DIET IN RELATION TO AGE AND ACTIVITY. 323 



than with them. And confessedly there is little or nothing new to be 

 said respecting a conclusion which has been so thoroughly investigated, 

 discussed, and tested by experience, as this. It is useless, and indeed 

 impolitic, in the well-intentioned effort to arouse public attention to 

 the subject, to make exaggerated statements in relation thereto. But 

 the important truth has still to be preached, repeated, and freshly 

 illustrated, when possible, in every quarter of society, because a very 

 natural bias to self-indulgence is always present to obscure's men views 

 of those things which gratify it. While, in addition to this, an exceed- 

 inly clever commercial interest of enormous influence and proportions 

 never ceases to vaunt its power to provide us with ' ' the soundest," 

 " purest," and most to be suspected of all with even " medically 

 certified," forms of spirit, wine, and beer ; apparently rendering alco- 

 holic products conformable to the requirements of some physiological 

 law supposed to demand their employment, and thus insinuating the 

 semblance of a proof that they are generally valuable, or at least 

 harmless, as an accompaniment of food at our daily meals. 



It is not, however, with the evils of " drink " that I propose to deal 

 here : they are thus alluded to because, in making a few observations 

 on the kindred subject of food, I desire to commence with a remark 

 on the comparison, so far as that is possible, between the deleterious 

 effects on the body of erroneous views and practice in regard of 

 drinking, and in regard of eating, respectively. 



I have for some years past been compelled, by facts which are con- 

 stantly coming before me, to accept the conclusion that more mischief 

 in the form of actual disease, of impaired vigor, and of shortened life, 

 accrues to civilized 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 the evil of that to be. I am not sure that a similar compari- 

 son might not be made between the respective influence of those 

 agencies in regard of moral evil also ; but I have no desire to indulge 

 in speculative assertion, and suspect that an accurate conclusion on 

 this subject may be beyond our reach at present. 



It was the perception, during many years of opportunity to ob- 

 serve, of the extreme indifference manifested by the general public to 

 any study of food, and want of acquaintance with its uses and value, 

 together with a growing sense on my own part of the vast importance 

 of diet to the healthy as well as to the sick, which led me in the year 

 1879 to write two articles in this review entitled " Food and Feeding." 

 And since that date fresh experience has, I confess, still enhanced 

 my estimate of the value of such knowledge, which indeed it is im- 

 possible to exaggerate, when regarding that one object of existence 

 which I suppose all persons desire to attain, viz., an ample duration 

 of time for enjoying the healthy exercise of bodily and mental func- 

 tion. Few would, I presume, consider length of life a boon apart 



