CHAPTER XVII.
The Banting System.—A Quaint Author.—Trials of Corpulency.—Result of Living on Sixpence a Day.—Indifference of Doctors.—A Wise Surgeon.—Relation of Glucose to Obesity.—Diet for Stout People.—No Starch, no Sugar.—Losing Flesh at the Rate of a Pound a Week.—“Human Beans.”—Humors of Banting’s Tract.—His Gratitude.—Honors to Dr. Harvey.—One Day with Dives, the Next with Lazarus.—Bromide of Ammonia.
Request is often made for the details of Mr. Banting’s system of reducing flesh. The popular idea of the writer, whose modest pamphlet has linked his name with the system he observed, is very like the caricature of the dry modern savant. The severe scientist who keeps his child for years without fire or clothes to demonstrate the superiority of human beings to cold, or who throws a new-born baby into a tub of water to prove that the race can swim by nature, should not be mentioned on the same page with the kindly enthusiast of the letter on corpulency.
There is no evidence in its pages that the writer ever tried authorship before. He was over sixty-six years old, when, in a burst of gratitude for his relief from the burden of too much flesh, he took up his pen to tell his fellow-creatures of help for those who suffer a like infliction. The quaintness of his pages reminds one of Izaak Walton, from his opening sentences, where he declares, “Of all the parasites that affect humanity, I do not know of, nor can I imagine, any more distressing than that of obesity”—an opinion with which all his fellow-sufferers will agree. He is fond of terming his grievance a parasite, and the name slips out with a frequency which is like the echo of objurgations hurled at his infirmity. Being called to account for it later, he meekly declares that the word is used wholly in a figurative sense. His state might have justified a stronger epithet. No parents on either side, to use his own phrase, ever showed a tendency to corpulency, but between thirty and forty he found the habit growing upon him. His physician advised violent exercise, and he took to rowing. Finding his flesh increase, he consulted “high orthodox authority (never any inferior adviser), tried sea air and bathing, took gallons of physic and liquor potassæ, always by advice, rode horseback, drank the waters of Leamington, Cheltenham, and Harrowgate”—doses enough, we should think, to have disgusted him with life forever—“lived on sixpence a day, and earned it, at least by hard labor, and used vapor-baths and shampooing,” without any help for his infirmity.
The rich gentleman found his position, the good things of this life, his houses, horses, and friends, small enjoyment, save as they lessened the increasing burden life heaped upon him. He was obedient and intelligent in using every means of relief suggested, but his doctors were of very small use to him. As he pathetically says, “When a corpulent man eats, drinks, and sleeps well, has no pain and no organic disease, the judgment of able men seems paralyzed.” His state was pitiable, and there are too many companions in distress who answer to the same picture. He could not tie his shoe, and often had to go down stairs slowly backward, to save the jar of increased weight on his ankles and knee-joints. Low living was prescribed, and he followed it so heartily that he brought his system into a low, irritable state, and broke out in boils and large carbuncles, for which he had to be treated and “toned up” in a way that brought him into heavier condition than ever.
He speaks feelingly, yet with simple dignity, of the trials which stout people endure, being crowded in cars and stages, uncomfortable in warm theatres and lecture-rooms, besides finding themselves the butt of ridicule, or, at least, the object of remark. The last caused him for many years to give up public pleasures. Many persons, as they read, will have cause to reproach themselves, for those who are considerate of every other species of human infirmity fail to recognize the real suffering of those who carry a load of flesh. A sensitive person encumbered with adipose feels keenly the glances, if not the smiles, which follow his entrance into a public vehicle. It is a test of delicacy for others to appear unconscious of his infirmity.
When Turkish baths came into fashion, Mr. Banting tried them, with the result of six pounds’ loss after taking fifty baths, which was not encouraging, though they have been of service in other like instances. In August, 1862, his case stood thus: He was nearly sixty-six years old, five feet five inches high, and weighed over two hundred pounds. He went to no excess in eating or drinking, his diet being chiefly bread, beer, milk, vegetables, and pastry. Flesh impeded his breathing, his eye-sight failed, and he lost his hearing, yet most of the doctors he went to for relief considered his trouble of no account, as one of the accompaniments of age, like wrinkles and gray hairs. The faculty are to blame for overlooking such a foe to human comfort.
Mr. William Harvey, Surgeon of the Royal Dispensary for Diseases of the Ear, was the first person wise and considerate enough to prescribe a remedy. He reasoned from M. Bernard’s accepted theory of the product of glucose as well as bile from the liver. Glucose is allied to starch and saccharine matter, and is produced in the liver by ingestion of sugar and starch. The substance is always present in excess both in diabetes and obesity, and it struck this eminent surgeon that the same dry diet which drains the excess of glucose in the former disease might be of service in the latter. Abstinence from food containing starch and sugar reduces diabetes, and accordingly he prescribed it for his patient. He was to leave off all bread, milk, butter, beer, sugar, and potatoes, besides other root vegetables, as these contain the largest amount of fat material.
Yet the diet allowed was liberal. Breakfast was four or five ounces of beef, mutton, kidney, broiled fish, and any cold meat except veal and pork; a large cup of tea without milk or sugar, a little biscuit—i. e., crackers—or an ounce of dry toast.
Dinner: five or six ounces of any fish except salmon, herring, and eels, which are too fat; any vegetables but potatoes, beets, parsnips, carrots, or turnips, green vegetables being especially good; an ounce of dry toast; the fruit of a pudding; any poultry or game; two or three glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira, but no champagne, port, or beer.
Tea: two or three ounces of fruit, a rusk or two, and a cup of tea without milk or sugar. Supper, at nine: three or four ounces of meat or fish, and a glass of claret. Before going to bed, if desired, a nightcap of grog without sugar was allowed, or a glass of claret or sherry.
This was comfortable compared to his former diet, which was bread and milk for breakfast, or a pint of tea, with plenty of milk and sugar, and buttered toast; dinner of meat, beer, bread, of which he ate a great deal, and pastry, of which he was fond, with fruit tart and bread and meat for supper. Yet on the liberal diet his flesh went down at the rate of more than a pound a week for thirty-five weeks.
He explains his belief that certain food is as bad for elderly people as beans are for horses, and thenceforth he calls the forbidden food “human beans.” He suffers himself to make a little mirth over the enemy that held him in durance so long. We can well believe he would “scrupulously avoid those beans, such as milk, beer, sugar, and potatoes,” after he had groaned a score of years from “that dreadful tormenting parasite on health and comfort.” He sensibly writes his opinion that “corpulence must naturally press with undue violence upon the bodily viscera, driving one part on another, and stopping the free action of all.” He calls Mr. Harvey’s system “the tram-road for obesity,” and says, “The great charm and comfort of this system is that its effects are palpable within one week of trial.”
He protests that he found not the slightest inconvenience in the probational remedy, which reduced his girth twelve inches and his weight thirty-eight pounds in thirty-five weeks. He could go up and down stairs naturally, and perform every necessary office for himself without the slightest trouble; his sight was restored, and his hearing unimpaired. In token of his gratitude, he gave the doctor, besides his fees, the sum of £50, to be distributed among the hospital patients. To prove the reality of his dedication of his letter “to the public simply and entirely from an earnest desire to benefit his fellow-creatures,” the editions were distributed gratuitously in hopes of reaching his fellow-sufferers from flesh. He was eager that they should find the relief which to him was rapturous. It must have reached some cases, for more than 58,000 copies had been issued at the date of this edition. The author was urged to sell his work, even if the proceeds were given to the poor; but with the sensitiveness of a man not used to appear in public, he says, “On reflection, I feared my motives might be mistaken.” In giving the credit of this system to Dr. Harvey, we are sure of obeying the wishes of the author, who speaks of his benefactor with extreme gratitude, and says, “He has since been told it is a remedy as old as the hills, but the application is of recent date.” He thinks any one who suffers from obesity may “prudently mount guard over the enemy, if he is not a fool to himself.” He was so far delivered from his malady as to indulge in the forbidden articles of food; but says, “I have to keep careful watch, so that if I choose to spend a day or two with Dives, I must not forget to devote the next to Lazarus.”
No medicine was given with this diet save a volatile alkali draught in the morning during the first month. This was probably the bromide of ammonia, which is of great use in reducing an over-amount of flesh.