108 THK HOMK, FARM AND BUSINESS CYCLOPEDIA. 



food and eating of more than one dish at a meal, if moderation were <n 

 Ixtth CUM* tu be air idly observed, for the relish to be thus obtained is use- 

 ful as promotive of the flow of nervous energy to the stomach, exactly in 

 the same manner as cheerfulness is useful. The policy which would make 

 food in any way unpleasant to the taste, is a most mistaken one ; for to eat 

 with languor, or against inclination, or with any degree of disgust, is to 

 lose much of the benefit of eating. On the other hand, to cook dishes 

 highly, and provoke appetite by artificial means, are equally reprehensi- 

 ble. Propriety lies in the mean between the two extremes. 



BEVERAGES. The body containing a vast amount of fluids, which are 

 undergoing a perpetual waste, there is a necessity for an occasional supply 

 of liquor of some kind, as well as of solid food. It remains to be considered 

 what is required in the character or nature of this liquor, to make it serve 

 the end consistently with the preservation of health. 



When the digestion is good and the system in full vigour, the bodily 

 energy is easily sustained by nutritious food, and " artificial stimulent only 

 reases the wasting of the natural strength!' Nearly all physicians, in- 

 deed, concur in representing ardent liquors as unfavourable to the health 

 of the healthy, and as being in their excess highly injurious. Even the 

 specious defence which has been set up for their use, on the ground that 

 they would not have been given to man if they had not been designed for 

 general use, has been shown to be ill-founded, seeing that vinous fermenta- 

 tion, from which they are derived, is not a healthy condition of vegetable 

 matter, but a stage in its progress of decay. Upon the whole, there can 

 be little doubt that these liquors are deleterious in our ordinary healthy 

 condition ; and that simple water, toast water, whey, ginger beer, or lemon- 

 ade, would be preferable (the first being the most natural and the best of 

 all), if we could only consent to deny ourselves further indulgence. 



CLEANLINESS. 



To keep the body in a cleanly condition is the third important requisite 

 for health. This becomes necessary in consequence of a very important 

 process which is constantly going on near and upon the surface of the bod} 7 . 



The process in question is that of perspiration. The matter here con- 

 cerned is a watery secretion produced by glands near the surface of the 

 body, and sent up through the skin by channels imperceptibly minute and 

 wonderfully numerous. From one to two pounds of this secretion is 

 believed to exude through these channels or pores in the course of 

 twenty-four hours, being in fact the chief form taken by what is called the 



