THE HUMAN STEAM ENGINE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXIX, Issue 3742, 15 January 1907, Page 3

THE HUMAN STEAM ENGINE.

- - Dr. Osier’s Recipe for a Life

of Happiness.

Professor Osier, the “too-old-at-forty” scientist, delivered a lecture at the Working Men’s College at Camden Town on a recent Saturday evening, in which he compared the human body to a steam engine. “The engine wants fuel,” he said, “so does the human body. But give them the wrong sort and both cease to work.

“ While the engine has only one furnace, and a large one, the human body consists of myriads of little furnaces —that is cells.

“ Milk was the original food of man, not meat. Many people get on without meat if they eat porridge, which is just as good, but the trouble is that most people eat too much of both, and so injure the works. “Vegetarianism is all righ tin its way, but vegetarians are not always as robust mentally as physically. The human engine is frequently put out of repair by people who persist in eating improperly cooked food, added to which they make the mistake of chewing and digesting improperly. ‘ ‘ Like locomotives, people are made to last a certain time, and, like them, they require repairs. Small repairs can be done inside but for large repairs they have to go to the doctor. Sometimes this is successful, sometimes not.” On the subject of alcohol and tobacco .professor Osier proved himself to be revolutionary in the extreme.

“ Throw-all. the beer and spirits into the Irish Channel, the English Channel, and the North Sea tor a year,” he exclaimed,” and the people in England would be infinitely better. It would certainly solve all the problems with which the philantrophists, the physicians have to deal. “ Do you suppose you need tobacco ? On the day alter you had dumped all the tobacco in the sea you would find that it was very good for you and hard tor the fishes. Tea and coffee, like alcohol and tobacco, are really not necessary: they merely disturb the furnaces of the body.

In conclusion, the professor pleaded for the simple life, with plenty of fresh air and lots of good, hard work, as the only means of attaining comfgrt and peace-