Читать книгу KEEPING FIT - Orison Swett Marden - Страница 5

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Health consists with temperance alone.

—Alexander Pope.

Lengthening of life requireth observation of diets.

—Francis Bacon.

Cheese is gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night.

—German Proverb.

Such dainties to them, their health it might hurt;

It’s like sending them ruffles, while wanting a shirt.

—Oliver Goldsmith.

“Whose son art thou?” inquired King Lane, in wonder, when the stripling David came into his presence after slaying the huge Goliath of Gath. “Whose daughter art thou?” asked the equally astonished barons, bishops, priests, and princes, of Joan of Arc, who, as De Quincey puts it, “had come out of the quiet, out of the safety, out of the religious inspiration rooted in deep pastoral solitudes, to a station in the van of armies and to the more perilous station at the right hand of kings.”

Whose son—whose daughter—art thou? Is your strength of body, or mind, or purpose, chiefly derived from your ancestry?—or are you, in the main, the child of your individual physical, mental, and spiritual rules of life,—of your own aims, training, regimen, and deeds?

If the latter, one almost unconsciously wonders with the poet: “Upon what does this, our Caesar, feed, that he has grown so great?”—or what is lacking in his diet or his mentality that he remains so feeble in body, mind or soul?

An authority who has made a study of bee culture says that as soon as a hive needs a new queen the bees begin to feed the larvae of a few workers with the best part of a jelly-like substance called by bee cultivators the royal jelly. The one selected from the developed larvae for a queen continues to be fed upon this substance, while the others, of course, are no longer thus favored. As a result of her special diet the future queen grows several times as large as her companions and many times more intelligent.

Numerous experiments made upon animals and birds with different kinds of food have resulted in radical changes in their structure and appearance. In the case of birds very great changes were made in their plumage. The disposition and the tissues themselves were materially altered, coarsened or refined, according to the nature of the food.

We all know what a difference there is in the appearance, in the spirit and bearing of the fine high-stepping horses of the rich, which are fed with the greatest care, on the best foods, and those of the horses of poor people which are fed upon the meanest kind of hay, perhaps without any grain. Plants which have plenty of sunlight and nourishing soil have two or three times as much growth in a year as those whose roots are dwarfed in poor soil and whose leaves get little or no sunshine. Contrast the appearance of well-nourished crops with those that have had no fertilizer and have been grown on poor, arid soil.

There is just as great difference in the physical appearance of prosperous, well-fed men and women and of those who are underfed and under-nourished in the ranks of the poor as there is in the appearance of the high-stepping, well-fed and well-cared-for horses of the rich and the “dopey,” stupid, half-fed and half-cared-for horses of the poor; just as marked a difference in the quality and strength of the children reared in homes of wealth and luxury and those brought up in city slums as there is in the quality and strength of the plants raised from nourishing soil in the sunlight and those that have struggled up in poor soil, largely deprived of sun and dew.

The appearance and quality of plants and animals are alike dependent on the nutriment they receive. Sunshine, light, air, water, and the right kind and quantity of food are necessary for the perfect development of all.

Ignorance of food values and bodily requirements would reduce a Webster to a pygmy. It is just as necessary to know how to choose our foods and to know their action upon the body as it is to be trained for our vocations.

In repairing our homes and keeping them in order, we use materials like those that first entered into their construction. We repair bricks with bricks, stone with stone, wood with wood, glass with glass. That is exactly what we do, when we eat, for the houses in which our spirits dwell. We are repairing the temples of our bodies, and we must use the sort of materials of which they are constructed. Nothing else could be utilized to the best advantage.

In other words, our food supplies the elements which build, sustain, repair, and renew corresponding elements in our bodies. We eat oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, iron, arsenic, lime, magnesia, potash, soda, silica, etc., to replace similar elements in our bodies. These we find most abundantly in vegetables, fruits, cereals, meats, eggs, fish, milk, etc., and we eat them in sufficient quantities to renew our bodies’ waste, to replace the material which has been burned or consumed by the day’s run of our human mechanism. Whatever we eat which is not like the materials of our bodies will do us no good, because it will find no affinity, no response in any of our tissues, and hence will have to be excluded as poison or waste. The tissues cannot use it, since they can only absorb things like themselves, things which have the same constituent parts. Only brain materials, for instance,—that is, the things that make our brains,—can build, repair, or renew brains. Only the materials which produce bone can be utilized in our skeletons; only foods which contain the materials that the. nerves are made of can build nerves; so that, literally, we are ever eating and reabsorbing the elements of our bodies. Nothing else can be absorbed by our tissues when in health except to our injury.

There are three classes of food that are imperative for the building and maintenance of all the different parts of the body. Albuminous foods, which come mainly from meat, eggs, milk, and the legumes, are good, everyday working foods. Sugars, starches, and fats, called carbohydrates, and vegetables produce various energies in the body, as illustrated in muscular activity, and the different fats which come from both animal and vegetable foods produce heat. We must also have mineral foods, such as iron, lime, phosphorus, magnesia, etc., which purify the blood, give firmness to the tissues, and help to maintain proper electrical tension.

The absence of any of these different forms of food, the tissue builders, the body warmers, the energy producers, or the blood purifiers, would cause starvation in certain tissues, and ultimate death. If the body were fed wholly on the materials which build tissues, the digestive processes and other functions would stop. On the other hand, if we should partake only of the materials which furnish energy alone, the energy of force-forming foods, we should soon die from over activity and the starvation and gradual wasting away of the solid tissues. No matter how much of the starches or sugars or fats you might eat, they would maintain only the energies or the activities of the body, while if you lack tissue builders the structure of your body would begin to deteriorate. The white men who first went to visit South America pined away one by one from tissue starvation, because, while they could get plenty of food, they could not get a sufficient variety to feed all of the tissues. That is, they could not get sufficient flesh formers and flesh warmers in the right proportion to sustain life.

In order, therefore, to maintain perfect health, there must be a balance, a poise, of the different kinds of foods, the tissue builders and renewers and the foods which furnish the heat and support the various energies of the body, as well as certain minerals which are purifiers and regulators of the blood and other secretions, and water, which liquefies and facilitates the carrying of nutrition to the various tissues. Of course, without water the blood circulation would be impossible; for though the water itself does not form tissues or furnish energy, its presence in large amounts is absolutely imperative for carrying on a multitude of life processes. Without it the various chemical changes, the circulation and the secretion of various organic fluids would also be impossible.

An ordinary adult needs from ten to twenty ounces of body warmers, according to activity and climate; that is, of carbonaceous foods, such as sugars, starches, fats, etc.; and five ounces of flesh formers, of nitrogenous foods which contain albumen, etc., or practically at least a pound of body warmers and flesh formers a day from animal or vegetable food.

It is supposed that about seven out of ten ounces of carbonaceous food would be burned in the bodily combustion, making heat and supplying the forces which are used up in the various activities of the body. The remaining three ounces should be used for padding between the muscles and for covering the bones to make the body more comely. When we are working very hard, or in the summer time, we burn up more of our fat and usually get thinner; but it is not safe to burn up all of the heat and energy food each day, because one would then not have a reserve of energy and in an emergency would lack resisting power.

This, of course, is a rough general estimate, and could not be laid down as a hard and fast rule, for all to follow. If the food of each individual were properly balanced and each of the glands and tissues found just the right kind and the right amount of nutriment in the blood stream to maintain the integrity and perfect balance of the entire body, there is no doubt that the level of human efficiency would be raised very much higher than it is to-day. But no physician, no physiologist living, could possibly make out a bill of fare that would meet the needs of all alike.

No common diet could be prescribed for everybody. Each individual, according to his age, his physical condition, and his temperament would have to make exceptions and study his own requirements. But we know by experience that people living under different conditions, doing different kinds of work, are very materially helped by foods especially rich in the elements which enter into the structure and maintenance of the tissues which are most active in that sort of life or vocation. The kind and amount of food required by different people depend a great deal upon the degree of rapidity with which the cell life of any particular tissue or organ is broken down by its activity. The brain and nerve cells, for example, are broken down very rapidly in intense mental exercise or mental application, whereas destruction would be comparatively light if the brain were used very little, as in the case of persons whose activity is chiefly muscular.

It is well known that animals should be fed according to the work they do and their mode of living. A hunting dog requires a different food from a house dog. A driving and trotting horse, a race horse, requires a very different food from a dray horse, that carries a heavy load. Speed requires food like oats, which gives up a quick energy. Corn is too heavy for the speed horse. On the other hand, oats do not have the same staying power as corn.

The human animal must also be fed to fit him for his particular work. What would you think of a trainer who would constantly stuff a young athlete with all sorts of food he could get regardless of its properties, whether it made fat or muscle? You would certainly think the man did not know his business. Even those who have not studied the matter know that an athlete must be trained for speed, endurance, or muscular strength, according to the nature of the contest. Every bit of food that does not help toward this end is excluded from the diet. All foods that tend to produce fat instead of sustaining prolonged muscular effort are cut off. Every bit of material that will burden,—all overeating, is forbidden. Every mouthful which is unnecessary for sustenance and strength building, which would be an additional tax upon the digestive organs and the nervous tissues, in order to get rid of its injurious effects, must be excluded. The problem is to produce the maximum of muscular strength and endurance, to take only the foods which can sustain the heart in its stupendous strain, in running, leaping, wrestling, etc. The great object is to build up perfect muscle fiber and to eliminate everything which would tend to produce fat cells in the muscles, especially in the heart muscles, which would tend to weaken the vigor of its stroke.

The first consideration in the food question is to supply the physiological requirements of the body without a lack or scantiness anywhere which would cause deterioration in any tissue, or a surplus which would clog the organs and result in poisoning the body through the decomposition of half-digested foods.

For example, a person engaged in an athletic contest, like bicycle racing, carried on for a week or more, would need a great deal of energy-producing material to supply the rapid waste of broken-down tissues in the muscular system. This need must be quickly supplied by foods which are combustible in the body and which yield a large amount of energy and comparatively little of what we might call the tissue-building elements, because the principal loss of persons in such a contest is in the energy and heat producing products which come from rapid combustion. If a contestant took too much animal food he would get an oversupply of the tissue-building material,—too much albuminous and nitrogenous food, and too little energy-producing material.

On the other hand, many experiments on animals have shown the evil effects of an excess of the latter kind of food, which causes a very rapid deterioration in the physical life, especially in the lining cells of the alimentary tract and seriously interferes with the digestive and absorptive processes, so that the foods are not completely absorbed, assimilated and transformed into life tissues. For instance, a dog, if fed largely upon rice, will not have sufficient structure-building material, and a fatty degeneration will take place in the mucous-membrane lining of the alimentary tract, so that if this diet is continued very long the absorptive power in the alimentary tract will become so impaired that the animal ultimately will not thrive even if its natural diet is restored.

There are many food elements which are necessary to the integrity of the bodily tissues. For example, there is no animal life in which phosphorus does not play an indispensable part; and, if we should eat food which does not contain any of the phosphorous compounds, life would rapidly decline. The brain would quickly deteriorate if deprived of phosphorus, which is found abundantly in the yolks of eggs, in fish, in milk, cheese, etc. Cereals and legumes also contain much phosphorus.

Most people, especially the poor, eat more than twice as much starchy food as is required by the system; and, as they do not get enough of other foods, some of their tissues are starved. Those who live largely upon the products of fine flour overtax that part of the digestive system which takes care of the starchy food, and they often suffer from an overacidity of the stomach and sometimes of the saliva, which latter is very injurious to the teeth.

Children, of the poor are often born with rickets, because the mothers have lived mainly on white bread and tea and have not themselves had sufficient bone-making material to transmit to their children for the building of their skeletons. Some of these children have not enough backbone to hold up their heads, and they become deformed in all sorts of ways,—if they ever reach maturity,—because after they are born they do not get enough of the material they lacked before birth to build up and remedy their defects. A child needs much phosphorus, lime, magnesia, and silica for his skeleton, which is the principal part of his little body, and he should be nourished with the object of growth in view. Yet many children are fed chiefly on fine white flour products and tea, and often coffee. It ought to be regarded as a crime to feed children on such things!

No infant can digest solid foods until it cuts its teeth. Children should have plenty of milk until they are eight or nine years old, otherwise the bones will not get sufficient lime and other earthy salts to harden them, and rickets or bone diseases of some sort are likely to develop. While the body is in process of construction, all the tissues require a great deal more building material than when it has reached maturity, and milk contains everything necessary for early body-building. It is the only perfect food, and contains forty different substances. For proper development it is imperative to have every tissue in the body nourished, and to have every element in food which can build the tissues, furnish the fuel for combustion, and supply heat and the various energies for all the bodily activities. Some food authorities go so far as to say that drinking milk is almost like drinking blood, because, if pure and rich, it is such a great blood maker.

While milk is the only food which contains every element that enters into the human body, such as oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon, phosphorus, sulphur, etc., yet taken alone it is not so well suited for an adult as for a growing child, because it contains too much building material, although that is the most important factor before the body reaches maturity. Later in life there is not much body building, but we require food for maintaining and sustaining the body already built. At the same time, a certain amount of milk, or its equivalent, is needed all through life; and, in some cases of weak digestion and certain other ailments, a diet composed almost wholly of milk has had very beneficial effects.

Our diet should be chosen according to our individual needs, as determined by our age and our vocation. It should be planned to enable us to express the maximum of our ability, our efficiency, in whatever line of endeavor we are engaged, whether it involve mental or muscular effort. Yet in some families there are half a dozen members who represent different vocations, but who eat the same kind of food. Our system of eating is as vicious as our system of education, where thousands of students are put in the same education mold, with little or no regard to their individuality, to the fact that no two of them are alike, that their temperament, their inherited tendencies, their degrees of physical strength and vitality are all different. Of course, this does not mean that a separate meal would have to be provided for each member of the family, which, in the majority of cases, would be impossible. As in education, the basis could almost invariably be alike; but there would be minor differences which, while they would not overtax the housekeeper, would make a great difference in the well-being of the family.

We have heard a great deal from time to time of concentrated nourishment; that is, of a large amount of nutriment in very much less bulk than in ordinary food forms. But it is not sufficient merely to take into the stomach just the quantity of nutrition which would keep the body in perfect food balance. It must be taken in a form adapted to its digestion and assimilation. For instance, it would not meet the requirements of nature to take food into the body in a very concentrated form, as in tablets. The stomach is a sort of bag in whose lining is contained follicles which secrete the gastric juices. When empty, this bag is closed up and is so contracted in size that if the food were taken in a very small bulk, it would not be sufficiently distended to perform its function, even though the small quantity of food contained every element necessary for body building. In order to enable the gastric follicles in the stomach lining to do their normal work there must be a certain amount of pressure upon them, and this can only come from the presence of a sufficient bulk of food to open up the stomach bag to its natural size. The action of the follicles is induced by the alternate contraction and expansion of the circular and longitudinal layers of stomach muscles. This churning motion of the stomach is necessary for the proper mixing of the foods which the gastric juice is cutting up, dissolving, and macerating. When the whole contents are thoroughly mixed by this churning process, the liquid mass is ready to pass on and receive the other gastric juices of the bile, the pancreas, etc., along the intestinal tract, where the chief part of the digestion is done, for the work of the stomach is chiefly mechanical.

This is one reason why animals like horses require hay with their oats or corn. The latter alone would not make sufficient bulk to insure perfect digestion. In some countries clay and earth are mixed with food in order to give a greater bulk to satisfy the requirements of the stomach. It also, in part, accounts for the fact that milk alone would not be an adequate diet for an ordinary adult. When it is taken alone, some twenty per cent, of it is lost through faulty assimilation, so that something like a gallon of milk would be required daily for the complete nutrition of an adult. Where, however, bread is taken with it, assimilation is much more perfect; so that, although milk is the only food that contains the elements necessary for building and maintaining the tissues of the body, because of its faulty assimilation when not mixed with other foods, and also because it would not make sufficient bulk in the alimentary canal for the purpose of digestion, it would not of itself make a practical or satisfactory diet for a healthy adult.

Most people look upon milk as merely a drink, but it is not; it is a food, and hence it is very bad to drink it as rapidly as water, as most of us do. When one drinks a whole glass of milk at a draught or two, it forms into a large, solid mass of casein in the stomach; whereas, if sipped slowly, there are many little casein balls instead of one, which greatly facilitates the process of digestion. Many people have severe pains in the stomach after rapidly drinking a glass or more of iced milk in very hot weather, or when the body is for any reason overheated. The shock to the warm stomach of this mass of iced milk is really dangerous, as the work of digestion can be carried on with efficiency only when food is at the temperature of the blood—ninety-eight and one-half degrees.

Perhaps, everything considered, eggs, next to milk, come nearest to being a perfect food; although, as in the case of milk, if we should attempt to live on eggs alone we would not be able to maintain the bodily balance or poise, which is the object of a correct diet. They are especially good for building up the brain cells and the cells of the nervous system generally, for they contain considerable phosphorus and iron. As a rule, eggs introduce these substances into the body much better than drugs do. In addition to phosphorus and iron, eggs also contain arsenic, acids, and especially albumen, which are all extremely important for the building and maintenance of the organism.

Many people make the mistake of eating raw eggs because they think they are more digestible than cooked eggs. This is not so, because the white of an egg does not excite the secretion of saliva in the mouth unless it is cooked; so that hard-boiled eggs, thoroughly masticated, are really more digestible than raw eggs, though soft-boiled eggs are most digestible of all. It is a little more difficult for the liver to take care of the yolks of eggs than the whites, but they are more palatable, and for most people more easily digested.

Cereals are especially valuable for their large amount of albumen and skeleton-building material. Wheat and oats are notably rich in albumen. The wheat kernel contains eighty per cent, of starch, eleven per cent, of albumen, and about one per cent, of fat. Wheat bran contains even a larger percentage of albumen and almost as much starch. If bran could be as easily assimilated as flour, the value of wheat products would be multiplied many times. Many people think that coarse rye bread is very healthful, and this is true, but it is very difficult to digest and assimilate. It is good for people who have strong digestive organs, especially those who live a rugged, outdoor life.

Macaroni is an excellent food, very nourishing, and it contains considerable albumen, also sugars and starches. Though a little lacking in fat, it is especially valuable because of the large variety of body-building elements it contains. It is not strange, therefore, that so many people, especially Italians, live almost entirely upon this diet, as do the Eastern Asiastics upon rice.

Macaroni is easily digested and easily assimilated, and therefore particularly good for people with weak stomachs and delicate digestive organs. It is also good for invalids and patients who are convalescing. It is especially good for those affected with kidney diseases, for gouty persons, and for those who are getting on in years and have more or less hardening of the arteries, because it does not contain any substances or poisons which would injure the kidneys, the liver, or the blood vessels. Macaroni also tends to neutralize intestinal putrefaction. On the whole, it is one of the best known foods.

It is a strange fact that corn foods, which are rich in sugar, starch, and fat, and in some of the most important nutritive salts like phosphorus, potash, lime, magnesia, soda, and iron, should be made so little of in the American diet. Corn bread and corn cakes are very easily digested and assimilated, and are good body-builders. Why the great vegetarian restaurants, both here and abroad, make so little of corn products is a mystery, as they usually have so few foods that are rich in albumen. The Italians eat a great deal of corn products. Macaroni, which is made from flour, and corn products are as much a staple food with them as wheat bread is with us. We all know what tremendous workers they are and the great amount of fatigue they are capable of enduring.

Oatmeal porridge makes a very desirable food, particularly in the morning. We know how strong and vigorous, physically and mentally, Scotch people are, who live so largely upon oatmeal products. Oatmeal porridge with the yolks of two eggs would make a splendid breakfast, especially for those who are not subject to biliousness. Oatmeal contains considerable lime, phosphorus, acid, and a little chlorine. Whole oats contain quite a large amount of potash, iron, and phosphorus, which last is very nourishing to the brain cells and nerve cells.

Buckwheat cakes, which are much used for breakfast in America, especially in restaurants and hotels, are not very digestible, because they contain a large amount of cellulose, which is hard to assimilate. Corn cakes are much preferable. Other foods that contain a large amount of cellulose, such as cabbage, beans, rye bread, etc., cause flatulence, especially those which also contain considerable sulphur.

The cellulose in vegetables corresponds to the connective tissue in meat, which is difficult of digestion unless thoroughly cooked. The starchy foods, like sago, tapioca, etc., are often given to people with weak stomachs, because they do not tax the stomach, the digestion being carried on farther along.

Potatoes and meat make a fairly good diet for those who insist upon eating meat, as the latter furnishes albumen and the potatoes sugar, fats, etc., and these supply the most imperative needs of the body.

An Englishman, Sir William Fairbairn, who has traveled over the earth a great deal to study the influence of foods upon working people, decides that the strongest men in the world are the Turkish laborers, who live chiefly upon bread and fruit. They eat very little meat and drink no spirits or wines whatever. Frenchmen do not eat anything like as much meat as the English and rarely have stomach troubles. They eat twice as much bread as Americans do, and much larger quantities of fruits and vegetables.

Few realize the value of spinach as a food. Yet it is rich in iron, which is the real life of the blood. Lettuce grown in the sunlight has also a large amount of iron, but when grown in dark cellars or out of the sunlight, while it may be tender, it is very poor in iron.

It is well known that both men and beasts fed upon food poor in iron soon become very anemic. On the other hand, animals which have become anemic from this cause very quickly improve when fed upon a diet rich in iron, like carrots, cabbage, and the different grains. Poor people especially suffer seriously from lack of sufficient iron in the blood, particularly when they live and work out of the sunlight. Tuberculosis is very common among those who are poorly nourished and lack iron in their blood.

Leguminous vegetables are prohibited to persons who are predisposed to intestinal and stomach diseases; also in cases of hardening of the arteries and gout. They contain elements which generate uric acid. More of this acid is produced by lentils than by peas or beans. When the secretions tend to an excess of acids, a large quantity of potatoes will help to correct this and to make them alkaline. In some cases of diabetes potatoes are not good, because their use is attended with an excessive elimination of sugar. Sweet potatoes are nutritious, but not so digestible as the white variety.

It is a curious fact that mushrooms, which spring up in a few hours after rain, contain a large amount of proteids, which are the tissue-building elements in food, and almost fifty per cent, of such carbohydrates as sugar, starch, and fat, as well as other valuable substances. When perfectly fresh, mushrooms are very nutritious.

Curd or cheese is nitrogenous food, and feeds the solid tissues of the body. There is more nourishment in cheese that is made from new milk than there is in beef or mutton. Very few realize that cheese is more nutritious than meat. But it is a fact that it contains very much the same constituents, also that it is very much cheaper; but, if taken in large quantities, it is apt to disturb digestion.

On the other hand, the value of cream as a food is entirely overestimated. Dogs fed on it will die in a few weeks, because there is nothing in it to build solid tissues. It is valuable as fuel; its combustion generates heat in the body.

Oysters, if grown in clean water, are very digestible and desirable, although not as nourishing as some other kinds of food. The albumen in fish is very desirable, and for this reason fish is good for people who suffer from exhausting diseases, and when fresh it has the additional advantage of being very easily digested. Much less uric acid is generated by fish, barring salmon, than by meat. Most kinds, except salmon, are good for people suffering from kidney or liver trouble, or gout. Fish is especially good for diabetes patients, as it does not increase the amount of sugar in the system. It is better, however, to accompany it with some of the carbohydrate foods, such as Graham bread, rye bread, fruits, etc. Such a diet will diminish the amount of sugar in diabetes. Fresh white fish has been found of great value in the treatment of hardening arteries.

The flesh of lamb is not very digestible, because of its fat, a high temperature being required to melt the fat. This is not true of lean lamb, but as lambs are usually fat many people digest their flesh with great difficulty. Pork is perhaps the most universally used meat by different peoples of the world, and while it is not easily digested, it has a pleasant flavor when properly cooked. It is doubtful whether people would eat flesh of any kind but for the agreeable flavors developed in cooking. Lean boiled ham taxes the stomach very little in digestion, as it is free from connective tissue.

The flesh of the domestic turkey, which originated in the United States, is much more nourishing than that of chicken. Domestic duck is quite a nourishing food, but it is not suitable for a weak stomach or delicate digestion. Goose is very nourishing, but very difficult to digest because of its fat. The liver of young animals is easily digested and contains considerable phosphorus, and very nutritive minerals, such as iron. The brains of animals are rich in phosphorus and quite easily digested.

Many so-called harmless stimulants, like coffee and tea, make people irritable, and if taken in excess cause permanent injury by the constant enlargement of the blood vessels in the brain. This is due to a temporary paralysis of the nerves in the muscular fibres of the blood vessels, so that they lose their tonicity, and are powerless to restrict the blood flow. All alcoholic stimulants have a similar effect. It is this excess of blood which increases the brain activity, thus producing for a time a feeling of well being, a kind of mental exaltation. But this feeling, as everybody who uses stimulants knows, always has an injurious reaction.

Because tea and coffee produce uric acid in the system some food authorities prohibit them, when all other things which are known to generate it are excluded; but, as a small amount of uric acid is always developed, it is doubtful whether total exclusion of these beverages is absolutely necessary. In certain individual cases of course it is. Cocoa, however, is much more healthful than either. It is also a very mild stimulant and valuable article of food. It is more easily digested than either tea or coffee and less exciting to the nervous system. Chocolate is made of cocoa and a large quantity of sugar, and really is more a food than a drink.

It would be impossible in the space of a chapter, or in a book of ordinary size, for that matter, to name all the different kinds of food and discuss their qualities and effects. The foregoing is merely meant to be suggestive to those who have not made some study of the food question.

The vast amount of ignorance that exists on this question is sometimes tragically, sometimes amusingly illustrated. As an instance of the latter, I know of a French baker who became so fat that he was ashamed to appear on the street because people made so much fun of him. He got so he could not raise his hand to his head to put on his hat. Fortunately for him, some one who knew something about the chemistry of digestion asked him why he did not drop his carbonaceous, fat-producing food and eat nitrogenous food, such as meat, eggs, cheese, etc., and take a great deal of exercise. He acted upon this suggestion, and in a very-short time was perfectly normal again.

I know people who have a perfect terror of their increasing fat who nevertheless continue to eat carbonaceous food and take very little exercise. Yet if the sugars and starches and fats are not burned in the combustion of the body the fat cells will accumulate. How many women are lamenting their increasing fleshiness and resorting to all sorts of drugs to get rid of it; whereas, if they knew the simple laws of the chemistry of food they could largely regulate their weight.

Health is, indeed, so necessary to all the duties as well as pleasures of life that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly; and he that, for a short gratification brings weakness and disease upon himself, and for the pleasure of a few years passed in the tumults of diversion and clamors of merriment, condemns the maturer and more experienced part of his life to the chamber and the couch, may be justly reproached, not only as a spendthrift of his happiness, but also as a robber of the public—as a wretch that has voluntarily disqualified himself for the business of his station and refused that part which Providence assigns him in the general task of human nature.—Samuel Johnson.