290 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
Hippocrates said, in an aphorism, that “‘ the younger a human 
being is, the easier is it starved, until we come to extreme old 
age, when the powers of life are considered by some physiologists, 
Celsus among the number, to give way more quickly under 
famine than those of middle-aged men.” Again, a nutritious 
diet, and a plentiful increase of good constructive food, are 
indispensable for children, hitherto badly fed, among the poor, 
who are found to suffer from inflammation of the eyes as to their 
outer membranes, with some ulceration thereof. To treat such 
cases medicinally whilst restricting the diet, would be a lamentable 
mistake. It is also an assured fact that certain physical troubles, 
such as corns, and enlargements of the toe-joints, with cold feet, 
each from a gouty condition, will improve under diminished 
food, the enlargements of the toes become lessened, and the 
peeling of the outermost skin, by removing the hardened hyper- 
trophied growth, whilst forming a sounder tissue beneath, 
enables well-fitting shoes, or boots, even smaller than before, 
to be worn with comfort. Corns, and likewise certain cancerous 
indurations about the lips, or elsewhere, are actual overgrowths 
of the outermost skin, and they both arise fundamentally from 
an excess of certain materials in the blood; considering which 
we may conclude that to cure these evils we should restrict the 
diet accordingly. For example, a man, forty-eight years of 
age, who had lessened his daily food in order to mitigate, or 
cure, bronchitis, and asthma, combined with rheumatism, (in 
which endeavour he was altogether successful), became much 
surprised to find that the corns (hard, and soft) from which he 
had suffered for many years, altogether disappeared likewise 
under this code of treatment. Of course, corns are indirectly 
the effect of pressure from outside by tight, or ill-fitting shoes. 
But any direct pressure would of itself make the skin thinner, 
just as pressure tends to wear out a boot-sole; whereas the 
indirect effect of pressure on living tissues is to thicken them 
through excessive nutrition; so says Dr. Rabagliati in his 
Book of Aphorisms. 
The great Duke of Wellington looked upon physic, and 
much food, as things equally objectionable, and to be avoided. 
“ All my life,” he declared, “I have taken as little medicine 
as I could; and I have always eaten, and drunk, as little as 
possible.’ Saint Francis of Assisi once, when obliged to dine 
at the sumptuous table of a rich gourmand, instead of eating 
