HINTS AND APHORISMS.

A well-knit frame never “drops a stitch.”—A chilly person is a sick person: good health, not good clothes, nor artificial heat, keeps a man feeling warm.—A rear guard: “I shall bring him out of this all right,” says the doctor,—“if no new complication arises”; and then he prescribes a drug or a compound of drugs, which tends to provoke the complication. For hundreds of years it has been, and, in general practice, still is the aim in sickness, to excite the organism to greater exertion in this, that or the other direction, by giving it more to do; the new gospel teaches that the true theory is, to enable Nature to put forth her energies in the most life-saving manner, albeit in her own fashion, by giving her more to do with: fresh air, sunshine, cleanliness, water,—the latter pure, i.e., without the everlasting drug which constitutes the “more to do.” It is a hackneyed expression, that “a man is either a fool or his own physician at

forty”; but if he then find himself neither whole nor mending, he is a fool if he does not seek advice. Stomach digestion demands a period of leisure; hence the rule, “Never eat till you have leisure to digest.”—Assimilation and nutrition demand peace of mind, to ensure the best results; in sickness, especially, “the balance of power” often lies in this direction.

Note.—It should be understood that aside from the above hint, the foregoing disorders are to be considered by the reader in connection with the teachings of this volume as a whole. (See concluding paragraph in the chapter on Bright’s Disease.)

Having studied the subject well and with all practicable aid, settle upon a regimen, let it become second nature, and never worry about diet or think of your stomach; but if that organ persists in making itself felt, adopt a more abstemious regimen still, and go on again.

Maria Giberne—artist and vegetarian, of whom at the age of fifty, Mozley said: “She is the handsomest woman I ever saw,” and who “now at near eighty has the same flowing locks, though they are white as snow, and her talk and her letters are as bright as ever”—ascribed her wonderful preservation and unfailing health to her observation of the fasts [she was a Catholic] and her general abstemiousness. “Her diet consisted chiefly of bread and fruit, mostly apples. One apple in the middle of a long day she spoke of as a great refreshment. She had never to complain of the heat.”

We call it a disorder when Nature is really putting things to rights—bringing the order of health out of the chaos of disease: it is like “house-cleaning,” where the mistress has let things run at loose ends for a long time—sweeping the dirt under the stove,

behind the door, etc., and making unnecessary dirt—instead of keeping the establishment in order and thereby avoiding any occasion for a general upsetting.

Says one of Boston’s eloquent preachers, the Rev. M. J. Savage: “In nine cases out of ten, men and women might fairly be called to account for being sick”; and Dr. T. L. Nichols, the eminent hygienist of London, says the same thing, only in slightly different language: “In nine cases out of ten, if people, when they found themselves becoming sick, would simply stop eating, they would have no need of drugs or doctors.”

A certain class of temperance reformers sign pledges to be moderate in their indulgences, and not to “treat” or be “treated.” This rule would be a hundred-fold more life-saving applied (rationally) to food than to drink. It is quite generally the custom to urge our friends to eat to repletion, when they partake of our hospitality.

Given a natural mode of life and natural food, the appetite also would be natural, and the stomach would not accept more than it could digest.

Nature appears, often, to be a lenient creditor, but she never neglects to collect her little bill, finally, with interest and costs of suit: “In the physical world there is no forgiveness of sin.”

The mandate, In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, has, in my opinion, a physiological basis: a man can eat with advantage only an amount corresponding to the exertion he puts forth,—a modicum

being allowed, of course, for the physiological labor of the organism.

“Do not think these are unimportant things [questions of diet, etc.], not dignified enough to be spoken of in the pulpit. I tell you they reach to your mind and to your morals; they reach to your theology; they reach clear to heaven, so far as you are concerned, and are of fundamental importance, touching your religious and moral life a good deal more, sometimes, than what you think about the Bible, Sunday, or any other religious institution whatever.”—Savage.

“Nothing hurts me—I eat everything.” (Next year): “Nothing agrees with my stomach—I can’t eat anything.” Thus the dyspeptics’ ranks are kept full with recruits from those who “don’t want any advice about diet.”

“Indigestion is charged by God with enforcing morality on the stomach.”—Tholemyés.

Every appetite held in check, aids in restraining every other—making all serve the man, instead of the man them; while every one let loose, tends powerfully to give free rein to all.

CHAPTER IX.
THE FLESH-FOOD FALLACY
[See Chapter III.]

demands more than the passing notice accorded to it in the chapters on Consumption: The facts of chemistry are eternal and indisputable, as are all the truths of science; but, as between two kinds of aliment, or two substances which are being considered as to their adaptation to the purpose of nourishing the body, while chemistry accurately points out which contains the greatest amount of this or that constituent, and is often of service, as affording data for a presumption, in the absence of definite knowledge, she often fails to discover—despite the chemist’s, or rather his blind pupil’s dogmatic assertion to the contrary—which is really the most natural, and consequently the best adapted for the purpose of alimentation. In nothing do we observe this more strikingly than in a comparison between flesh and vegetable foods. A three-column criticism of a former work (How to Feed the Baby), in one of our leading magazines, and which sums up its merits by “hoping the book will be read by all on whom devolves the important duty, the care of children; for it is an effort to institute the

correct principle of feeding ‘the baby,’” contains the following upon the subject of animal vs. vegetable food: “We discover,” says the critic, “on page 98 that our author is a vegetarian, after all. In speaking of a nutritious diet whereby to enrich the breast milk, he makes the following startling statement: ‘Unleavened bread, or mush, made from the unbolted meal of wheat, rye, or corn, has very much more nutriment, pound for pound, than is contained in beef or mutton, notwithstanding the fallacy that classes the latter as hearty food.’ This is only a declaration without proof, contrary to all authority on foods. We take the following table from Prof. Johnston’s ‘Chemistry of Common Life’:

Lean beef.Wheaten bread.
Water and blood7740
Myosin or gluten197
Fat31
Starch050
Salt and other mineral mat.12

“From which is deduced the fact, that ordinary flesh is about three times as rich in myosin or gluten as ordinary wheaten bread, or, in other words, a pound of beefsteak is as nutritious as three pounds of wheaten bread. In a second edition of Dr. Page’s book, we hope he will correct this great error.”

It should be stated that bread made from whole, i.e., unbolted and unsifted, meal, is much richer in gluten and certain invaluable salts, than shown in the figures here given.

Because the most careful observation on the part

of intelligent and conscientious men who have had the best opportunities for ascertaining the relative merits of these two classes of foods, viz.: nutrients proper, and the stimulo-nutrients, or, in other words, foods which are naturally adapted to the human organism, and those substances (as, for example, the flesh of animals) which, along with a great deal of nourishment, contain elements which, being of an excretory and noxious character, excite or stimulate the organism, and are, consequently, to that degree injurious—because, I would repeat, the proof is, in my estimation, overwhelmingly in favor of vegetable food, more particularly the cereals and fruits, so far from contemplating the “correction of this great error,” I desire to reassert, most emphatically, as a fundamental truth in dietetics, and in no sense an error, that, pound for pound, the cereal grains are not only more nutritious (speaking of their effects upon the human organism) than flesh, but, physiologically speaking, they are free from the impurities which abound in the latter, and which are often rendered still more noxious by the presence of actual disease among animals fattened for human food.

The advocates of flesh-food have a marvelous faculty for misrepresenting some facts, and for the non-presentation of others which should appear if the discussion is for the purpose of deciding the question on its merits. To illustrate: I find in Johnson’s Encyclopedia (Article on Hygiene, by a prominent physician) the following: “It must be admitted that men can, under favorable circumstances, exist through

long periods without meat. This is shown in the instances of many tribes in Asia and Africa, who live almost entirely on rice and other grains, and also by many of the peasantry of Continental Europe, and the Scotch Highlanders who are confined to a diet containing very little animal food. Yet it is equally true that men can exist on meat alone, as is done by the Indian riders of the South American pampas, for months together.” But the writer of the above (from ignorance of the fact, doubtless,) does not add, that those races who live upon a well-selected vegetable diet excel in every way—mentally, morally, and physically—those races or tribes who subsist entirely on flesh. What would the above authority call “favorable circumstances” such as would enable men to “exist” without meat? Was he thinking of the French officers, prisoners of war, who were fed, for a year or more, on rice and Indian corn exclusively, with water for their only drink, to return to their commands in improved health, to receive promotion by reason of vacancies occasioned by the death of comrades who had been favored with an abundance of meat? Or of the muscular Japanese, hard-working men and finely developed women of whom a recent sojourner in Japan says: “The quantity of food they eat is astonishingly small when compared with the food devoured by meat-eaters from the Western world.... Seemingly their frames are as tough as steel, not susceptible of cold or intense heat—going thinly clad in freezing weather, and not shrinking from the sun in its most oppressive season.... They are a

marvel of strength, and illustrate the lesson that health, strength, and endurance may exist on a light and scanty diet of rice and vegetables, together with fish. The Rikisha men are not so heavily molded, being of much slighter build, but they are also full of muscle, though not so prodigally developed [as with the class of laborers before referred to]. The fatigue these men undergo and withstand can be partially estimated when it is remembered that it is not considered an extraordinary feat for them to travel forty miles a day with their seated passenger. No matter how hot it may be, while the passenger is complaining of the heat, he is being whirled along and protected by his umbrella from the rays of the sun, and the motive power never flags. This Rikisha man keeps up a pace like a deer, his body generally bare to the sun, being guiltless of clothing that could inconvenience the free movement of the body or limbs. He takes but the slightest quantity of refreshment while on the road—a cup of tea and a modicum of rice being the extent of his gormandizing during the travel. And they repeat these exploits day after day, never eating meat.” Of the women this writer remarks: “With beautifully rounded arms and limbs, with smallest of feet and hands, and small-boned, they present the spectacle of what the human form should be in its natural grace and finish.... The women, young and old, are seen bearing loads upon their backs that the uninitiated in such work would not be able to stand up under. They will travel miles laden this way with a speed that would suffice

to tire an average Western woman if entirely unincumbered. In fact few of our women could at all walk the distance the old women do here while bearing heavy loads. And all this is performed on an abstemious vegetable diet.” Thus it would seem that “the most favorable circumstances,” to use the language of Johnson’s contributor, to enable men and women to live “without meat,” are plenty of hard work in the open air,[55] and a somewhat restricted diet; for it must be remembered that the people of whom we have been speaking, are from necessity the least able to indulge in unlimited quantities of their peculiar food of all the people in the land.

[55] It is very generally agreed by the most eminent medical men of all schools of practice, that in the absence of free exercise in the open air, animal food must be abstained from.

As to the moral aspect of the question, I grant that a man can not sin without knowledge. If he believes it necessary and right for the higher animals, elevated human beings, to slaughter and feast upon the lower—the gentle, mild-eyed creatures who serve and minister unto us so patiently, so faithfully, and, indeed, so lovingly—then to kill and devour is, for him, no crime. But if men were as ready to learn from their instincts, as they are to yield to their artificial cravings, the natural loathing which all, or most people, feel at the sight of bloodshed, and which so many experience at the bare thought of taking life, would teach us the unnaturalness and therefore the harmfulness of a flesh diet. (See Appetite.)

Finally, there remains to be answered, one argument,

the most rational of all that are put forward in favor of the continued use of flesh-food, viz.: heredity and habit, and a “second nature” resultant therefrom. Even some hygienic writers argue stoutly the necessity of recognizing this law, as particularly applicable to this question, and declare the absurdity of the position assumed by those who demand the abandonment of flesh-food for all who would insure to themselves the blessing of health. While affirming that the vital organism may in a few years, even, become accustomed to the use of almost anything, no matter how repugnant or destructive it naturally is, as opium, liquor, tobacco, etc., provided the process be gradual enough, they still hold that with regard to animal food, a substance acknowledged by them to be unwholesome, the organism can not become accustomed to its non-use until generations of better habits have remodeled the organism to suit the conditions. Theoretically, it would seem grossly absurd to say that when, as is the known fact, cats, dogs, bears, and the like, can thrive perfectly on a strict vegetarian diet (I have, myself, tried this successfully with the first two), that man alone has no hope this side the grave of being able to abandon animal food! In practice, it is found that the only thing required is to convince the mind of an individual of the unnaturalness and unwholesomeness of flesh-food; then if he be conscientious the battle is won, and it only remains to furnish him with a diet suited to his needs, (the selection and preparation of which, many hygienists, however, are far from comprehending fully; hence

the only reason I can find for the continuance of the mixed diet in any case). But if he be either unconvinced or lacking in moral force, he can not be harmed by the presentation of the vegetarian theory, for he will continue his flesh-eating and take the consequences. So long, however, as any hygienist favors even a moderate indulgence in animal foods as a necessity for most people throughout their lives, his followers will take it upon themselves to decide as to what constitutes moderation, just as is the case with coffee, liquor, and tobacco-users, only the former (by reason of their ignorance as to what constitutes health and symptoms of disease) have no such means of recognizing the symptoms of excess, as have the latter. The truth is that “abstinence from all unwholesome practices, only, is easier than temperance.”

Note.—This chapter is particularly recommended to the notice of members and friends of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

CHAPTER X.
AIR-BATHS.

With a view to the exaltation of the condition of the entire organism, as well as simply that of the digestive and assimilative system—and in addition to the reform already suggested as to clothing, i.e., a reduction in the number and weight of garments habitually worn, when these have been superabundant,—I would say to all classes, sick or well, that great advantage will be derived from habituating themselves to transient exposure of the entire surface of the body to the air. Often enough, we observe persons sitting heavily clad, in a warm room and close to the fire, and yet feeling “shivery” and sure of having “caught cold.” To throw off all clothing would banish such chills instanter, especially if the person begins to give himself a brisk hand-rubbing. The skin is sweltered, and is numb for want of circulation in the capillaries. In the case supposed the person has prevented a “cold.” Next to the water-bath, which is, of course, or ought to be, an air-bath and water-bath combined, the simple air-bath is invaluable as a prophylactic or a curative; and in very

many instances, say for several mornings in each week, and whenever the usual water-bath is not convenient, the air-bath will prove an excellent substitute. In place of dodging from the sweltering bed into his heavy day-clothing, the robust man will be far more likely to maintain his vigorous condition by doffing his night-shirt and indulging for the space of, say, five minutes or less, in brisk hand-rubbing all over, however cold his sleeping-room, and again on going to bed; while the delicate ones should, with due caution, inaugurate the same system (some will-power has to be exerted), but graduated, as to temperature and duration, to their special conditions—advancing as their physical condition improves under its influence until they are no longer members of that immense army—the victims of “aërophobia.” Patients themselves too weak for even the exercise of self-rubbing will still derive great benefit from the air-bath, in a temperature, say, of 65°, with an attendant to rub them briskly from neck to heels. Set in practice in a rational manner this custom will never injure the most delicate person, but on the contrary will always prove beneficial. It will not bring the dead to life, nor, indeed, “cure” the moribund; but it is one of Nature’s most efficient aids—it is Nature herself, in very truth—and I have seen patients who were thought to be hopelessly ill, begin to take on what seemed to be renewed life, largely through this new use of fresh air, and the dismissal of the unnatural dread of it. For example: