The truth is that, to a very great degree, we build our bodies out of blood made from impure materials: (1) in part from food depleted by cooking or improper cooking, (2) in part from substances which, as all are agreed, can be “indulged in” only to a limited extent (who can define the limit?), (3) in great measure, from fermented, instead of well-digested food;—and having thus built up “fossil” bodies (still more fossilized by the use of unnatural drinks which “prevent the waste of tissue”), there must be sickness. There is no escape from it, except by a “right about face.” The zymotic, and the various acute diseases, so called, are in point of fact acute remedies for chronic disease.

CHAPTER XII.

WHEAT-MEAL VS. “ENTIRE FLOUR.”

Without doubt, certain brands of “whole-wheat flour,” so called, are a great improvement over the article in universal demand among poor and rich alike, the white flour of commerce, in this: they are, when made by honest manufacturers, less impoverished than the white flours. In public and in private, I have advised their use instead of white flour, but solely upon the ground that the wheat is less robbed of certain of its invaluable constituents in the former; but I can not conceive it possible to separate the hull from the kernel without real loss, even if the hull were, in itself, objectionable, which, so far from being true, is, in my opinion, a mistake and a very serious one. The theory upon which the objection to the outside coat of the grain rests, is that this coat is composed of woody fiber, entirely indigestible and devoid of nutritive matters, and, worst of all, say these honest objectors, the hulls are coarse, sharp-edged, and irritating to the stomach and intestines, and therefore injurious in their action, especially in the case of “sensitive and delicately organized individuals.” I will not stop to discuss the question as to the propriety of the phrase sensitive and delicately organized, as applied to the class of poor, suffering wretches who by reason of their gross habits—and I mean simply the dietetic habits of the people, not the mechanic, the artisan, the small trader, nor yet the factory hand, nor the wretched poor, but the human race, from the kings, queens, and presidents all along the line—who by reason, I repeat, of the universal system of diet, have become dyspeptic. I can not, however, forbear the remark, that the most sensitive and delicately organized individuals, among the most noble of all animals next to man,—and in some aspects far superior to him,—the horse, in his finest and most delicate state, finds a perfect food in the whole grain, chewing it himself. I may be, in the minds of some, weakening my argument by comparing the digestive apparatus of man with that of the horse, but I am desirous of impressing upon the minds of my readers the well-known but imperfectly considered fact, that our horse-fanciers,—who dote on their hundred-thousand-dollar animals, and who would place before them the most costly and complicated dishes, certainly would feed them on the finest and whitest of flour,—“Imperial Granum” even, at drug-store prices, if it were desirable, or even not pernicious in a health point of view,—really keep their dearest pets on bread and water; and that, because of this, and the absence of all the hot, stimulating articles, solid or fluid, indulged in by their owners, and their regular and moderate diet of uncooked food, and their superior hygiene in certain essential matters, our thorough-bred horses are generally saved from becoming fat, sick, mean, wheezy, or dyspeptic, like their masters and mistresses, men, women, and children.

We know that the microscope shows up the ragged edges of the hulls and gives them a fearful aspect; but if the microscope could reason, and if it was given to arguing all questions submitted to it, I fancy it would speedily silence these objections to wheat-meal, so far as they rest upon the matter of the coarseness and the irritating capacity of the hull, by asking the microscopist to take a little glance at the stomach itself: an internal view of the digestive tract would disclose the fact that, even in the case of the most “sensitive and finely organized” subject, the lining of the stomach, for example, bears a stronger resemblance to a quartz mill than do these terrible hulls to sticks and stones. The trouble has been with those who seek to improve too much over Nature’s methods, and especially is this the case in the question under discussion, they have reasoned mainly from one side of the question. Machinery has accomplished no end of good things, and without doubt has even greater victories yet in store, in its legitimate field; but that field is not in the line of improving on the food that Nature provides for us humans. It can and does improve over the old methods of sowing, reaping, threshing, and cleansing the various grains—no one desires to dispute this; but when the ripe, clean kernel of wheat, for instance, is placed before us, the office of machinery is ended, except so far as crushing the grain for those whose teeth or temper will not admit of chewing it. A shrewd though illiterate stable keeper said to me, in advocating whole, instead of cracked corn for horses and cattle, “it gets the juice of their teeth, and does them twice as much good. Give them meal, or cracked corn, and they don’t have to chew it long enough to get the right action of the saliva.”

People who neglect the most obvious hygienic rules, thereby bringing upon themselves sickness and pain, and search for special articles of diet that may seem to promise relief, remind me of a junk-dealer who would pass by old stoves, pots, kettles, and crowbars, and search for a needle in a hay-stack! The theory of the anti-wheat-meal men seems plausible at first sight, and it has been held, temporarily, by some very sound men; but one after another these have dropped it as untenable. To be sure, the ranks are kept full by new recruits, who join faster than the thinkers fall out. There are a thousand dyspeptics for every discerning man, and, in any event, all such—all persons, in fact, are to be congratulated when they adopt a compromise in the shape of fine flour which claims to give them all the essential elements of the wheat, and yet save their “delicate” and sensitive stomachs needless labor and irritation. But I find that the class who are saving lives constantly, hold to the entire meal as the only means of securing perfect bread—the staff of life.

Says Oswald: “We can not breathe pure oxygen. For analogous reasons bran flour [whole meal] makes better bread than bolted flour; meat and saccharine fruits are healthier than meat extracts and pure glucose. In short, artificial extracts and compounds are, on the whole, less wholesome than the palatable products of nature. In the case of bran-flour and certain fruits with a large percentage of wholly innutritious matter, chemistry fails to account for this fact, but biology suggests the mediate cause: the normal type of our physical constitution dates from a period when the digestive organs of our (frugivorous) ancestors adapted themselves to such food—a period compared with whose duration the age of grist-mills and made dishes is but of yesterday.”

This doctoring of the cereals can never prove of service in the end, except to the manufacturers and dealers; these “preparations,” however honestly made, and supposing for argument’s sake that the machinery accomplishes what the manufacturers intend, will never, in and of themselves,—i. e., except so far as they take the place of white flour—prove beneficial to mankind, and least of all to sick people, valetudinarians, and the sedentary classes,—the very ones who need the best. Imagine a constipated dyspeptic, with a heavy fur coat on his tongue, and, of course, a heavier one on the lining of his stomach—his entire alimentary canal so covered with this morbid growth that digestion and absorption are well-nigh prohibited—alarmed lest the microscopic particles of wheat-hulls should injure his delicate and sensitive inwards! “Delicate!” “sensitive!” why, it takes half a cupful of salts to move them, and that but faintly, while a pint of strong coffee makes no impression; when if they were even normally sensitive a tablespoonful of the former, or a single cup of the latter, would purge them violently. Sensitive! they are dead, or at least dying. Why, for this class of patients, I would sooner add the straw than remove the hull, as better calculated, by all odds, to meet the necessities of their condition. On the other hand, when the disease assumes the opposite form—when the tongue is raw, and the intestinal tract acutely inflamed, and from any cause preternaturally sensitive—there is but one thing in the Materia Medica of Nature that is absolutely fit to swallow, and that is pure water. (See Chronic Dyspepsia.) It matters not what else is comforting, temporarily,—medicine, gruel, beef-tea, milk, or what not,—the comfort and advantage are derived solely from the water, which constitutes three-fourths to nine-tenths of the whole; the other elements being injurious, and, often enough, fatal, preventing as they do the healing of the inflamed mucous membrane.

CHAPTER XIII.

FRUIT.

It is with difficulty that one who comprehends the question can restrain his impatience when people talk about the danger of indulging in fruit in summer or at any other season. “Better leave an order on the doctor’s slate,” says the would-be wit, when his friend passes with a watermelon or some early apples or peaches. As spring and summer come along, fruit is altogether natural, even if it does come from a little further South. That is one of the advantages of having railroads. These unwise people who dare not eat fruit, or eat it sparingly, while they stick to their winter diet of meat, grease, pastry, coffee, etc., are the ones who have the cholera morbus and other equally ridiculous things. It sometimes happens that these good people have had a “scare” in this fashion: one eats an excessive meal of fat and lean meats, old vegetables, with plenty of gravy, etc., all hot and heating, and calculated to create a febrile condition of the system, and insure an “attack” of indigestion. He has also eaten a piece of watermelon or other fruit—the only pure, natural substance appropriate for the time he has swallowed for the day. If, under these circumstances, he is routed at midnight, he declares he will never eat another piece of melon as long as he lives! It may be that the fruit, if he ate liberally of it, was the exciting cause of the clearing out that otherwise might not have taken place just then; if so, he should congratulate himself that he has been saved a later attack that might have cost him his life. Had he eaten double the quantity of fruit on an empty stomach, providing his system was in decent condition, there would have been no startling consequences. The stomach which refuses to accept raw fruit, or with which it does not “agree,” is like that of the drunkard which rebels against pure water. When anyone has become diseased to that degree the sooner he begins to reform his habits the better. In 1863 I was captured by the Confederates and marched out of Brazier City, La., and taken to Shreveport. When captured, I had diarrhœa—the result of a flesh-food diet, wine, and all the “good things of life.” The disease became chronic, and I was near dying. The melon season was on (it was in July), and in sheer desperation, ignorant of the benefits to result from it, rather expecting disaster, I ate freely of watermelon. For eight or ten days I took no other food or drink, but with this I filled myself twice a day, and a return to perfect health was the result; all trace of bowel trouble had disappeared. I have since had many opportunities for observing the benefit arising from the use of watermelon and nothing else, in diarrhœa, upon various persons, young and old, and I have never observed any harmful results from its use; though it is often made the scapegoat, as indicated above.

In a certain little borough in a neighboring State there was little or no fruit, not even apples, to any amount. There was a great deal of sickness every summer—diarrhœa, dysentery, fevers, etc. One enterprising resident planted an orchard—a generous one in size—and its owner was generous also. He didn’t watch the neighbors’ children very closely—not as closely as he did his own—and true to boys’ instincts they hooked apples, green apples, little bits of apples, hard and sour, and they ate them freely. The children of the owner of that orchard did not eat green apples, for their father, although believing in fruit, thought it must be ripe to be “healthy.” His children had the regularly recurring summer complaints, but the little apple-stealers did not. Without doubt fruit is more truly wholesome ripe than green; and I would here remark, that the craving for vegetable acids which these boys had, and which most children experience, would not be felt if they were properly fed at home. Still, one may eat too much even of fruit: “gold in the morning, silver at noon, and lead at night,” might better be changed to diamonds, gold, and silver; and but for other considerations, unappreciated by those who fancy that it is “heavy” at eve, there would be a restriction in almost anything at the last meal sooner than in fruit. Careful observers have remarked that fruit is a prophylactic, and is also curative, taken on an empty stomach, but is likely to promote indigestion if added to a hearty meal of mixed food.[63] This is one way of saying: after having already over-eaten, or having eaten enough, eat nothing more. Surely any kind of fruit added would be less injurious than to swallow another plate of the soup, fish, or meat. The old Roman gluttons used to take an emetic after dinner; and in this country it has been the custom in times past with some, and it is not altogether obsolete even now, to take a “dinner-pill” before or after the principal meal. The morning draught of “seltzer” or other laxative, so common at the present day, serves the same purpose; and those people who, after obstinate constipation, feel comparatively happy over a violent purging from some form of artificial physic, are the ones who warn against using much fruit, because, upon some occasion, it may have performed a similar service, though without any of the injurious effects of the drugs. In warm weather the diet may well consist largely of fruit and succulent vegetables. Scrofulous children, especially, might live solely on fruit for days together, with great advantage. Such children should live in the open air as much as possible, and their sleeping-rooms should have the most thorough ventilation. If their noses and ears run in consequence of “exposure,” never forget that these poisonous matters are better out than in, and that whatever aids in their elimination is curative. A simpler and purer diet will prevent the formation of catarrhal or scrofulous matters. Any degree of restriction in the matter of air and exercise can only be counteracted by a corresponding restriction in diet; but a generous allowance of all three is the safest rule. Sedentary persons, loiterers at the mountains or by the sea, can not easily make the proportion of fruit too large, even if during a torrid wave they eat little else. It should be taken at the regular meal hour only, to insure the greatest degree of health and comfort, should be thoroughly masticated, and the quantity may be just short of causing pressure at the kidneys, or flatulency, yet enough to prevent thirst. Three meals might then be indulged in with safety. The heavy dishes—meats, gravies, greasy articles, hot condiments, pastry, hot stimulating drinks—things that even in winter, in this climate, are only tolerated, and that but poorly, are deadly now, as the mortality reports, and lists of those who are said to have succumbed to the heat, attest. Moreover, for every one who pays the penalty with his life, tens of thousands are lying or sitting about, suffering the tortures of the damned, often; and all for a few minutes extra palate-tickling, or unnatural indulgences, rather,—for, leaving out the really unseasonable articles and condiments, they might revel in ripe fruits with comparative impunity. He is a poor student in dietetics, a thoughtless observer, even, who can not so regulate his eating as to regard summer as the most agreeable season of the year,—the most comfortable,—who can not bid defiance to the heated term and laugh at the danger of “sunstroke” though running a foot-race under the noonday sun. Calorific food, superadded to the predisposition already existing, is the real source of these strokes in every instance, the external heat furnishing, to be sure, the “last straw.”

CHAPTER XIV.

THE ONE-MEAL SYSTEM.

In this note I propose to do little more than record a few instances, out of many, of persons who have lived for longer or shorter periods, and continue to live, on one meal a day, and let my readers draw their own inferences, merely remarking that these cases have a very great significance as bearing upon the question of the quantity of food best suited to nourish the body and promote health. Dr. Abernethy, a celebrated English physician, affirmed that “one-fourth of all a man eats sustains him; the balance he retains at his risk”; but his countrymen eat four meals, at least.

The case of Mrs. Solberg, an emaciated dyspeptic, whose restoration to health was accomplished by the one-meal vegetarian diet and “a change of air” (at home), is mentioned in the chapter on Malaria.

S. N. Silver,[64] of Auburn, Me., a hard-working mechanic, has, for upwards of three years, lived on the one-meal-a-day plan. He eats at night, after resting sufficiently from his day’s work. He never eats more than seven meals per week, not even so much as an apple between meals; and on Sundays, unless he takes considerable exercise, his “meal” consists of fruit only—three or four apples, for example. He is a typically healthy young man, and has not in three years experienced a moment of physical inconvenience. He is a vegetarian, and lives wholly on simple, pure food, chiefly bread and fruit.

Mrs. Wieman, a sister of the above, has, for upwards of a year, taken but one meal a day, although she prepares three hot meals for her husband and several boarders. She does the entire household work for her family, which during the past summer consisted of nine adults. Her one meal (taken at noon because the regular dinner is at that hour and furnishes a better variety) is no more in amount than her dinner formerly, when she took breakfast and supper in addition. She is a perfect specimen of robust health, and finds that she can now perform with ease an amount of labor which formerly would have been a severe tax, even if possible to accomplish. Her diet is mainly vegetarian; she eats but little meat, and that only because it is constantly before her; and she avoids white flour and most forms of pastry altogether, as well as hot stimulating drinks, condiments, spices, etc., although her table is bountifully supplied with all such things.

Still another of this family, a busy milliner, has lived in this manner for several months, and finds herself improved in health by the means.

Aside from the immense amount of knowledge gained through vivisection—through dead animals, I may say—the lives of the lower animals teach us what to do, in some respects, as well as what to avoid. Alas, for humanity—claiming such superiority—in both classes there are important lessons which are not generally learned and practiced. As bearing upon the one-meal system, I will let Capt. B., an old hunter, tell his experience with his fox-hound: “The old fellow,” said the Captain, “knows when I am going on a tramp as well as my wife does—when I turn out for a hunt, in the morning—and he won’t touch a mouthful of food.[65] I used to try and ‘fool’ him, by acting as if I wasn’t going out at all, and sometimes I could get him to eat breakfast. But I never try that game now, for I noticed, after a while, that when he fixed himself, he did better work than when I managed to get a breakfast into him.” “How so?” I asked. “Why, he is a better dog; he runs better, scents better, barks better, and comes in at night in better shape. And then, if we walk home, he gets pretty well rested and has his ‘breakfast’ before a great while; or, if we ride, he has it as soon as we get home; and (if it is cold weather) I let him lie in the sitting-room an hour or two after he eats, and then he will go to his kennel and sleep all night, and without trembling; and he turns out next morning in good shape for another tramp, if called on.” “Do you ‘fix’ yourself in the same manner?” I could but ask. “Not much,” he replied; “I eat before I start, and take a lunch along; but I don’t know but the old dog has the best of it, after all.” As a matter of fact, the aged dog is like a sprightly youth still, while his master, at middle-age, is a decrepit old man.

The importance of rest after meals has never been fully appreciated by people in general. Even those who advocate the need of it, have usually,—perhaps because of the difficulties in the way of demanding more,—asked for only a half, or a whole hour; while it is the popular belief that “exercise after eating promotes digestion,” and the fact is cited that Sunday is, to the laborer, the worst day of all the week,—a day of leisure, affording ample time for digestion, if that is all that is required. But that is not all. The “bad feeling” which comes on after the second meal on Sunday—the “Sunday headache,” of which so many complain—results from the radical change of habit from the six days of hard labor: accustomed as he is to digesting a large part of his three meals together, at night, after he has earned them, physiologically speaking,—that is, after his labor has provided the digestive fluids in the blood, by means of which his food is dissolved, and made ready for absorption into the circulation,—when Sunday, with its leisure, and possibly even more than usually excessive indulgence, comes, instead of having the blood diverted to the general muscular system, as the result of active labor, it is called to the stomach and the circulation becomes overcharged with nutritive material. Hence lethargy, tendency to sleep, headache, etc.

The fact is,

EXERCISE AFTER EATING

by preventing digestion, often delays or modifies the ill-feeling which would otherwise be experienced shortly after over-indulgence at the table. Hence gentle exercise in the open air will prove the least of two evils; an emetic, the best of all remedies. The liquids[66] being to a great extent absorbed, plethora is prevented or delayed because the solids remain undigested in the stomach! But this solid residue, favored by the internal temperature, begins to ferment, after a time, and causes more or less irritation and congestion of the mucous lining of the stomach, which gives rise to the sensation popularly called “hunger”; and thus every few hours, and when the patient impatiently awaits the call to dinner and thinks himself most in need of food, he is, in fact, in the very worst condition to take it. Ninety-five persons in every hundred have this disease (for it is nothing less than chronic dyspepsia) throughout life. The fact that the meal affords immediate relief argues nothing against this position; it is the seventy-five or eighty per cent. of water contained in and taken with the meal that relieves the congestion. It forms a poultice, so to say, for the congested mucous membrane of the stomach; but unfortunately it can not, as when applied externally upon a throbbing sore thumb, for example, be removed when it becomes dry. We see this disease at its worst in infancy, when meals are most frequent and excessive.

Jules Virey settled the question, as it seems to me, regarding the effects of work after eating. He took two dogs of same size, age, and general physique; gave both a fast-day, and then treated them to a square meal, alike in quantity and variety. One was sent to his kennel, while the other was permitted to follow the carriage which conveyed the doctor on his rounds. After the coach-dog had had two hours and a half of (not vigorous, but gentle) exercise, and immediately on his return, the doctor had both dogs slain and dissected. The kennel-dog had thoroughly digested his breakfast,—not a trace of it was found in his stomach,—while with the other, the work of digestion had not even begun; the mutton cubes and potato chips remained intact, precisely as when first eaten. It is evident from this that the rule, “Never eat until you have leisure to digest,”[67] is a good one, and that for a hard-working person (what man or woman works as hard as the enthusiastic hunting-dog?) the one-meal-a-day system would often prove the best,—indeed, in some instances, this would be the only means of preventing sickness. We may not know in how many instances the laborer digests his breakfast, dinner, and supper together (or about all that he does digest) after he is in bed for the night. Any approach to such a state is provocative of disease.

The dyspeptic’s dreams, which disturb his sleep, rob him of needed rest, and often cause him to wake more tired than when he went to bed, would be banished, or at least favorably modified, if, at the close of his day’s work, after sufficient rest from the fatigues and cares of the day, he were to take his well-earned ration, and, after a period of recreation, if there still remained time for this, go to his bed.

Another instance I will mention, that of the man who may almost be called the father of hygiene in this country. He says: “I have tested the sufficiency of eating once in twenty-four hours [he has himself lived on this system for eleven years, and continues so to live; and has, besides, tested its advantages upon patients in certain forms of disease] and have done work enough to put a much younger man to his trumps if he had to do it. My food is very simple; I do not eat more at one meal than almost any person eats who takes three meals a day; I keep my body well built up in flesh and in vigor of muscle, considering that incurable organic difficulties render great muscular activity impracticable. I keep up my own strength, and have held in check my constitutional conditions so that I have reached old age” [72 years].

I could mention a score or more of similar instances; and, as stated elsewhere, no person ever tried the plan and found occasion for abandoning it, except from considerations utterly remote from health. In fact, under certain circumstances, as in travelling, this system is a most beneficent one; it makes a person independent of railway restaurants and lunch-counters; for at some time during the day, usually, as at night in a good hotel, one can obtain, if not always a really hygienic meal, still a comparatively good one.

With reference to the amount of food to be taken at the single meal, I have observed this: those who would be termed hearty eaters, on the three-meal system, will usually eat no more at their one meal than formerly at dinner alone; some, indeed, find much less than this suffices to sustain them in the best manner. This is largely due, however, to the superior quality of their diet, since people of this class invariably become, practically, vegetarians and, withal, use a large proportion of bread, a pure nutrient, instead of flesh, a nutro-stimulant. The amount of food taken, under any circumstances, will depend largely upon one’s views as to the true office of eating.

In the case of a certain class of dyspeptics who, while going to the table three times every day, yet do not eat, all told, a single satisfactory meal; who in the entire year, perhaps, scarcely know the comfort of eating a full meal, and who live on in this manner year after year, the one-meal system would banish their nausea and lack of appetite within a reasonable time, and, in some instances, such persons would eat, and with a relish long unknown to them, more food every day than they now force down at their three or more attempts at eating. There would also result a corresponding improvement in their general health, more especially if this reform were accompanied by others, when needed, as to fresh air and exercise.

Says Dr. Nichols, of London, who speaks with knowledge, from having tested it: “The one-meal-a-day system will largely increase any person’s working capacity.”

CHAPTER XV.

THE NATURAL DIET.[68]

As the result of personal experience, my mind having been called to the subject by the successful experiment—if, indeed, it can be regarded as an experiment,—of a very intelligent and worthy family in Southern California, I am convinced that the “natural diet,”—uncooked cereals[69] and fruit,—is the diet par excellence, as regards strict purity, digestibility, and efficiency. Not only is much less of it required to maintain the normal weight and strength, but it is in other regards superior. One thought I will suggest, in this connection, and one which is more significant, I believe, than many persons would at first consider: raw grain, as all are aware, will “keep” indefinitely under fair conditions; while cooked, it “spoils” in a day or two. The former is more readily and more thoroughly preserved from undesirable changes in the alimentary canal; hence less liability of indigestion. Such portions of whole grain as may be swallowed without mastication, will pass on and out without danger of the putrefactive changes which result from an excess, or deficient mastication of cooked food. Regarding the gustatory pleasure to be derived from a diet of this sort, while it is less seductive to the abnormal appetite, still, even here, no individual really needing food would find this disagreeable, though reference were made solely to whole wheat, masticated with the aid of good teeth; or to the meal, mixed with nice fruit juices or the fruits themselves, when, from unnatural living, the teeth are badly decayed. Our teeth would not fail us if, from childhood, we used them, and our food furnished the material to build and maintain them.

Were I to enumerate the foods at present eaten raw by all of our millions of people, less surprise would be felt by my readers at the suggestion of restricting one’s diet to such articles as are agreeable in their natural state. Take, for example, apples, pears, peaches, grapes, oranges, etc.; all of the plums; bananas, dates, figs, raisins; cabbage, lettuce, celery, radishes, etc.; and to this list might well be added sweet corn, and the common variety of green corn, and peas; few people but find the latter delicious to their taste, and the corn is as much more crisp and juicy and wholesome raw than cooked, as are peaches or pears. I know individuals who were never fond of corn, would never eat it until happening to try a fresh young ear au naturel, who now use it freely every summer. This would be the case with very many, if not most people, if their prejudices were cast aside. I have named only a few articles of a few classes, but any one can extend the list at pleasure, adding walnuts, almonds, filberts, etc., etc. Unfortunately these raw foods have been commonly used as surfeit dishes, delicious articles that we can eat after having already over-eaten, and when more steak, potatoes, and gravy, or pastry, would, perhaps, send a shudder throughout the frame, and, often enough, when an emetic would be a more wholesome dessert than even walnuts and raisins. Let any one, first arranging for a clean stomach by skipping supper the previous night, try a breakfast consisting of a couple of bananas, one or two dozen walnuts (or any sort preferred), with a handful of nice raisins,—both the nuts and raisins being thoroughly masticated, the latter to the point of well crushing the stones,—ending, or beginning, the seance with oranges, and, at night, the second and last meal, of favorite fruits, beginning with a small portion of “oat groats” or wheat, (of course any other choice may be made, a dozen, or a score, indeed, from week to week,) taking care to exercise enough to “earn” his food,[70] and see if this principle of alimentation will not cure his disorders, whatever they may be. It would end the wretched business of “colds” and “hay-fever” which, according to the Boston Herald, a noted American divine says, “will make a man forget his God, the Bible, and everything else—but his disease.” Even the common hygienic diet, so called, and abstemious living, would make such blasphemy impossible, and would make a better man of the great London preacher, for example,—Mr. Spurgeon,—who recently wrote to a friend, and, apparently without the least shamefacedness: “My old disorder has come upon me like an armed man and laid me low. I can not walk or even stand, and the pain renders it difficult to think consecutively upon any subject.” And this with reference to a disorder (the gout) caused by eating and drinking unwholesomely—the injury being augmented, directly and indirectly, by the use of tobacco or wine. Mr. Spurgeon’s weight is fifty, if not seventy-five pounds greater than is normal for him, considering fully his natural physique, and the use he makes of his muscular system. He may be in the habit of restricting his appetite; he may eat much less than most of his associates, and even be esteemed a small eater and very abstemious; nevertheless his form is gross, and he has the gout—two unimpeachable witnesses to the truth of my position.

“We can not doubt,” says Dr. Oswald, “that the highest degree of health could only be attained by strict conformity to Haller’s[71] rule, i.e., by subsisting exclusively on the pure and unchanged products of Nature. This view is indorsed (indirectly) in the writings of Drs. Alcott, Bernard, Schlemmer, Hall, and Dio Lewis, and directly by Schrodt, Jules Virey, and others. In the tropics such a mode of life would not imply anything like asceticism: a meal of milk and three or four kinds of sweet fruits, fresh dates, bananas, and grapes, would not clash with the still higher rule, that eating, like every other natural function, should be a pleasure and not a penance. Heat destroys the delicate flavor of many fruits, and makes others indigestible by coagulating their albumen. But,” continues this authority,—and I am not disposed to dispute the soundness of the position, speaking generally (as, indeed, Dr. Oswald, himself, was speaking),—“in the frigid latitudes, where we have to dry and garner many vegetable products in order to survive the unproductive season, the process of cooking [some classes of] our food has advantages which fully outweigh such objections.” To the very rational assumption that, “few men with post-diluvian teeth would agree with Dr. Schlemmer that hard grain is preferable to bread,” I would reply, that for people who could not or would not grind their own grist, as do our most robust animals—well nourished, but hard-working draught or road horses—the whole-wheat meal, freshly and coarsely ground, with a light dressing of rich milk,[72] or, more wholesome still, eaten with nuts and thoroughly masticated, is more delicious than bread, even if made from the same quality of Graham. If the Graham be taken dry, with a few raisins at each mouthful, it would require a fine taste to distinguish between this and the walnuts and raisins so generally acceptable to epicures. If the milk dressing is used, it should simply be poured over the (unsifted) Graham, and not made into a batter. With a dish of Graham as described, and such fruit as can usually be obtained all the year round, either fresh or (in winter) dried, as apples, raisins, dates, figs,[73] prunes (the last, like dried apples, peaches, etc., soaked not overmuch, but until tender), one may make a meal sufficiently delicious, and at the same time absolutely pure—if the milk is derived from a healthy creature. And here I would remark, that although cow’s milk is a strictly natural food for the calf only, still, if the cow be properly fed (not “driven,”[74] as is the custom in dairies) and the milk properly cared for—kept free from air vitiated by the emanations of decaying vegetables, meats, or other source of impurity, but open[75] in a pure atmosphere—few need abstain altogether from this most delicious food. Nevertheless, no one may feel at liberty to drink milk copiously, as water: calves, babies, etc., whose natural food it is, take it slowly and “chew” it thoroughly! We may well take a hint from this. (See Biliousness.)