Instinct Far Superior to Reason.
Here, as everywhere, instinct is far superior to reason, and a breakfast diet of sausage and buckwheat cakes with maple syrup and strong coffee has carried the white man half around the world; while one of salads and cereals, washed down with a post-prandial subterfuge, would leave him stranded, gasping, in the first ditch he came to.
All the basal problems of dietetics were, by the mercy of Heaven, settled long ago in the farmhouse kitchen, in the commissary department of the army in the field, in the cook's galley amidships, and in the laboratory.
There is little more room for difference of opinion upon them than there is about the coaling of engines. Simply a matter of size of boiler and fire-box, the difference in heating power and ash between Welsh and Australian, and the amount of work to be got out of the machine, multiplied by the time in which it is to be accomplished.
Dr. Hutchinson proceeds to give reasons why spices do not heat the blood, why pork is a most excellent food, why fish is no better for the brain than other things, why vegetarianism is a mistake, and so on. His principal caution is not to eat in a hurry; his principal advice is, virtually, to eat whatever seems to agree with you.
All of which brings to mind the story of the old dyspeptic who, after a long term of misery, one day apostrophized his stomach thus:
"I have humored you for many years. I have coaxed you, coddled you, petted you. I have gone hungry to please you. I have swallowed bad-tasting medicines on your account. I have been your servant—but now I am through. From this time I will eat what I please and drink what I please. If you protest, I shall ignore you. Hereafter you are the servant, I am the master. Now make the best of that!"
This brave man's stomach, we are told, was so thoroughly cowed by the words that it never again demanded a milk diet.