of the Gentleman's Magazine that Dr. Crespi, in an article called "Some more Curiosities of Eating and Drinking"-by the way, a very interesting article indeed, as most are that deal with the subject of regimen-mentions a little work written by me as a guide for those who, living not wisely but too well, are unfortunate enough to be overweighted with adipose tissue, or, in plain words, too fat.

Having to do professionally with none but the victims of corpulency, I am astonished at the ignorance of even clever people, as to the use of certain foods in the system. They will bear any amount of discomfort, and absolute ill-health, sooner than study whether certain articles of diet are or are not suitable in their case. If such people possess a horse that does not seem to do his work properly, that puffs uphill, perspires too profusely, or goes lazy, the groom is soon called to task, the animal is properly fed and groomed, and the result is quickly palpable in improved condition and muscle. But the human animal goes on eating food which is slow poison to him, getting fatter and fatter, until he often becomes almost too unwieldy to walk at all, and the last thing he thinks of is, to ask a professional dietician whether he is doing right or not. In treating as I do great numbers of such people by correspondence, in all ranks of life, I get them to fill up a form, embodying their present diet and mode of life, and it amuses me to see that the Englishman's, or woman's, breakfast is almost invariably buttered toast, ham and eggs, or meat, and fish. The more varied cookery comes later in the day. Of course, there are exceptions to this monotony, but they are rare. Under ordinary conditions, this diet may be very suitable, but under other conditions it is anything but so, and many a man would live twenty years longer if he began the day with dry toast and a plain grill. Few people do with less than four meals a day; some go in for five, and seem to think that the more they eat the healthier they will be. As by the laws of the conservation of energy nothing is lost, and as food in the animal economy is converted into power, what a waste of power there is in some individuals! Not a misfortune perhaps in

some cases.

Sir Henry Thompson, a great authority on dietetics and the art of feeding-though I differ from him in many opinions he enunciates. in his work "Food and Feeding "-for instance, where he says the stomach conforms slowly to radical changes in diet-considers that coarse food, when taken to excess, is more injurious than a refined dietary, and that a man who does intellectual work should have a more mixed alimentation than the man who does manual labour. 'Foods for the Fat: the Scientific Cure of Corpulency. London: Chatto & Windus.

The intellectual man, whose nervous system is often exhausted when his meal is put before him, cannot digest a heavy dinner of roast beef or other meat and vegetables. Such should commence with a little soup, which, being quickly absorbed into the system, gives the stomach strength to digest the after, more solid, substances of the meal.

With regard to the quantity of food that should be taken by a person doing ordinary work, supposing this to consist of bread and meat only and these two contain every element necessary to proper nutrition-it would be represented in a person of average size doing ordinary work by two pounds of bread and three-quarters of a pound of meat; in this there would be no waste. Singly it would be necessary to eat six pounds of meat, or four pounds of whole-meal bread; in each of these cases there would be a large quantity more of certain constituents of the food than the system would demand, and these, not being required, would be useless, in fact injurious, as they would clog the system as waste, in the form of fat or gout poison. Prison dietaries are so arranged that there shall be no waste of material, and as, of course under ordinary circumstances, a mixed diet is most conducive to health, this would represent a model diet for an ordinary-sized man. This consists of per week in the prepared food cocoa, 3 oz.; oatmeal, 14 oz.; milk, 14 oz.; treacle, 7 oz. ; salt, 3 oz.; barley, 2 oz.; bread, 145 oz.; cheese, 4 oz.; flour, 4 oz.; meat (cooked without bone or gravy), 12 oz.; shins (made into soup), 12 oz.; suet, oz.; carrots, 2 oz. ; onions, 3 oz. ; turnips, 2 oz.; potatoes, 96 oz. It must not be supposed that this diet is correct in all cases; the amount of food required depends on existing circumstances. Dr. Pavy says: "No fixed quantity can be given as suited to all. Variations in external temperature, the amount of work performed, and individual peculiarities, occasion a variation in the amount of material consumed in the body; and in a properly arranged diet the food should be adjusted accordingly. For this adjustment Nature has provided by the instinct or sensation with which we are endowed. Appetite-or, in its more exalted character, hunger-apprises us that food is required, and produces an irresistible desire to seek and obtain its supply. By attending to its dictates a knowledge is also afforded of the proper amount to be consumed. We may ascertain by observation the precise amount by weight that is necessary to keep the body in a healthy condition, but Nature's guide was in operation before scales and weights were invented."

Three meals a day should be the limit in all cases where a person desires to live long and enjoy good health. These taken at intervals of six hours would generally insure the individual who deserves them

a good appetite and a healthy digestion: but "in taking appetite as a guide in regulating the supply of food, it must not be confounded with a desire to gratify the palate. When food is not eaten too quickly, and the diet is simple, a timely warning is afforded by the sense of satisfaction experienced as soon as enough has been taken; and not only does a disinclination arise, but the stomach even refuses to allow this point to be far exceeded. With a variety of food, however, and especially food of an agreeable character to the taste, the case is different. Satiated with one article, the stomach is ready for another, and thus, for the gratification of taste, and not for the appeasement of appetite, men are tempted to consume far more than is required, and also, it must be said, often far more than is advantageous to health. . . . Were it not," says Dr. Pavy, "for the temptation to exceed induced by the refinement of the culinary art, the physician's aid would be much more rarely required."

He might add, that if people who eat more than is good for them were to eat less of what is not good for them, or were to consult a dietician and have a proper system of diet laid down for a month or two a year, it would be a great deal better for them, and would conduce more to comfort and long life than taking quack pills and purgatives, or going for a periodic flushing to the Spas abroad. Having said so much on the evils of excess of food, let us look at the other side of the picture and see what evils arise from eating too little, or from long continued deprivation of food. Of late we have seen some illustrations of how long life can go on without any food at all. The spectacle has not been a pleasant one to look at, and the pinched and haggard features of Succi after five-and-thirty days of fasting are not easily forgotten. Long continued want of food blunts the moral sensibilities of a people, and in years of famine the most awful crimes that history records have been committed. Josephus tells us that during the siege of Jerusalem, under Titus, mothers ate their own children: the pangs of hunger obliterate even the love of offspring and the sacred dictates of humanity. In the wake of famine always follow plague and pestilence, to reap what the first has sown.

The history of Ireland is remarkable for the illustration of how much mischief may be occasioned by a general deficiency of food. Always the home of fever, it even now and then becomes the very hot-bed of its propagation and development. The potato famine of 1846 is but a too forcible illustration of this. It fostered epidemics, which had not been witnessed in this generation, and gave rise to scenes of misery and devastation that are not surpassed by the most appalling epidemics of the Middle Ages,

So much for the effects of deficient food, and it may be taken for granted that, if discontent, misery, and disease are the handmaids of famine and starvation, content, long life, and absence of crime are the attributes of a well-fed people. "The laws of nature are such as to conduce to an adaptation of the supply of food to its demand. We are all conversant with the fact that exercise and exposure to cold-conditions which increase the demand for food-sharpen the appetite, and thus lead to a larger quantity of material being consumed; whilst, on the other hand, a state of inactivity and a warm climate tell in an opposite manner, and reduce inclination for food. A badly-fed labourer is capable of performing but a poor day's work, and a starving man falls an easy victim to the effects of exposure to cold." In the case of navvies and other hard-working men the appetite is known by the employer to form a measure of capacity for work. A falling-off of the appetite means, that is to say, a diminished capacity for the performance of work. A farmer, where wages were good, when asked how it was that he paid his labourers so well, replied that he could not afford to pay them less, for he found that less wages produced less work. Indeed, one might just as reasonably expect that a fire would burn briskly with a scanty supply of fuel, or a steam engine work with a deficient supply of coal, as that a man could labour upon a meagre diet. Men have also learnt, where arduous work has to be performed, and similarly in cold climates, where a large amount of heat has to be produced-for the demand is the same in the two cases-that the requirements of the system are best met by a liberal consumption of fatty matter, which is the most efficient kind of force-producing material, with the food. The fat bacon, relished and eaten with his bread by the hard-working labourer, yields at the smallest cost the force he forms the medium for producing."

It is found that hard work is best performed under a liberal supply of flesh food: this does not conduce to obesity; it nourishes the muscles and gives energy to the body. What meat is to man, corn is to the horse. "The Arab," says Donders, "never lets his horse eat grass and hay to satiety. Its chief food is barley, and in the wilderness it gets milk, and if great effort is required even camel's flesh. The horses which in Sahara are used for hunting ostriches are kept exclusively on camel's milk and dried beans." To sum up, science intimates that a liberal supply of meat and fat is necessary to maintain muscles in a good condition for work, and the result of experience is to confirm it. As far as muscular labour is concerned, cost for cost, man can never compete in economy with steam, and

hence the worst use to make of a man is to employ him exclusively in mechanical work-a proposition which harmonises with the increased introduction of machinery in our advancing age of civilisation. To illustrate this, take a steam-engine of one-horse power (that is, a power of raising 33,000 lbs. a foot high per minute); it will require two horses in reality to do the same work for ten hours a day, or twenty-four men, and the cost would be 10d. for the steam-engine, 8s. 4d. for the two horses, and just £2 sterling for the twenty-four

men.

As the system for its nourishment requires food to replace wear and tear, and also to keep up the warmth of the body, physiologists have named these respectively-nitrogenous, fats, carbo-hydrates and mineral matters. The first, which are meats, form muscle and give energy; the second, fats and oils, supply, by their use in the system, warmth; and the third-carbo-hydrates--such as bread, flour, potatoes, and all articles containing starch, make fat, and also to a small extent muscle and heat. Mineral matters, such as salt and lime, are also necessary to proper nutrition. On the proper distribution of these three forms of food depends the harmonious working of the different organs of the body, and the repair of its wear and tear.

Bread and cheese furnish all that is absolutely necessary to sustain life, at the cheapest rate, and the same amount of nourishment is contained in 3d. worth of oatmeal as is contained in 3d. worth of flour, 4 d. worth of bread, 5d. worth of beef-fat, 35. 6d. worth of beef, 11d. worth of Cheshire cheese, 4s. 6d. worth of lean ham, Is. 3 d. worth of arrowroot, Is. 3d. worth of milk, Is. 6d. worth of hard-boiled eggs, 5s. 74d. worth of Guinness's stout, 75. 6d. worth of pale ale, and so on. It will thus be seen how, in eating to live, a man may do it on 2 lbs. of whole-meal bread, costing 4 d., or on 3 lbs. of lean beef costing 35. 6d., or, if he did it on the nourishment contained in pale ale, on nine bottles, at 10d. a bottle, costing 7s. 6d. However, no one does this, and a combination of food may be had at prices varying according to income, which is better, for, as Scripture says, man cannot live by bread alone." Where all food and liquid is withheld death takes place in about eight days, the symptoms being at first severe pain at the pit of the stomach; this subsides in a day or two, but is succeeded by a feeling of weakness and sinking in the same part, and an insatiable thirst, which, if water be withheld, becomes the most distressing symptom. The countenance becomes pale and haggard, the eyes acquire a peculiarly wild and glistening stare, and rapid loss of flesh takes place ; the body exhales a peculiar VOL. CCLXX, NO. 1925.

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