SECT. LXXIII.—ON THE POWERS OF THE ARTICLES OF FOOD.
Since an account of the properties of food is a part of the doctrine of Hygiene, we shall add that to the preceding, having premised only a few remarks before delivering the particular rules on this head; for nothing is more indispensably necessary than to be well acquainted with the properties of food. Things of an attenuating power open the pores, and clear away the viscid humours which are impacted in them, and cut and attenuate the thick; but when persevered in as articles of food, they beget serous and bilious superfluities, or, if still longer continued, they render the blood melancholic. One ought therefore to abstain from the continued use of them, and in particular those who are of a bilious temperament; for they only suit with those who have collections of phlegm, and of crude, viscid, and thick humours. Those of incrassating powers are sufficiently nutritious, and, if properly digested in the stomach and liver, they form good blood, but occasion obstructions of the spleen and liver. Of these some have only thick juices, as the dried lentil, but some viscid, as the mallows; and in some they are both thick and viscid, as the testaceous fishes. An attenuating diet is safer than an incrassating for the preservation of health, but yet, as it supplies little nourishment, it does not impart tone or strength to the body. One ought, therefore, to take some moderately nutritious food, when experiencing the effects of a deficient diet. They may do so with the least danger who are given to exercises and can take as much rest as they please. But all those who cannot take exercise before food ought to avoid such things as are incrassating; and those who are of an indolent habit ought by no means to take such food. For complete inactivity is one of the greatest evils for the preservation of health, whereas moderate exercise is particularly good. Those articles of food which are intermediate between the incrassating and the attenuating are the best of all, producing blood of a proper consistency. Such a diet, then, agrees with our bodies, but that which produces a bad chyme ought to be shunned. It is better also to avoid variety of food, more particularly if it consist of contrary qualities; for such things, when taken together, do not digest properly.
Commentary. The ancient writers on Dietetics are, Hippocrates (de Diæta, de Affectionibus, et alibi); Celsus (ii); Dioscorides (Mat. Med. ii); Galen (de Facult. Alim., et de Probis Pravisque Aliment. Suc.); Xenocrates (de Aliment, ex aquat.); Oribasius (Med. Collect. i et seq.); Aëtius (ii); Simeon Seth (de Alimentis); Actuarius (de Spiritu Animali, p. ii); Anonymus (Tract, ap. Ermerins Anecdota Græca); Marcellus (Sideta de Piscibus); Psellus (Carmen de Re Medica); Rhases (ad Mansor. iii, Cont. xxxiii); Avicenna (Cantic. p. ii); Averrhoes (Comment. de Cantic); Haly Abbas (Theor. v, 15); Athenæus (Deipnos. passim); Plutarch (de Sanitate tuenda, Symposiacon); Macrobius (Saturnal. vii); Cælius Apicius (de Opsoniis); Geoponica (xii); Horace and Martial (pluries.)
Of all the ancient writers on Dietetics, Galen is beyond dispute the best. In the two treatises mentioned above, he has treated of everything connected with this subject so fully and so correctly, as to leave little to be supplied even at the present day. All the subsequent authorities in general are his servile copyists, with the exception of Averrhoes, who commonly differs from him only by deviating into error.
The ancient philosophers were at great pains to explain why a regular supply of food is necessary to the existence of animals. On this subject, Timæus Locrus, Plato, and Aristotle have philosophized with great acuteness and ingenuity. No one, however, has given a plainer account of the matter than the poet Lucretius in the following verses:
“Illud item non est mirandum, corporis ipsa
Quod natura cibum quærit quoiusque animantis;
Quippe etenim fluere, atque recedere corpora rebus
Multa modis multis docui, sed plurima debent
Ex animalibus iis, quæ sunt exercita motu;
Multaque per sudorem ex alto pressa feruntur,
Multa per os exhalantur, quam languida anhelant:
His igitur rebus rarescit corpus; et omnis
Subruitur natura dolor quam consequitur rem.
Propterea capitur cibus, ut suffulceat artus,
Et recreat vires interdatus, atque patentem
Per membra ac venas ut amorem obturet edendi.”
(De Rerum Nat. iv, 856.)
The explanation given by one of Rhases’ authorities is to the same effect. He says: “Since our bodies are in a continual state of waste from the surrounding atmosphere, and the innate heat which is within, it behoved them to have nourishment to supply the part which is melted down; and, as all the food which is taken is not assimilated, it was necessary that there should be passages for the discharge of the superfluities.”
Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, and Musonius (ap. Stobæi Sentent. 18) remark that the stomach is to animals what the earth is to vegetables.
Our author’s general remarks on the properties of food are condensed from Galen’s work. (De Prob. p. Al. suc.) Horace agrees with Galen and our author in condemning the mixture of various articles of food. (Satir. ii, 2.) The arguments for and against this practice are very ingeniously stated by Macrobius. (Saturn. vii, 5, 6.) It appears that Asclepiades maintained the opinion that a multifarious diet is most easily digested. (Celsus, iii, 6.)
The ancients had the following meals during a day corresponding to those now in use: breakfast, jentaculum, ἀκράτισμα; dinner, or rather lunch, prandium, ἄριστον; soirée, merenda, ἑσπέρισμα; supper, cœna, δεῖπνον. To these may be added the commissatio, κῶμος, which was a sort of jollification after the great meal or supper. See Athenæus (lib. i); Jo. Bruyer (de Re Cibar. iii, i); Lambinus (in Plut. Truculent, ac. i, sc. 7, l. 16); Potter (Arch. Græc. iv, 16.) The common hour of breakfast was about 7 o’clock a.m., of dinner about 3 p.m.; and of supper about 8 p.m. The practice, however, of taking so many meals appears to have been disapproved of by the physicians and savans: for we find Actuarius discussing the question whether it be proper to eat twice or only once in the day; and Galen decidedly recommends people not to take food in general oftener than twice. Cicero even forbids to take two full meals in a day. (Tuscul. Quæst. v.) Hippocrates speaks with disapprobation of the practice of eating a full dinner. (De Vet. Med.) Suetonius makes it a reproach to Domitian that he dined fully. (In Domit.) Haly Abbas enters into a full examination of the question with regard to the number of meals. Some, he says, eat only once in the day, some twice, and others three times. He advises those persons who are actively employed not to dine, because, if obliged to take exercise immediately afterwards, the body will be loaded with half concocted chyle. Upon the whole he prefers supper to dinner. (Pract. i, 13.) Alsaharavius considers one meal in the day not sufficient for persons of a gross habit of body. He advises persons not to change even a bad regimen too suddenly. Rhases remarks, that to take another supply of food before a preceding meal is digested, will prove highly prejudicial to the health.
From the views of domestic life given in the Greek novels we are inclined to think that the supper was the only meal which all the members of a family of the better class partook of together. See in particular Achilles Tatius (pluries.) The breakfast and dinner were light meals, consisting of bread or cheese dipped in wine. (Apul. Metam. and Martial Epigr.)
The ancient physicians attached great importance to the proper regulation of the diet. Galen seriously admonishes his readers not to eat thoughtlessly, like brute beasts, but to consider attentively what kinds of food and drink they find from experience to be prejudicial to them. (De Sanit. tuenda, vi, 13.)
According to Athenæus, a good physician ought to be a good cook. (Deipnos. vii.) Upon the authority of Daphnus, the Ephesian physician, he decides that night is the most proper time for taking the supper or principal meal, because, says he, the moon promotes putrescency, and digestion is a species of putrefaction. (vii, 2.)
The processes which food undergoes in the body from its first introduction to its complete assimilation are stated in a very scientific manner by Macrobius. In the first place, he says, it is dissolved in the stomach, as much of it at least as is digestible, and that which is not soluble passes down to the intestine, while the chyme, or portion which has been dissolved, passes to the liver, there to undergo the second process of digestion, namely, sanguification, or conversion into blood. It then passes into the arteries or veins, where it undergoes its third species of digestion, namely, purification, by having its recrementitious particles sent off in the form of bile and urine. It is then conveyed to the different parts of the body where the fourth process of digestion is accomplished, namely, assimilation, by which it is converted into the different substances of which the body is composed. (Saturnal. vii, 4.)