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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Sept. 1. 



the past twenty-five years of experimenting 

 and study: 



You go to the butcher's and get some of his 

 very best round steak. Wait till he has sliced 

 off the shoulder until he gets down to where the 

 bone is small. Tell him to cut you a slice fully 

 an inch thick. Now remove all fat, gristle, and 

 every thing but lean meat, (iet an Enterprise 

 meat-grinder, small size, with recent improve- 

 ments. Put the lean meal through three times; 

 and then have it cooked on any good gridiron, 

 or even with the five-cent wire meat- broilers, 

 to be had in every counter store. The patient 

 is to take the meat hot. just as it comes from 

 the fire. Season with salt, pepper, and a little 

 butter. Decide by experiment how much you 

 can eat and digest thoroughly, and have that 

 fixed quantity at every meal. 1 began with 6>.2 

 ounces three times a day. vSix ounces would 

 have been hardly enough, and 7 ounces is a little 

 too much. Thus you see there is no possible 

 overloading of the stomach or digestive organs. 

 As you progress, increase the amount gradual- 

 ly until you can take 10, 13, and even up to 16 

 ounces or more. Your meat is to be taken at 

 regular hours. You probably will not forget 

 when it is time to have your regular rations. 



I soon found that my weakest spell was in 

 the morning, because I get up a little after five 

 and start several kinds of business before John 

 and Ernest get around. On this account I 

 have three ounces of beef at 10 o'clock, besides 

 my three other rations. I go to bed at half- 

 past 8 or 9, and sleep soundly— more so than I 

 ever did before — until Mrs. Root wakes me at 

 10 o'clock. This 10-o'cIock meal prevents me 

 from getting faint in the morning before my 

 regular meal at half-past 6. Now, please no- 

 tice I do not have a crumb of bread, a particle 

 of fruit or vegetables — no sugar, not a drop of 

 milk in the half-cup of tea T am permitted to 

 have with my meat. Right here I presume a 

 part of my readers — may be nine-tenths of 

 them— will say. "Oh 1 get out with your lean- 

 meat diet to the exclusion of fruits, milk, and 

 honey. Brother Root, we shall think you are 

 the worst crank there is going if you continue 

 to talk such nonsense." Hold steady, friends. 

 If you are well and ivarin, and your food agrees 

 with you, by all means eat the fruit and milk 

 and honey, and thank Gnd for them. If you 

 are a dyspeptic. and especially wedded to nervous 

 chills as I have been, I think you had Isetter 

 listen a little further. Lean meat is almost the 

 only article of food that is digested entirely in 

 the stomach. Look it up in your physiologies, 

 if you think I am wrone. Where one has 

 chronic dyspepsia, or a tendency toward chronic 

 dysentery, his life may depend upon giving the- 

 lower intestines a rest. Vacations are very 

 fashionable nowadays; in fact, they seem to be 

 the rage almost everywhere. Why not give 

 your digestive apparatus a vacation, or at least 

 that part of it? I believe the thing is entirely 

 possible. From the very first meal of this pul- 

 verized or rasped beef, as you mijrht term it, 

 my bowels began to feel rested. The hubbub 

 and turmoil and distress stopped right awaii. 

 In fact, for weeks past I should not have known 

 I had any " Insides " at all, so far as any sensa- 

 tion is concerned. The effect was reallv 

 marvelous. I should not have thought it possi- 

 ble had I not tried it. 



Let us now consider tlie drink part. I will 

 repeat a part of the conversation the doctor and 

 I had together. 



" Why. doctor, I did not know you restricted 

 your patients to the amount of lean beef they 

 must eat. Dr. Salisbury used to tell me to eat 

 a pound at a meal if I could; and I did succeed 

 in eating a pound just as it comes from the 

 butcher." 



" Well, that might have done for you 2.5 

 years ago, but I think we have a better way 

 now. You must not overeat, even with lean 

 meat." 



" But, doctor, I can have all the pure water 

 I want to drink, can I not'? " 



" You can at stated periods. Three hours 

 after any or every meal you may drink all the 

 water you choose, but no cdld water. Take it 

 as hot as you can drink it conveniently. I 

 should like to have you drink at least a pint— a 

 quart would be better. The first thing to be 

 done is to wash and cleanse and rinse your 

 whole digestive apparatus. Y'ou want to bathe 

 it out thoroughly every day, and four times 

 every day if you can. If you can not have 

 your hot water within 2)4 or 3 hours after each 

 meal, and, say. an hour or an hour and a half 

 before getting a meal, then skip it— don't have 

 it at all. Your beefsteak will be digested and 

 out of the stomach in from 2Vi to 3 hours. If 

 you drink the water sooner, or drink very much 

 during your meals, you will diiute the gastric 

 juice, and hinder or stop digestion. Cold water 

 especially will do this at your stage of the 

 disease. You may have noticed it." 



I told him that I had for years been deciding 

 I could not drink cold water during mealtime; 

 and I felt better to take almost no liquid at all. 

 I had also learned that water (especially ice 

 water) within, say, an hour after my meals, 

 stopped digestion, and gave me much distress. 

 I told him how often I had been parched with 

 thirst during attacks of dysentery, but did not 

 dare to drink a drop, as it was so sure to dis- 

 tress me. He told me I would find at such 

 times I could drink hot water — as hot as it 

 could be taken into the mouth — without any 

 distress ; and I then remembered that, while in 

 Florida, a friend persuaded me to try drinking 

 a good lot of hot water as a remedy. Strange- 

 ly enough it gave me almost immediate re- 

 lief. 



You may be a little surprised to find that 

 one very soon learns to relish hot water. At 

 first I thought it would be more palatable with 

 acid phosphate or a little ginger, or something 

 of that kind, added to give it flavor; but now I 

 greatlv enjoy my pint or quart of pure soft hot 

 water four times a day. I take the first dose at 

 five o'clock in the morning, so as to get it an 

 hour and a half before my breakfast. 



In a recent number of the Oliio Farmer a 

 writer suggests that horses will do a greater 

 amount of work if a heavy watering is given at 

 10 o'clock in the forenoon, and between 3 and 4 

 in the afternoon. He says horses so treated 

 will keep in flesh and strength with less food. 

 I suppose another watering the last thing at 

 night would be in proper order. Give them a 

 little between times if you choose; but let tliem 

 do the main part of their drinking, as nearly as 

 you can, midway between feeding-times — lean- 

 ing, of course, a little toward the coming feed, 

 and a little further from the last one. By the 

 way, tliis hot- water treatment is now so gener- 

 ally known and adopted by people in poor 

 health that perhaps this explanation is hardly 

 needed. I thought it a little hard when the 

 doctor said I must not drink at springs and 

 wells on my wheel-rides. If I continue riding, 

 perhaps these drinks of even cold water would 

 do but very little harm; but I am inclined to 

 think now' that hot water at pretty nearly the 

 times mentioned would be much safer and bet- 

 ter. Oh ! I forgot to mention that, in about four 

 days. I began to dispense with my extra clo- 

 thing, and the neuralgia and cold in my head 

 suddenly disappeared in a very unexpected way. 

 In a week I was around in my shirtsleeves: in 

 ten days I put on thinner clothing, and dis- 

 pensed with the flannel chest-protector that I 



