DIET AND TEMPERAMENT.] 



CHEMISTRY. 



363 



Not in every case, and not for very long together, can 

 such a Tioble picture of man be exhibited. With the 

 diminishing vigour of the change of matter, the torch 

 of life gradually sinks. More and more slowly the 

 matter moves from the digestive organs to the blood, 

 from the blood to the brain and muscles. At length 

 these activities wholly cease ; for all that lives, bears in 

 itself the germ of death. Those laws of gravitation 

 which alter at every staj;e of life in a necessary succes- 

 sion, lead through growth to perfection, and from the 

 blooming prime, by a regressive transformation, to 

 decay. Not only do fat and water disappear, the bones 

 also lose in circumference. While the latter become 

 richer in lime, harder and more brittle, the wrinkling 

 skin shrivels up, the cartilages ossify, and the watery 

 brain loses more and more of its essential fat. Men- 

 tally, as the retrograde course continues in unbroken 

 progress even to death, a kind of revolution is usually 

 completed. The memory becomes dull, even for youth- 

 ful recollections ; and to the other infirmities of old age, 

 a hebetation of the senses finally supervenes, which 

 distorts the judgment, and destroys the memory. The 

 old man who was before so venerable in his unbroken 

 strength, bringing out the results of the experience of 

 his former life, gradually becomes the image of a help- 

 less child. Dissolution then becomes a blessing, and, 

 with respectful awe, we drop the veil over that last proof 

 of feebleness from which no mortal being can escape. 



Matter, however, is immortal. Into the grave we let 

 f;. the noblest seed, with the certain knowledge that 

 tilt transiency of one form " which has been bleached by 

 the abundance of years," will yield to flowering and 

 fragrant plants of the fields, to rise again, after number- 

 less transformations, in fresh and youthful vigour, and 

 atill co operate in the task, in which the spirit of all 

 human works continues to live amongst us, visible to 

 our senses. For the spirit is eternal, as manifesting 

 itself in matter ; while the terrestrial constantly changes, 

 the earth and its inhabitants are as constantly renewed. 



96. Requirements of Youth and Age. As growth con- 

 tinues during the time of youth, so the young not only 

 require to satisfy their appetite oftener than adults, but 

 need also a more nutritious diet. The attractive power 

 towards the alimentary principles is greater, and the 

 blood yields more to the tissues in spite of the excre- 

 tions, subtracting altogether a smaller proportion from 

 the body than in mature age. If the adult, therefore, 

 require meat and bread, or leguminous seeds, to keep 

 up the necessary strength for the tissue-change, this 

 necessity is so much more peremptory with youth. 



At the time of transition from boyhood to youth, care 

 must be taken not to carry the nutritious diet to excess ; 

 for it is essentially characteristic of healthy develop- 

 ment, that precipitance leads only to an unhealthy pre- 

 cocity in instincts, thoughts, and actions. 



Granting him all adequate gratification, the growing 

 youth should be provided with cooling aliments, fruits 

 and vegetables, water and acidulated beverages ; and if 

 then his mind be sufficiently occupied, and he take 

 abundant exercise in the open air, the tissue-change 

 will harmoniously promote the proportionate develop- 

 ment of every part, and youth will enjoy the pleasures 

 of youth. 



In mature age a fixed diet is the least needful ; the 

 full-grown man discharges as much carbonic acid and 

 water, urea and uric acid, with other excretitious matters, 

 as he takes up of food and inhaled oxygen. His wants 

 he can measure by his appetite ; the latter recurs less 

 frequently, and is sooner satisfied than in youth. Every 

 kind of excess, however, must be avoided ; and this is 

 infallibly secured by always leaving off before appetite 

 has disappeared. Without this precaution excess is 

 easily possible, because the limited size of our lungs, 

 and the definite power of our movements, restrict the 

 power of the change of matter. If man eat more than 

 he excretes, the tissues become overloaded, which en- 

 dangers their activity as much as the impoverishment of 

 the blood and the consequent defective nutrition could 

 do ; fat is collected which the oxygen does not consume, 



and the albuminous substances, with the salts, assume 

 a fixity which at once eiifeebles the intellect, and de- 

 stroys the pleasure of thinking ; while it diminishes both 

 the strength of the muscles and the inclination for 

 movement. Thus do gluttons gradually grow lazy, im- 

 patient of thought, anxious only for repose, and unfitted, 

 by their unwieldy frames, to embody the moral and 

 intellectual greatness which characterises noble-minded 

 men. 



Apart from the mode of life and the degree of tem- 

 perature of the surrounding air, the influence of which 

 latter we shall afterwards describe more in detail, the 

 peculiar constitution of the individual deserves a special 

 consideration. It is true that here the grades of difler- 

 ence are as numerous as the population of the globe. 

 The natural disposition, with a certain tendency to firm- 

 ness in the functions of the brain, gradually produced 

 by the school of life, form the character. The greater 

 tLis firmness is, and the higher the courage with which 

 it is displayed, the more naturally do we call the man 

 a "character" in the good sense of the word; but, 

 inasmuch as every individual holds a necessarily defined 

 position in his relations to the external world, every 

 one has more or less of distinctive character. On 

 account of the innumerable degrees of transition, how- 

 ever, this rule can only be applied to the extreme repre- 

 sentatives of one class or another. 



The more vivacious the disposition, the more easily 

 the man is excited by stimulants ; the greater, also, will 

 be the tissue-change. Generally speaking, such indi- 

 viduals will med food more frequently than those of a 

 less excitable nature. With individuals of this habit, 

 too nutritious or exciting food is to be avoided, because, 

 as a stronger stimulant, it increases their nervous irrita- 

 bility. Vehement, passionate natures become still more 

 ardent from partaking of game, heavy bread, legu- 

 minous seeds, or any considerable quantity of beer, 

 wine, or spirits, coffee or tea. By these more stimu- 

 lating aliments the circulation is accelerated ; the tissues, 

 especially the brain, are overladen with blood ; and the 

 skin, which in such persons is very easily filled with 

 blood, turns red, especially in the cheeks. This heat is 

 moderated by cooling aliments and beverages. Fruit 

 and vegetables, therefore, with lemonade and similar 

 drinks, are more advantageous for irritable constitutions 

 than spirituous and aromatic beverages. 



The latter are more appropriate to persons whoso 

 activity of the brain is disproportionately great ; while 

 their weak digestive organs, their slow formation of 

 blood and nutrition, occasion a disposition to melan- 

 choly. Such persons require a stimulating diet. On 

 account of their slow digestion, they have to select such 

 nutritious aliments as are easily digestible ; such, for 

 instance, as the flesh of fowls and pigeons, veal, mutton, 

 and veal-broth, in conjunction with a small quantity of 

 light, well-baked bread, or of vegetables. As heating 

 spices, wines taken in moderate quantity, as well as 

 strong tea and coffee, accelerate digestion, and with this, 

 indirectly, the tissue-change ; they produce a greater 

 uniformity in the functions of the ditlerent organs, and 

 thus exercise a beneficial influence upon disposition and 

 character. 



And, finally, where a slow tissue-change characterises 

 also the main parts of the nervous system, the brain, 

 and spinal cord where slight irritability is united with 

 flabby muscles, a pale, flaccid, puny skin, an inert diges- 

 tion, and a deficient formation of blood, as in phleg- 

 matic persons a nutritious animal diet is to be com- 

 bined with strong spices, strong beer, and wine. Vege- 

 table aliments, especially roots containing much starch 

 and sugar, must be avoided by all such ; and for this 

 reason, that in such persons there commonly exists 

 already an excessive disposition to deposit fat, which, 

 bfiii'4 itself the consequence of a less vigorous respi- 

 ration, becomes a check to the tissue-change. The large 

 quantity of fat withdraws from the other con- 

 stituents of the blood, the oxy^un nee.sssary to trans- 

 formation. 



With the last-named elm acteristics, those of old age 



