DIET. 241 
breeches were constructed on abstract principles by the pragmatic 
tailor at Laputa, these garments turning out therefore the worst 
suit of clothes ever had in the Captain’s life.” It will 
certainly prove a similar failure to overlook the numberless 
contingencies in the daily life, and the numberless personal 
peculiarities of those who seek advice about their diet, and 
daily regimen. Dr. Talmage, of New York City, preached 
the doctrine that a man’s food, when he has opportunities of 
selecting it, suggests his moral nature: “Many a Christian 
tries to do by prayer that which cannot be wrought except 
by correcting his meat and drink.” 
To sum up the whole question of a man’s diet, “ surely the 
teaching of pathology amounts to this, that the fortifying of the 
general resistance of the individual against illness, and disease, 
is the most important indication of all to be fulfilled. Real true 
advances in the prevention, and cure, of diseases always tend 
to simplification; and the truest fundamental therapeutic 
remedies are fresh air, sunshine, excellent plain food in ample 
quantities, and regulated exercises mainly out of doors. This, 
certainly, is the innermost purpose of what is now called the 
Sanatorium treatment.” Also, “the food of a nation,” writes 
Dr. Andrew Wilson, ‘is largely determined by its geographical 
boundaries ; dyspepsia seems to be often a matter of geography. 
The Northman can eat, enjoy, and assimilate what would 
certainly kill the Southerner; and conversely the food of the 
latter would fail to nourish the former. When one is in Rome, 
or South Africa, or Finland, it is best as far as possible to adapt 
one’s feeding arrangements to the environments, unless of a very 
temporary nature. This plan will be found to work out better 
than adherence to the customary home-diet rules. It is quite 
possible therefore to imagine persons who must perforce pursue 
a strictly careful dietary regimen at home, getting along 
famously well on biltong and coffee when settling down in South 
Africa.” 
** A widow has cold pye; Nurse gives you cake ; 
From gen’rous merchants ham, or sturgeon take. 
The farmer has brown bread, as fresh as day, 
And butter fragrant as the dew of May.” 
Art of Cookery (1708). 
A well-known physician of Bradford says (Medical Aphorisms) : 
“The meaning which doctors intend when enjoining care about 
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