OBESITY,
or any degree of excess in weight. Time, from ten days up. The weight, in this disorder, will diminish under the influence of fasting—by the waste and excretion of material that can best be spared (fat)—at the rate of from one to three pounds, or more, a day, which rate of progress can be increased, happily, by exercise in the open air. Entire abstinence from food will cause the fat to disappear, but there can be no regeneration of the muscular system—on the contrary, it must continue to deteriorate—without exercise. It is better, therefore, to keep up a good degree of exercise, and to eat a limited amount of food daily. It is not that the fat person eats or digests more than the lean one (he may not eat nearly as much in fact), but he excretes less. Exercise in the open air favors the excretion of waste matters which otherwise would be deposited in the cellular tissues. The fatty degeneration so much admired in infancy, aids in the production of emaciation and consumption at adult age.
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,[54]
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.
[54] A slice of steak from the loin of a stall-fed ox exhibits this disease very clearly: mark its “well mixed” appearance (a token of praise to the ignorant or reckless epicure), where the muscular tissue has given place to the globules of fat which denote unexcreted excess in diet, and deficient nutrition, from lack of exercise.
The gifted Gambetta, whom M. Rochefort styled a “fatted satrap,” died (far under his prime) because of this depraved condition: a slight gun-shot wound, from which a “clean” man would have speedily recovered, ended this obese diabetic’s life. Events sufficiently similar are constantly occurring on both sides of the water; 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, heart disease, kidney troubles, etc., etc.—but the true name is chronic self-abuse.
Says an agricultural journal: “The eggs of most fowls are infertile from too much pampering and too little exercise. It is not wise to fatten any animal intended for breeding purposes.” The principle here involved does not relate simply to the fertility of the ovum, but to the health and stamina of all living creatures: fat is disease. Very fat women can not conceive, or, if they do, their children can not be born alive; and those who are to any degree degenerated in this manner can not endow their offspring with the full measure of vitality to which they are justly entitled; while too often they are foredoomed to sickly lives and premature deaths.
I can in no way better illustrate the relation of fat
to health and strength, than by repeating the remarks of an intelligent and observing young farmer. “I fatten my cattle,” said he, “because it pays—the market demands fat creatures; so I have my barn very snug and warm, and feed high. My neighbor, on the other hand, is what would be called a ‘poor farmer’; that is, his buildings are not of the best, his barn has broad cracks all around, which gives them pure air, and his cattle are never fat. He works his oxen hard, gives them enough to eat to keep them in full health and vigor, but nothing for adipose. Mornings, in winter, when he turns his oxen out into the yard, they prance out like a lot of colts, kick up their heels and shake their horns like healthy creatures as they are; while mine will almost tumble down over the door-sill! His cows never give as much milk nor make as much butter as mine; but they are never sick, while mine are sometimes, and I lose one now and then with ‘milk-fever,’ or some other disease resulting from high feeding; but I am farming for profit, and my heifers bring an extra price by reason of the great milk and butter record of their mothers, and I can afford to have a sick or even a dead cow occasionally, providing I keep the fact quiet—not advertise the danger of the process necessary to ‘drive the milk out of them.’”
[Obesity being a disease peculiar to, and (terminating in cholera infantum or some zymotic disease) especially fatal in, infancy, the author has endeavored to treat the subject exhaustively in his work entitled “How to Feed the Baby.” He would merely observe,
in this connection, that in plant life or animal life, the universal law is a lean, lank infancy: those creatures and those slips which thrive continuously and reach a healthy maturity are never fat or stocky during the period of growth. The human infant only is sought to be made an exception to this rule; with what success the mortality reports fully attest.]
CHAPTER VIII.
BILIOUSNESS, “HAY FEVER,” NEURALGIA, ETC.
Regarding this ridiculous (because unnecessary) disorder, Sir Lionel Beale, a recognized authority, says: “The bilious ‘habit’ seems to be due to an unusually sensitive, irritable stomach and liver, which will discharge their functions fairly in a moderate degree, but which can not be made to do more than this without getting much out of order, [unless, I would remark, the needs of the system be augmented and, consequently, the digestive powers exalted, by means of increased exercise, less pampering, more outdoor air, the use of lighter clothing, etc.] Most of the organs” he goes on to say, “taking part in the digestion and assimilation of food seem to strike work when the bilious attack comes on. [It would seem more accurate to say that the ‘strike,’ resulting from overtaxation—excessive and unwholesome alimentation—constitutes the ‘attack’]. If food be taken, the suffering becomes greater. The fact seems to be, that the digestive organs require rest for a time, and if, when an attack comes on, this rest is given, the bilious state passes off, and the patient then feels extremely well, perhaps for a considerable
time. Persons of the ‘bilious habit’ should not [who should?] eat ‘rich’ foods, fatty matters, fried dishes, etc., etc., and should shun alcohol.” He advises little or no meat; commends the vegetarian diet, fruits, and a good proportion of whole-meal bread—corn, rye, and wheat. The free use of milk promotes biliousness, in many cases. Skim-milk often “agrees” when whole milk can not be taken in any quantity without causing much disturbance. Milk can not be called a natural food for man, and, indeed, many are obliged to relinquish its use altogether; besides, as remarked elsewhere, there is much disease among cows, owing to the unnatural manner of feeding them, and in such cases the milk is impure. It is a safe rule for bilious subjects to abstain from milk altogether; while butter, cream and cheese are still more objectionable.
In the following complaints the benefit derived from temporary abstinence from food are most marked; the acute symptoms, as catarrhal discharges, feverishness, or pain, shortly disappear (when the fast may be broken), and the disorders themselves may be eradicated by a wholesome regimen such as would, in the first instance, have prevented them: acute catarrh, “rose,” or “hay” fever, influenza, feverishness, fever (one to six days, or until convalescence), neuralgia (including headache and toothache). The list might be extended somewhat, but enough has been said to illustrate the principle that “fresh air, fasting, and exercise is Nature’s triple panacea” for the pain and discomfort experienced in a wide range of disorders
where the necessity exists for excreting poisonous elements, and resting the viscera concerned in alimentation. “This exasperation of irritation in the viscera, and for the most part in the ganglionic network about the stomach and liver,” says an eminent medical author, “is an invariable concomitant and cause” [of neuralgia, and all chronic nerve aches].