DIETETIC CURIOSITIES. 721 



has been made for it throughout the whole region on both sides of the 

 sun, if perchance it might be seen at the periods of its greatest distance. 

 Perhaps not a day has passed for the last twenty years, but that the 

 sun has been examined at one point or another of the globe, observed 

 with the greatest care, sketched in all its details, even directly photo- 

 graphed. 



The hypothesis of a single body comparable to Mercury, gravitating 

 in close proximity to the sun, and on a plane probably little inclined to 

 the solar equator, seems to us to be so open to objections as to be unten- 

 able. Still, the mathematical theory of universal attraction proves that 

 there is a cause for the retardation observed in the motion of Mercury, 

 and that this cause can not be found by augmenting the mass of Venus 

 — a quantity now determined with great exactitude — but must be sought 

 for in some disturbing mass between Mercury and the sun. But this 

 mass may not be a planet worthy of the name of planet ; it may consist 

 of a great number of asteroids like the minute fragments which gravi- 

 tate between Mars and Jupiter — asteroids so small that oftentimes they 

 escape the notice of observers of the sun and of eclipses, though some of 

 them may be large enough to be seen under certain rare conditions. 

 This latter theory is the one which we adopt. 



DIETETIC CUKIOSITIES. 



By FELIX L. OSWALD, Ph.D., M. D. 



I. 



MAN is what he eats " (Der Meusch ist was er isst) is a German 

 proverb, the propriety of which may be chiefly alliterative, 

 though the apothegm of our greatest English physician goes even fur- 

 ther: "If we could solve the problem of diet," Dr. Radcliff'e tells us, 

 "it would almost amount to the rediscovery of paradise. Wrong eat- 

 ing and drinking, and the breathing of vitiated air (which is gaseous 

 food), these form the triple fountain-head of nearly all our diseases 

 and our misery." 



Even a great doctor is fallible, especially on his hobby, but it is not 

 easy to deny the importance of a subject which can assert itself by such 

 dire argumenta ad hominem as dyspepsia, congestive chills, and other 

 penalties that follow swifter now than in old times on any violation of 

 the physical laws of God. Love of health or fear of sickness (which 

 diflfer as ancient from modern civilization) has always made the ques- 

 tion of diet one of primary interest ; yet there is certainly none about 

 which doctors disagree more widely. It is amusing to compare the dif- 

 ferent food-theories which have been cherished like plans of salvation 



