THE HYGIENE OF NUTRITION 209 



classes of food-stuffs is used more freely than formerly, 

 it is the carbohydrate group. 



Protests against overeating and the advocacy of few 

 and simple foods have been heard from time to time all 

 along the course of history. More than one recent com- 

 mentator on these movements has cited the story of the 

 captive Israelites in Babylon. The four young men who 

 excelled all other members of the king's household were 

 those who had substituted a diet of cereals for the meat and 

 wine that were urged upon them. They were the proto- 

 types of Sylvester Graham and Horace Fletcher. The 

 general teaching that less food should be eaten is very 

 often coupled with an approach to vegetarianism, if not 

 its downright adoption. 



An earlier reference has been made to Graham. He was 

 a gifted and well-educated New Englander, born in 1794 

 and dying in 1851. Fitted for the ministry, he employed 

 his great talents as a public speaker, chiefly in the temper- 

 ance cause and in support of his dietetic doctrines. His 

 "Lectures on the Science of Human Life," published in 

 1839, constitute an impressive work. He had a large 

 following, and is said to have injured the trade of the 

 butchers in some localities to such an extent that he was in 

 danger of mob violence at their hands. Aside from his 

 extreme recommendation of the inclusion of husks and 

 bran with food, he taught practically what we are continu- 

 ally hearing at the present time : that the diet should be 

 limited in quantity and variety, that it should be unstimu- 

 lating, and that it ought to be eaten "slowly and cheer- 

 fully." 



In our own day we have become used to the claim that 

 most men would attain to better health and greater effici- 

 ency if they would reduce their rations by 25 per cent, or 

 more. Conditions of life which were formerly held to war- 

 rant individual allowances of 2500 or 3000 Calories are 

 now said to be met by the supply of 2000 or even of 1800 

 Calories. The most authoritative statements to this effect 

 have come from the physiologists of the Sheffield Scientific 



14 



