No one of these can act in the long run in other than a deleterious manner on the ethnic mind. There is nothing “compensatory” in any one of them or so little that it need not be reckoned.
1. Imperfect Nutrition.—It has been said broadly that all psychopathic and regressive conditions arise from malnutrition (Féré). This is true, in a sense, but does not carry us far in the direction of treatment. We ask a closer definition of origins.
There is no doubt of the intimate relationship of ample nutrition and intellectual progress; but while it is well to avoid the ancient notion of the independence of soul and body and that the former is superior to the latter, we must guard against the modern extreme of Buckle and his followers, that the history of nations can be traced to the food they eat. Man is omnivorous, and his well-being is nourished by food of any kind, providing it is nutritious and easily assimilable. The effort which has often been made to trace the character of tribes and nations to some prevalent diet—be it of fish or flesh, or vegetable products—is fanciful, and yields no positive facts. What does harm is not some particular kind but a general insufficiency of aliment.
Imperfect nutrition may be traced to three principal sources. 1. Insufficient or unsuitable food. 2. Lack of variety. 3. Improper preparation of food.
The careful researches of Collignon, Ranke, Ammon, and others have traced the stunted forms, defective bodies, and low intellectual development of the Lapps, the mountaineers of central Europe and the Bushmen of the Kalihari desert to one cause, la misére, lack of sufficient and appropriate food. This is certain to bring about degeneration of organs, incomplete development, and loss of brain power. Continued through generations, a hereditary taint is engendered which saps the vigour of the stock, and cannot be eradicated by improved conditions.
Unsuitable food is usually consumed on account of the scarcity of better material, but at times from a morbid craving. Examples are the unctuous clay which was swallowed by various tribes in America and Australia, and also by some of the “poor white trash” of Georgia. The ergoted rye and maize to which some of the peasantry of France and Italy are forced to have recourse exerts a disastrous influence on both body and mind.
But food may be ever so excellent in itself, yet unsuitable to the geographic and other conditions. The Eskimo thrives on blubber and raw fish; but such a diet in Ceylon would be as inappropriate as the Hindoo’s boiled rice for an exclusive diet in Greenland.
Lack of variety interferes with nutrition even when the food material itself is ample. By structure and habit man is omnivorous, and suffers when confined to a single article of diet. The blood becomes depraved and scorbutic symptoms often appear. Nations who mainly live on some one substance—rice, cassava, potatoes, etc.—suffer, lose their power of adaptation to their surroundings, as was remarked by Alexander von Humboldt, and are more liable to disease. Owing also to the partial sustenance thus furnished, the brain-cells are less progressive and energetic. There are nearly a score of chemical elements in the body, all of which must be supplied by the aliment if maximum physical health is to be attained and the highest energy and moral vigour are desired; for, although it is not correct to assert, as some have claimed, that the physical insures psychical perfection, it is undoubtedly true that the mind is never at its best in a feeble and sickly body. Dr. Johnson was more than half right when he argued that a sick man is a scoundrel!
A volume might be written on the influence of the preparation of food on national character. Cookery is one of the fine arts, and its development has been parallel with general culture. No tribe takes its food habitually raw. The Eskimo will freeze it first, the Tartar readies his steak by placing it beneath his saddle, and the African cannibal will soak his human morsel in water. Before pots or kettles were invented, the flesh was roasted over the fire or in trenches covered with hot coals.
Cookery renders food more assimilable, more digestible, and thus allows the brain a better chance to do its work. Frying hardens and soddens food, and the frying-pan is, therefore, an enemy to civilisation. Chewing coarse, hard, and uncooked food develops the muscles of the jaws and makes the face “prognathic,” an almost sure sign of intellectual inferiority, and directly connected with an unfavourable shape of the skull. The man who invented the mill was one of the greatest benefactors to his race. Condiments add to the digestibility of food and hold an important place in its preparation. Salt and pepper thus sharpen the intellect.