Naturally, I was very much interested in all these statements, and our conversation branched into various departments of the curative art. I was considerably amused by Principal Grey’s information relative to the Dietetic Hospital, as fine a building as any I had yet noticed in Andersonia.
The patients in this hospital were nearly all people in physical health, and they pursued their ordinary daily avocations with a cheerfulness which I had never before observed in an institution patronised solely for its curative properties. The Dietists, as they were called, resorted to this hospital in search of cures for mental and moral failings, and implicitly obeyed the specialists who sought to effect their cure by means of a wise and judicious selection of food.
Thus the violent tempered found their nature considerably modified and sweetened, after being for a few months subjected to a daily diet in which a peculiarly prepared carrot-soup was the pièce de résistance. Nervous disorders were very few here, but the slightest suspicion of a tendency to be nervous or fidgety was provocative of a temporary flight to the hospital, which, owing to the speed and cheapness of the water-cars, was easily accessible to every denizen of the island. Green peas and scarlet runners were prohibited to those whose natural tendencies ran in a choleric direction, since they were held to be provocative of violent temper.
On the other hand, dried peas and lentils were high in favour, as they were said to impart good humour. The fat and frivolous were dieted partially on turnips, in order to curtail their physical tendency to ponderosity, and their mental leaning towards superabundance of spirits. To cabbage a thousand virtues were ascribed, and the idea that the consumption of animal food produced coarseness of mind and body was responsible in great measure for the disgust with which the foreign habit of flesh-eating was regarded.
Knowing what I now did of the peculiar religious beliefs of New Amazonians, I could easily conceive that the most scrupulous attention would be paid to dietetic and sanitary matters, since a healthy body was supposed to facilitate the perfecting of the spirit, and its final glorification.
The importance attached to diet and sanitation reminded me forcibly of the old Mosaic laws, and I enquired if great importance was attached to the Testamentary records of Ancient History handed down to us in the Bible.
“Certainly,” replied the Principal, very emphatically, “but we also heed Herodotus and Josephus; and our greatest classical work on ancient history has been compiled by twelve New Amazonian savants, who compared all come-at-able records with such strict impartiality and absence of special bias, that we flatter ourselves upon possessing the most accurate and reliable records of ancient history extant.”
“But you surely reverence the Bible?”
“Yes, we reverence it, most assuredly. But where historical accuracy seems to be slightly at fault, we are not above being instructed from other sources.”
“Then what do you think of Moses as a historian, as a law-giver, and as a general?”