CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



there must be need for a larger allowance, but 

 only to a small extent. We may thus arrive at a 

 tolerably clear conviction of the reality of that 

 excess which is said to be generally indulged in ; 

 for certainly most grown people who have the 

 means, not excepting many who pursue very 

 sedentary lives, eat much more than twenty-five 

 ounces. 



The interval between rising and breakfast ought 

 not to be great, and no severe exercise or task- 

 work of any kind should be undergone during 

 this interval. There is a general prepossession to 

 the contrary, arising probably from the feeling of 

 freedom and lightness which most people feel at 

 that period of the day, and which seems to them 

 as indicating a preparedness for exertion. But 

 this feeling, perhaps, only arises from a sense of 

 relief from that oppression of food under which 

 much of the rest of the day is spent. It is quite 

 inconsistent with all we know of the physiology 

 of aliment to suppose that the body is capable of 

 much exertion when the stomach has been for 

 several hours quite empty. We have known many 

 persons take long walks before breakfast, under 

 an impression that they were doing something 

 extremely favourable to health. Others we have 

 known go through three hours of mental task- 

 work at the same period, believing that they were 

 gaining so much time. But the only observable 

 result was, to subtract from the powers of exertion 

 in the middle and latter part of the day. In so 

 far as the practice was contrary to nature, it would 

 likewise, of course, produce permanent injury. 

 Only a short saunter in the open air, or a very 

 brief application to business or task-work, can be 

 safely indulged in before breakfast 



Variety of Food. 



A judicious variation of food is not only useful, 

 but important. There are, it is true, some 

 aliments, such as bread, which cannot be varied, 

 and which no one ever wishes to be so. But 

 apart from one or two articles, a certain variation 

 or rotation is much to be desired, and will prove 

 favourable to health. There is a common pre- 

 possession respecting one dish, which is more 

 spoken of than acted upon. In reality, there is 

 no virtue in this practice, excepting that, if rigidly 

 adhered to, it makes excess nearly impossible, no 

 one being able to eat to satiety of one kind of 

 food. There would be a benefit from both a daily 

 variation of food and eating of more than one dish 

 at a meal, if moderation were in both cases to be 

 strictly observed ; for the relish to be thus obtained 

 is useful, 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 reprehensible. 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 aliment. It remains 



726 



to be considered what is required in the character 

 or nature of this liquor, to make it serve as a 

 beverage consistently with the preservation of 

 health. 



It is scarcely necessary to remark how men in 

 all ages, and almost all climes, have indulged in 

 liquors containing a large infusion of alcohol, or 

 how wide-spread in our own society is the custom 

 of drinking considerable quantities of wine, spirits, 

 and beer, both at meals and on other occasions. 

 Against habits so inveterate, it is apt to appear 

 like fanaticism to make any decided objection ; 

 yet the investigator of the laws which regulate 

 health is bound to consider, above all things, how 

 any particular habit bears upon the human con- 

 stitution, and to state what is the result of his 

 inquiries, however irreconcilable it may be with 

 popular prejudice or practice. 



' The primary effect of all distilled and fer- 

 mented liquors/ says Dr Combe, ' is to stimulate 

 the nervous system and quicken the circulation? 

 They may thus be said to have a larger measure 

 of the effect which animal food has upon the 

 system. It is therefore the less surprising that 

 those tropical nations which live most on farina- 

 ceous diet are also found to be those which have 

 the least propensity to the drinking of ardent 

 spirits ; while those northern nations which live 

 most on animal food have the exactly contrary 

 inclination with respect to liquor, the Scandi- 

 navian tribes being notoriously the greatest sots 

 that have ever been known. Dr Combe admits 

 that in some conditions of the system, when the 

 natural stimulus is defective, it may be proper 

 to take an artificial supply in the form of ardent 

 and fermented liquors. ' There are,' he says, 

 ' many constitutions so inherently defective in 

 energy as to derive benefit from a moderate daily 

 allowance of wine ; and there are many situations 

 in which even the healthiest derive additional 

 security from its occasional use. If, for example, 

 a healthy person is exposed to unusual and con- 

 tinued exertion in the open air, or to the influence 

 of anxious and depressing watchfulness, a moderate 

 quantity of wine with his food may become the 

 means of warding off actual disease, and enabling 

 him to bear up uninjured, where without it he 

 would have given way.' But Dr Combe at the 

 same time declares, in the most decided language, 

 that when the digestion is good, and the system 

 in full vigour, the bodily energy is easily sustained 

 by nutritious food, and ' artificial stimulant only 

 increases the "wasting of the natural strength! 

 Nearly all physicians, indeed, concur in represent- 

 ing 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 shewn 

 to be ill-founded, seeing that vinous fermentation, 

 from which they are derived, is not a healthy 

 condition of vegetable matter, but a stage in its 

 progress to decay. Upon the whole, there can 

 be little doubt that these liquors are deleterious 

 in our ordinary healthy condition ; and that pure 

 water, toast-water, milk, whey, and other simple 

 and unexciting beverages, would be preferable 

 the first being the most natural if we could 



only consent 

 gence. 



to deny ourselves further indul 



>uia 

 dul- 



