PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER. 365 



PROPER DIET FOR HOT WEATHER. 



By Dr. N. E. YORKE DAVIES. 



THE Englishman is very conservative in his ideas and averse 

 to change in his mode of life, at all events so far as his diet 

 is concerned, and it would not be going too far to say that he is 

 averse to change even where the change is for his good in this 

 respect. The manners and customs of generations gone by with 

 regard to eating and drinking, are the manners and customs of 

 the present age, with this exception that, of course, the refine- 

 ments of cookery have brought into requisition many delicacies 

 in the way of dishes unknown to our forefathers. The maid of 

 honor in these days does not drink, or have allowed her, a gallon 

 of ale, as did those of the time of " Good Queen Bess," for her 

 breakfast (it is to be hoped she did not consume it), for she 

 now drinks tea or coffee, then unknown. But though her appe- 

 tite may be the same as in those days, and doubtless even in 

 maids of honor is, custom has altered its constituents. The exi- 

 gencies of season compel the individual to dress differently win- 

 ter and summer, so as to equalize the warmth of the body; and 

 to a certain extent most people do this, but it is very apparent 

 that it is the discomfort of feeling the cold that induces them to 

 put on in winter a different kind of dress to that worn in summer. 

 A man would look very absurd if during the summer and the hot 

 months he was seen out wrapped in furs and thick clothing ; but 

 though, as I have pointed out in one or two former papers on 

 diet, the heat of the body is better and more perfectly equalized 

 by the food that is taken than by its external covering in the way 

 of clothes, few people adapt their diet to any particular season of 

 the year or its temperature. The ordinary individual eats the 

 same breakfast, lunch, and dinner in spring, summer, autumn, 

 and winter the same routine of bread, meat, puddings and the 

 majority of the more wealthy classes consume almost identically 

 the same food, only, perhaps, more delicately manipulated in our 

 time by culinary art. It does not seem to enter into the calcu- 

 lations of the middle-class cook, or the aristocratic chef, that 

 there is such a thing as the physiology of dietetics. His aim 

 seems to be to furnish a substantial or delicate meal, pleasant to 

 the palate, utterly regardless of the dietetic value of its constitu- 

 ents, and whether they are more particularly adapted to hot or 

 cold weather. Eating is considered by many, whose intellectual 

 attainments ought to teach them better, almost a religious duty, 

 an irksome one, it is true, as some would say, but one that neces- 

 sity compels them to perform. My own opinion is that the physi- 

 ology of food should be taught the rising generation as an 



