How to Diet Oneself.

Evening Star, Issue 6727, 8 October 1885, Page 4

How to Diet Oneself.

The action of the digestive organs has considerable influence over human affairs. It has a great deal to do with the degree of happiness which we can extract from our often rather dreary life in this world. The man who has a good digestion can meet a great many misfortunes with equanimity; is capable of a great deal more of hard work than the dyspeptic. It is, therefore, perhaps rather surprising that we do not study the requirements and capabilities of our digestive organs more than we do. Those who suffer from indigestion, or who wish to avoid having to suffer from it in later life, and who wish to increase their chances of living a long and healthy existence, will find an article by Sir Henry Thompson in the May number of the "Nineteenth Century" to be very interesting as well as instructive. It is entitled "Diet in Relation to Age and Activity." Some of the readers of that periodical may perhaps recollect that some five or six years ago the same eminent writer attracted considerable attention by two articles in the same magazine, entitled "Food and Feeding." Those articles were of general application. This article is more particularly directed to the needs of middleaged and elderly people. He commences by affirming that "it is rare now to find anyone well acquainted with human physiology, and capable of observing and appreciating the ordinary wants and usages of life around him, who does not believe that, with few ' exceptions, men and women are healthier and stronger, physically, intellectually, and morally, with- | out alcoholic drinks than with them." But this article is not intended to deal with the evils of strong drink, and he goes on to say that he has been compelled by facts "to accept the conclusion that more mischief in the form of actual disease, of impaired vigor, and of shortened life, accrues to civilised man, so far as I have observed in our own country and throughout Western and Central Europe, from erroneous habits in eating than from the habitual use of alcoholic drink, considerable as I know that to be. lam not sure that a similar comparison might not be made between the respective influence of those agencies in regard of moral evil also."

These are strong and startling statements, but they are entitled to great weight coming from so great an authority on this subject as Sir Henry Thompson. It will be comforting to many to learn that Sir Henry has no sympathy with any "dietary system which excludes the present generallyrecognised varieties of food." His remarks on vegetarianism are extremely sensible. He points out the effect of climatic conditions upon diet, showing, for example, that it would be absolutely impossible for an Esquimaux to subsist upon a vegetarian diet; while in very hot countries it is extremely desirable' that' an exclusively vegetarian, or almost exclusively vegetarian, diet should be adopted. He shows also the inconsistency of many vegetarians who imagine that they are living on vegetarian diet when they are living largely upon milk, eggs, cheese, and butter, all of which are animal products in a very concentrated form. During the first year of our lives we live upon our mother's milk most decidedly an animal product upon which we make a larger growth and a more important development than in any other year of our life. He states the great practical rule of life in regard to human diet to be to develop " the art of adapting food of any and every kind to the needs of the body according to the very varied circumstances of the individual at different ages, with different forms of activity, with different inherent personal peculiarities, and with different environments."

We have not space to follow Sir Henry Thompson through all the steps of his arguments. He shoAvs that while young, and if active and taking a great deal of exercise, and living much in the open air, a man can with comparative impunity indulge his appetite to the full. If he exceeds his capacity, an undesirable balance remains against him, which is probably rectified by a bilious attack and a few hours' misery. But after the first half of life has passed away, the system does not so readily relieve itself in this way. The unemployed material may be stored up either externally or internally in the form of fat, "if a faciity for converting appropriate material into fat is consistent Avith the constitution of the, individual." If not, the over-supply goes somewhere else to produce disease in the liver or in the form of gout or rheumatism and so forth, The moral

of the whole article therefore is " Don't take too much food, especially when you are on the shady side of thirtyfour." Yet the common superstition is that it is after that period that a great deal of nourishment is required. In this connection Sir Henry Thompson grumbles a 'good deal at the dentist. Nature, he says, by allowing the teeth to fall out and decay, as man gets into years, shows that she has not intended him to eat as much flesh as formerly. Yet the dentist steps in, supplies him with a new set of teeth, which he then proceeds to dig his grave, with by eating as much flesh as when he was young and active Of course Sir Henry admits the benefits of false teeth for the purpose of vocal articulation and improvement of ; personal appearance. All he wishes is that they should be; chiefly valued. and used for the last-mentioned purpose; Unlike many would-be authorities on questions of dietary, Sir Henry Thompson does not lay down any hard-and-fast rules applicable to everybody. On the contrary, he maintains that any such hard-and-fast rules must be mischievous, Everyone must decide for himself what and how. much he should eat, having regard to his own particular circumstances of constitution, habits, arid so pn. The grand rule, however, is to be careful not to take into your system more nutritious food than you, having regard to your habits and constitution, can consume. It is, as we have said before, comforting to us in this Colony, as meat producers, to know that Sir Henry Thompson does not inveigh against meat as an article of diet in moderation. It is pretty generally admitted, however, that we New Zealanders, as a whole, use more meat than is good for us. We eat far more than our English friends and relatives do, and we have not the same excuse for doing so, for our climate is far milder, and we could more easily nourish our systems on a vegetable diet. Subjects like this are not trivial. The dietary of a man affects his morals, his affections, and consequently to a considerable extent determines his lot in Ufa —»Press.'