Science.

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 359, 26 March 1903, Page 7

Science.

PASTING IS A FAD >§fj<&fjjl HEN Mark Twain wrote a paper rtySjA describing his experiocce with VM*I&P the 'Appetite Cure' in Germany, and urged upon his countrymen the desirability of missing a nual occasionally, he was generally applauded as a M humocrist at his best, says the 'New York Times. That of course, is the fate of the writer, whose profession is the joke. Mr. Clemens' account of the appetite cure was, of course, made readable by the flash*s of fun with which he would doubtless illuminate a serious treatise on pathology if he happened to write one. But that his story of recovered appetite was essentially in earnest was never questioned by scores of amateur fasters. To their minds, in fact, he was not so much adorning a tale as he was ornamenting the obvious. Merely to miss a meal was with them such a trifling circumstance and at the same time so plainly conducive to reviving the attentions of the dormant inner man, that to doubt the true import of the tale did not for a moment occur to them.

That the jaded appetite can be brought by this method lo an immediate appreciation of what it owes its owner can be demonstrated with littlo inconvenience and absolutely no outlay. But the fastera go further. They are not a few in number, and in adherence to the doctrin '* of the empty stomach they range in hLoit and in degree of fortitude from the two-meals-f>-day man to the imitators of Dr. Tanner's memorable exploit There is a Go-Without-Breakfast Club, for instance. Several years ago a hygienic 'crank' in New York announced that in order to be truly healthy the stomach should not have any work to do in the morning. He recommended delaying the hreakfast hour till nooa, and, strange to say, he soon had a considerable following. Instead of dying out, the idea has spread, and to-day there is a large number of persons in New York who devoutly believe that working all morning on an empty stomach is the one road to physical salvation. They live up to their belief, too, and there is at least one health journal which stoutly champions their views.

But the members of the Go-Without-Breakfast Club are almost gluttonous compared with the abstemious followers of the western man who eats but one meal, in the middle of the day, and who has written a book about it. Tisoae who follow in his footsteps are likewise addicted to the wholesale habit of lingering long and law&gly over every mouthful. It was the practice of Gladstone to chew every morsel of food some thirty-odd times before swallowing it, but Mr. Gladstone would to-day be reckoned rather a hasty eater by these slow-chewing Americans, who even go so far as to masticate fluids. It is said that a man who will devote himself for an hour or so to eating a raw onion in this way may afterward go forih among his fellow-beings with the assurance that he will not be shunned. whisky thus chewed makes the subsequent clove or coffee grain wholly unnecessary. --, *

Fasting Becoming Populab. When Dr. Tanner had entered upon his memorable fast, physicians expressed the opinion that while he might continue to live at the expiration of the forty days, his health would be permanently injured. He was then assured that if he broke the fast with a hearty meal, he would certainly die. But he did eat heartily, and his health did not suffer from either fasting or feast. It was Dr. Tanner wbo advocated an occasional fast of a day or two for everybody who wished to keep in good condition. But it is only within the last two or three years that fasting has come to be almost popular. One hygienic teacher in New York who has a large following prescribes abstaining from food as a means of recovering from most maladies, and he himself has undergone long periods of fasting. And he is only one 01 a number who counsel this treatment of the inner man, and whose advice is heeded.

One person intimately known to. the writer, and who has always eaten three meals a day, took it into his head while on a vacation last summer at tho seashore, to fast absolutely for forty-eight hourß, as a cure for an attack of spinal neural<ia, He did not otherwise change his habits, but walked, read, and wrote, and even bathed in the surf as usual. The neuralgia did disappear, and so did two pounds of his weight; but while he was sure that he could trace the loss of flesh to the fast, he never has been able to make up his mind abut the neuralgia, as it was due to go anyway. Still, he rather plumed himself on what he regarded as a remarkable experience, until he found that many others had done the same thing. And when he read about a student at one of the western colleges who fasted for a week while pursuing his s'udies, the forty-eight hour man concluded that he was only an amateur, niter all. Nor has he tried it a?ain. Another man of mature years, whose home is in Chicago, underwent the 'fasting cure* almost to the point of mental frenzy. His condition in thiß respect seemed serious, but those who know him aver that he speedily recovered his normal mental powers, and with them a degree of physical health he had not known in years. The human machine is a queer thing, and it will probabty be some time to come before accredited human science disentangles the truth from the multitude of theories as to the proper fuel for that machine in kind and quantity. The ultra abstemious eaters point with conviction to the example of tne Romans, who during a long pericd of their history really did limit themselves to what was practically one meal a day. But the tasters' most formidable authority is Mark Twain.