3 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ister a glass of cold water, and, my life for yours, that on Monday 

 morning the little glutton will be ready to climb the steepest hill in 

 the county. But stuff him with liver-pills, drench him with cough- 

 sirup and paregoric, and in a month or two he will not be able to 

 satisfy the cravings of the inner boy without " assisting Nature " with 

 a patent stimulant. 



But is it fair to denounce a palliative when the radical remedies 

 have lost their efficacy ? What dietetic reform can avail a man to 

 whom oatmeal-gruel has become a poison ? How can he invigorate 

 his system by exercise if he is hardly able to support himself on his 

 legs ? The asthenic stage of the disease can reach a degree when the 

 mere suggestion of gymnastic enterprises is enough to produce a fit of 

 nervous spasms. I have known of dyspeptics who would not have 

 crossed a room to save a pet bird from the claws of a cat, and who 

 would have joined an expedition to the north pole as soon as to the 

 skating-ring. Theirs is a sad plight, for a rule that holds good of 

 unnatural habits in general applies more especially to the chronic es- 

 tablishment of dietetic abuses, namely, that the further we have strayed 

 from nature, the longer and wearier will be the road of reform. Be- 

 fore the invalid can restore the health and vigor of his system, he has 

 to restore his capacity for exercise. The first object is to create a 

 healthy demand for nourishment. Under normal circumstances that 

 demand is proportioned to the amount of the organic expenditure. 

 The nursing females of the mammalia require a larger amount of 

 nourishing diet than the ordinary wants of the system would account 

 for. During the age of rapid growth, children eat and digest as much 

 as hard-working men. Diabetes, the first stage of consumption and 

 other wasting diseases, is characterized by an exorbitant appetite. 

 Every increase of muscular activity involves an augmented demand 

 for nourishment ; cceteris paribus, the man who walks a mile from his 

 shop to his home will digest his supper more easily than he who takes 

 the street-car. The hotel-boarder who makes it a rule to walk up 

 the four flights of stairs to his attic will sleep sounder, and awaken 

 more refreshed, than he who uses the elevator. 



But the far-gone dyspeptic who is incapable of an active effort has 

 to begin with a passive method of natural stimulation the refriger- 

 ation-cure, based on the tonic influence of cold air and cold water. 

 Voracity increases with the distance from the equator. An Esqui- 

 mau eats a quantum that would crapulate three Hottentots and six 

 Hindoos. A cold winter curtails the profits of boarding-houses. 

 Camping in the open air whets the appetite even without the aid of 

 active exercise. A bracing temperature exacts a sort of automatic 

 exercise : it accelerates the circulation, it promotes the oxidation of the 

 blood, and indirectly stimulates the whole respiratory process.* The 



* " Why should sickness prevail during the warm, pleasant weather so much more 

 frequently than during the cold ? The reason appears to me very plain. The cold weather 



