salisbury's, 126-34; Priessnitz's, 234; grape, 232, 387. D Dates: In convalescence, 44; for children, 54; good food, 59, 130, 133, 140, 233, 303, 340; with milk, 142; cultivation and many good qualities of, 340-3. Diagnosis: A science, 35; in illness, 36-9- Diet: Brown bread and milk, 63-4; beef and hot water, 67; for differ- ent occupations and seasons, 70- 71; Dr. Salisbury's, 128-30, 230; in obesity, 163—5, 231; curative action of proper, 1 70-7, 234-5, 387; injurious action of improper, 173, 284; too abrupt change of, 176; errors in the chief cause of disease, 1 15-19, 215-16, 289; man's natural, 223-8, 288-9, 33^—8, 363; milk, 232, grape, 232, 387; at Ger- man Spas, 232, 387; of starchy food tends to constipation, 245-6; experiments in, 256-62; effect of on teeth, 263; Rowbotham on, 266; of fruit praised, 303; of rich and poor, 272, 306; of vegetables shortens life, 312-13; of starch food natural to birds, 361-3. Digestion: Controlled by nervous system, 6; of starch foods, 55, 64, 226-7, 239-41, 245-6, 319-20, 388; fruits easy of, 60, 226, 321; aided by hot water drinking, 127-8; pro- cess of, 252; of potatoes and rice, 316. Digestive Organs: In men and higher apes, 227-8, 335; of birds, 36i-3- Diphtheria: Treatment for, 52. Disease: When resultant, 7; how to treat acute attacks of, 11; in- INDEX. 409 duced by mouth-breathing, 91-8 brought on by excesses, 15 1-8 consequent on obesity, 160-3 drugs sometimes cure, 184-7; ag- gravated by opium, 191; treatment oi as viewed by eminent doctors, 201-9; chiefly caused by errors in diet, 215-16, 289, 388-91; more common in man than animals, 221; vegetable diet induces, 312- 13; becoming more frequent, 365, 369, 370- Doctors: Only useful office of, 8; basic errors of, 9; misled, 9; wrong treatment by, 10; misunderstand nature, 11, 14, 189-90; allopathic and homoeopathic, 14, 191; herb, 15; Mind Cure, 15-16, 156, 193-4; sometimes do good, 19, 185; aim of should be, 58; ideas of regard- ing obesity, 164; many self-sacri- ficing and generous, 189; undue influence of, 191, 194; above the law, 192; should they advertise? 194-6; intolerant and monopolis- tic, 192-200; what they say of themselves and their profession, 201-9. Drinks, Alcoholic: Should be dis- pensed with, 143, 216, 384; effects of, 160, 306, 381; Dr. Keeley's cure, 196-7; at English society dinners, 211 -14. Drugs: Wrongful administration, 183; extreme ideas of hygienists and vegetarians regarding, 183- 4; valuable in malaria and other diseases, 184-5; cures by, 186-7; opinions of eminent doctors on, 201-9. E Earthy Salts: Bring on ossifica- tion, old age, and death, 251-303, 304-10; in cereals, 288, 315-17; in vegetables, 312-13, 315-17. Eggs: How to prepare, 44, 45, 141; for convalescents, 58; as a food, 140, 233, 266, 290. Enema: When needed, 27; benefi- cial action of, 30-1. Evans, Dr. De Lacy: Quotations from works of, 278-303. Exercise: Beneficial effect of, 48, 106-7, 120; best way of inducing perspiration, 104, 106; in Father Kneipp's cure, 112; walking, lawn tennis, croquet, roller-skating, rowing, wheeling, baseball, cricket, horseback riding, gymna- sium, domestic, 120-25; Professor Wright's method, 124; too muhc damaging, 155. Fasting : Beneficial in sickness, 21- 23; a hygienic rule, 24; absolutely necessary, 42 ; for sick animals, 222. Feet : Cold in illness, 38-9 ; how to warm, 42. Fear : Harmful, 40 ; a strain on vitality, 156. Figs : in convalescence, 44 ; with milk, 64-5 ; how to prepare, 66 ; with Salisbury diet, 131, 133; rich in nourishment, 139, 303; in nat- ural-food diet, 233; origin and cultivation of, 338-9. Fish : For convalescents, 68 ; as a food, 141, 233, 267-70, 291-316. Flesh Food : How to prepare, 43 ; 131-2, 140; in Salisbury cure, 128- 33, 230; in reduction of obesity, 163, 165-6, 231; objections to on ethical grounds, 178-80; with fruit an adequate diet, 219; in natural food diet, 233; produces good results, 266-8; cooked without salt, 316. 4io INDEX. Food: When to abstain from, 42; | in convalescence, 43, 58; fruit and meat only, 44; office of car- bonaceous, 45 ; for children, 52-4, 318; few kinds best, 61, 63, 67; too little damaging, 62; for in- valids, 63-4; plain the best, 68; for different occupations, 70-71; in Salisbury cure, 126-9; how much to eat, 43-4, 60, 69, 134, 143, 217-19, 294, 297; English dining customs, 210-14; man's natural, 224-5, 22 6-9, 3345 constituents of man's, 224; of different peoples and animals, 267-71, 316-17, 331-2, 338-47, 360-3; fruit excellent, 303, 348; pre-digested, 318; of birds, 361-3; the whole question of re- viewed, 387-95. Force, Vital: Undermined, 48; should be conserved, 88, 15 1-8; drain upon, 100, 241-2, 337, 366, 381-2; foundation of a mystery, 190; deterioration of, 380. Fruit: In convalescence, 44; why superior to bread, 45, 66; good for children, 54, 323; abounds in heat- giving elements, 59, 139; prepared by nature, 60; easily digested, 66; overcomes constipation, 66, 148, 321-3; contains needed water, 72, 319-21; with Salisbury diet, 131-33; for decorative purposes, 219; with flesh, 219; compared with starch foods, 226, 266-7, 320, 348; man's natural food, 227-9, 267-8, 288-9, 327, 336-7, 348; the basis of proper diet, 233, 288-9; effect of on gesta- tion, 260; a food of the ancients, 267-8, 287, 327, 336; high praise for, 303, 321, 323; eaten by apes, 331-2; interesting facts regarding, 338-46; cultivation and preserva- tion of, 326, 348. G Garfield: Malpractice in case of, 12. GLUCOSE: Readily assimilable, 45, 59; produced by saliva, 236; in figs, 242. Goodfellow, Professor: On whole- meal bread, 149-50; experiments by, 137-40. Grapes: A natural food, 135; a diet of, 232; a fine food, 303, 319, 321; cultivation and preservation of, 325-6, 339-40. Gubler, Prof.: Quotation from writings of, 304-10. H Health: All tendencies toward, 4; what it is, 7; sleep necessary to 86; excesses ruin, 15 1-8, 216, 384; man's birthright, 172, 177; the first object in life, 182, 301; of man vs. animals, 221; natural- food diet conducive to, 243; ef- fect of diet on, 267-77. Heat: of great benefit, 25-6, 45. Holbrook, Dr.: Quotations from writings of, 314-17* 3 J 9> 3 2I « Inman, THOMAS, M. D.: On medical treatment, 49-50. Indians: Breathe naturally, 92; ill- ness rare among, 95; children of, 96; food of, 290. Juices, Digestive: Absent in fever, 22. Jaeger, Dr.: Great improvements by, 17. K Kneipp, Father . Water cure and methods of treatment, 1 10-13; prefers hot baths to cold, III. INDEX. 411 Lemons: With hot water, 127; in j gestation, 260. Life: law of, 4; same law obtains j always, 7 ; natural length of man's, j 155, 220, 367, 378; shortened by j excesses, 155-6, 366; earthly ac- cumulations shorten, 251-254, 267; general results of diet on longevity in men and animals, 267-77; De Lacy Evans on prolongation of, 279-303; longer in rich than in poor, 272, 306; being slowly shortened, 369 ; Buffon and Flourens on length of, 367; good qualities develop late in, 373-6; possibilities of full natural term of, 404. M Macdonald, W. A.; Concerning benefit of trees, 356. Medicine: None required, 4, 6; not a science, 35; opinion of Inman on, 49-50; differently adminis- tered, 190-1; opinions of promi- nent doctors on, 201-9. Milk: In convalescence, 44; very nutritious, 44; human superior to cow's, 52-3, 292; how to sterilize, 54; with fruit, 54, 63-4, 142; con- stituents of, 52-3; an excellent food, 63-4, 140, 171, 176, 232, 291-2; with brown bread, 171. N Nature: Action of in repairing damage, 4-5; curative action of, 7, 14; the only healing power, 16; result of transgressing laws of, 57; indications of, a guide to health, 89-90; wonderful machinery of, 248-9; foods produced by, 288. Nervous System: Controls diges- tion, 6; depressed by stimulants, 46, 38I-2; indulgence of passions ruins, 157; digestion of starch food strains, 241-2, 337, 366; dis- eases of, 365. Nutrition: Life based on, 3-4; in animal foods and fruits, 59; value of, 62; inadequate dangerous, 62; food for adequate, 133-4; flesh necessary to, 181-2; in fruits and nuts, 224, 319-20; of first import- ance, 246, 382; process of, 252. Nuts: A natural food, 135, 224, 288, 336; resemble other foods, 137; rich in oil and nitrogen, 140, 226; cooked with fruits, 141-2; com. pared with starch foods, 226, 348; digestion of, 226-7; Brazil nut, 347- Obesity: A diseased condition, 62; diet for, 132-3, 163-5, 231-2; ills connected with, 160-2, 167, 231; a deformity, 168-9. Opium: administered by physicians, 10, 191; compared with tea, coffee, and tobacco, 73-8; depression fol- lows, 154; damaging effects of, 191. Orange: Juice of highly curative, 303; a queen among fruit, 348. Overeating: Results of, 10, 59, 133 -4, 215-19; how to avoid, 70; strain on system, 90, 157; at fashionable English dinners, 211-14. Perspiration: Very necessary, 31; how to induce, 32-3; a hygienic rule, 33; in bathing, 102, 116; in exercise, 122. Protector: For throat and lungs, 98. 412 INDEX. Pulse: In health, 36; in illness, 36; highest in children, 36; how to count, 37. R Rowbotham: Quotations from writ- ings of, 250-77. Salisbury, Dr.: Method of cure, 67, 126-31, 229. Saliva: Effect of on starch foods, 226, 236-43. Salt: in Salisbury diet, 129; dam- aging effects of, 252; Dr. Holbrook condemns, 314-17; starch foods re- quire, 357. Science: Contributions to from nat- ural food discoveries, 396-402. Skin: Impurities of and how to re- move, 42, 103, 115, 116; an avenue of excretion, 99; in health and illness, 133; effect of diet on, 264-5. Sleep: In convalescence, 41; how much necessary, 48, 86, 89; how to induce, 48; health dependent on, $6, 128. best with window open, 86-9; restores vital force, 89; conditions for healthful, 90; too little damaging, 153, 381-2. Spencer, Herbert; Remarks on diet question, 322-4. Starch Foods: Especially bad for children, 55; bad for convales- cents, 58; induce overeating, 59; must be seasoned, 60, 61, 357-8; difficult of digestion, 64, 138, 226-7, 239-41, 319-20, 385; waste vitality, 157, 388-9; a cause of obesity, 163, 388; action of saliva on, 236-243; tend to constipation, 245-6; effect of in different cases, 256-62; Row- botham on, 266; tend to shorten, life, 267-73, 291-8, 310, 312-13, 334, 337> 3 66 ; call for salt, 314-17; many drawbacks to, 357-59; not natural for animals, 270-1, 333, 361; tend to intemperance, 284-6. Stimulants: Poisonous effect of, 4 6 ~7> 73~9> 381; ruin nervous sys- tem, 154; Dr. Keeley's cure, 196; indulgence in a mistake, 216-17, 384; lack of health causes desire for, 381. Surgery: A science, 35; cases when useful, 190. Tea: Drinking of, in England, 46: contains poison, 73; effects of, 75- 6, 154, 212; should not be used, 143, 384, an unnatural stimulant, 173, 381. Temperature: Of blood, normal and in illness, 37-8; to ascertain, 37-8; of head and feet, 38-9. Tissue: Growth, development, re- pair and maintenance of, 3; coated with earthy matter, 308-9. Tobacco: A poison, 46, 74-5, 385; induces intemperance, 68; effects of, 77-8, 154. Treatment, Hygienic: In acute at- tacks, 11; advantages of, II, 19; rules for, 23-34; in convalescence, 41-8; in relapse, 42; highly en- dorsed, 49; in diphtheria and croup, 52; Father Kneipp's, 110- 13; Dr. Salisbury's method, 126- 31; for reducing obesity, 155-6; sometimes aided by drugs, 187-8 ;Priessnitz's water cure, 234. Treatment, Medical: Methods of compared, 17; beneficial changes in, 17, 18, 22, 23. Trees: Effect on temperature, fer- tility, storms, rainfall, 250-6. INDEX. 413 Ventilation: Highly necessary, 43, 47; of bedroom, 81, 85; when traveling, 82: bad induces disease, 83-5. Vegetarians: Should eat fish, 141; make gains in health, 171; en- thusiastic views of, 172; inconsis- tency of, 179; fanaticism regard- ing drugs, 183-4; broad-minded, 231; De Lacy Evans on, 303; Dr. Winkler on diet of, 312-13; diet of favors temperance, 385. Vegetables: In treatment for obes- ity, 132-3, 163, 166; in fashionable English dinners, 211-13; not a natural food, 227; experiments with, 256; as a food, 264, 288, 303; 306; mineral substances in, 307- 10; bring on disease, 312-13; fruit and nuts superior to, 348. W Washington: Wrongly treated, 12. Water: Benefits of drinking hot, II, 24, 26, 46, 72, 127-8, 143, 218; cold allays inflammation, 24, Sy; boiled and distilled, 72-3, 254, 299; cold a tonic, 101, 104; Father Kneipp's application of, 1 10-13; cold for insomnia and cold feet, 113; for home Turkish bath, 1 15— 16; in Salisbury diet, 127-28, 230; drinking and obesity, 164; from springs, 253-5; rain-water best, 299; in fruit, 319-21. Window: Keep it open, 34, 47, 81-5; sleep best when open, 86; open while bathing, 108, 117. NATURAL FOOD. A MONTHLY JOURNAL, devoted to Health and the Higher Life. Drs. EMMET and HELEN DENSMORE, Proprietors. Published by L. N. Fowler, Ludgate Circus, London. This magazine is the organ of the Natural Food So- ciety. The following is taken from its statement of principles : The Natural Food Society is founded in the belief that the food of primeval man consisted of fruit and nuts of sub-tropical climes, spontaneously produced; that on these foods man was (and may again become) at least as free from disease as the animals are in a state of nature. Physiologists unite in teaching that these foods are adapted to digestion in the main stomach, where, it is contended by this Society, the great bulk of our food should be digested ; whereas cereals, pulses, bread and in fact all starch foods are chiefly digested in the in- testines, and hence, it is maintained, are unnatural and disease-inducing foods, and the chief cause of the nervous prostration and broken-down health that abound on all sides. Since nuts and fruits — especially the former — are not always obtainable in right varieties and conditions — and since most people have weakened powers of diges- tion and assimilation, and are thus unable properly to digest nuts, and are also obliged to perform more work than is natural or healthful — it is recommended that milk, curd or milk cheese and eggs be liberally used in- stead, and as supplemental to the fruit diet. For all those not vegetarians, and also for all those with whom milk and eggs do not agree, the usual diet of fish or flesh is recommended instead. These animal products and flesh foods are " natural " only in the sense that they are suitable for digestion in the first stomach, and are free from the objections made against bread and other cereal and starch foods ; and are valuable and neces- sary as long — and only as long — as men and women under the exigencies and strain of modern life, are obliged to perform more work than is natural or healthful. 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Korschelt and Heider, of the University of Berlin. Translated and Edited by Dr. E. L. Marx, Professor of Anatomy in Harvard University. With several hundred Illustrations. Text-Book of Animal Palaeontology : By Dr. Thomas Roberts, of the Woodwardian Museum, Cambridge. Designed as a Supplement to Claus and Sedgwick's "Text-Book of Zoology. ' ' Illustrated. Text-Book of Geology: Adapted from the work of Dr. Emanuel Kayser, Professor in the University of Marburg. By Philip Lake, of St. John's College, Cambridge. With Illustra- tions. The Colours of Animals: By Professor F. E. Beddard, of the Zoological Society's Gardens and Guy's Hospital, London. With Coloured and other Plates and Woodcuts. SECOND EDITION, THOROUGHLY REVISED AND EXTENDED TO ABOUT 40,000 BOOKS. WOQpp. Thick 4*0, cloth extra, 3 1 s. 6d. nett. With very Copious Topical and Author's Indexes. THE BEST BOOKS A Reader's Guide to the Choice of the Best Available Books in all Departments of Literature down to 1 890, with the Dates of the First and Last Editions, and the Price, Size, and Pub- lisher's Name of each Book. Accompanied by numerous Characterizations, Bibliographical Notes, etc By WILLIAM SWAN SONNENSCHEIN. The whole work is divided into classes, each of which is sub-divided into sections, and again into paragraphs and sub-paragraphs, systemat- ically and lucidly arranged. Class A.— Theology [{a) Natural (6) Ethnic (c) Christian] 134 sects. Class B. — Mythology and Folklore 39 " Class C. — Philosophy [(a) In Schools {b) According to Writers] 73 " Class D. — Society [(a) Law (3) Political Economy (c) Social Economy (d) Commerce (e) Education] . .172 " Class E. — Geography, Travel, and Ethnography . 69 " Class F. — History and Historical Biography . . 76 " Class G. — Historical Collaterals [Antiquities, Archae- ology, etc.] 31 " Class H. — Science 106 " Medicine 62 " Class I. — Arts and Trades 172 " Class K. — Literature and Philology 286 " " An arduous and useful labour successfully accomplished ; a work the like of which has not, in this country, been attempted. His system of classifica- tion and arrangement is excellent. Let us take it that the student wishes to ascertain the best books upon the struggles with Charles I. and his Commons. He turns to the division of 'HISTORY' (f) ; a sub-division is 'History of Europe' (iv). Under f iv. he finds chapter 16, ' History of England : 1603-1655.' Here are first supplied the 'Sources,' and then follow at length the various works dealing with the epoch and the biography thereof. This is a mere out- line of the main scheme. How conscientiously it is carried out, and what a mass of concurrent information is provided, can only be ascertained by a refer- ence to the volume, which is a marvel of patient industry, and, so far as we have tested it, of exactness." — Notes and Queries. "The most accurate, scientific, and useful contribution that has ever been made to English bibliography ; . . . exactly what was wanted — a full, thor- ough, and accurate list of the best works on every subject . . . It is a per- manent addition to English literature." — British Weekly. "It would be difficult to exaggerate the usefulness of this work, or to pass too lightly the industry of the compiler. It belongs to that class of works wnich every reader finds 01 service, but uses, as Johnson said, without gratitude ! . . . The more the guide is examined, the more struck will the reader be at its thoroughness." — Spectator. "An excellent work, executed in a competent manner ; . . . the more we have looked at it, the better we have likeait." — Athenceum. " A very valuable addition to our works of reference." — Literary World. " Deserves nothing but unqualified praise." — Bookseller. " A welcome contribution to biography." — Westminster Review. " A book which every Librarian will be glad to have upon his table. ... A very excellent attempt." — Library Chronicle of Library Assoc, of the U. K. SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LONDON. oct -o m