3 66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



important item of school life. If this were so, what a vast differ- 

 ence it would make in the comfort, the health, and the well- 

 being of the individual; and with what a reserve of strength 

 he would, if properly nourished in early life, commence his strug- 

 gle with the world, whether that struggle involved physical or 

 mental work! 



In the first place, his frame would be properly developed, his 

 brain nourished, his digestive powers in perfect condition, and he 

 would not have in his daily work, literary or otherwise, or when 

 old age advances, to fall back upon stimulants to give him the 

 necessary appetite for his midday or evening dinner. Cicero 

 says, " To live long, it is necessary to live slowly/' When I say 

 that the physiology of food should form a part of every man's, 

 and, I may add, more particularly of every woman's education, I 

 mean that they should know what particular use each food is 

 applied to in the economy, and what particular food is suited for 

 intellectual work in contradistinction to muscular work; and 

 further, what particular food is best suited to the requirements 

 of the system in the different seasons of the year. Fewer wives 

 would be widows and children orphans if the mistress of a house- 

 hold adapted or ordered her husband's food to meet his require- 

 ments, and made it, or saw that it was made, tempting and pala- 

 table. But what obtains now in most middle-class households ? 

 The husband comes home to dinner weary and hungry to find 

 warmed-up meat, or a washy stew, awaiting him, or, worse still, 

 an underdone joint and half-cooked vegetables. Perhaps this 

 goes on day after day, and year after year, until some day or 

 other an illness occurs, and his constitution, exhausted for the 

 want of proper food to nourish his complex organism, succumbs 

 to it. 



In the houses of the very wealthy this state of things seldom 

 occurs perhaps it would be better if it occasionally did, for a 

 life of indolence and ease would be lengthened by occasional 

 starvation. Half the illness that occurs at one season, I think I 

 can safely say, is due to improper dieting taken at another. We 

 hear of people feeling weak in the spring, or suffering from those 

 different ailments due to malnutrition, such as boils, skin dis- 

 eases, obesity, or debility. Now this would not be so if the per- 

 son adapted his diet to his requirements and to the season. No 

 sensible person would think of keeping a large fire burning in his 

 room in the summer. If he did, he would undoubtedly soon feel 

 the effect of it ; but many a man who would feel himself insulted 

 if he were not thought a sensible person, will eat in the summer 

 to repletion foods the particular action of which is to supply 

 heat in excess. Perhaps I can not do better here than to explain 

 that the foods that are converted into heat that is, keep up the 



