DIET FOR SEDENTARY PERSONS.] 



CHEMISTRY. 



365 



By every one engnged in heavy bodily labour, a nu- 

 tritious diet is required ; and as, in a rapid change of 

 matter, the digestion participates in the activity of the 

 other functions, the appropriate aliments here are meat 

 with bread, containing a large proportion of gluten and 

 leguminous seeds; while the preferable meat is beef, 

 containing a good quantity of tibrine : in a word, the 

 most serviceable aliments here are those which are also 

 the most difficult of digestion. And these more especially 

 deserve preference, if circumstances or the kind of em- 

 ployment render it impossible immediately to satisfy the 

 want of food recurring at short intervals ; the aliments 

 in this case are rendered more difficult of digestion, 

 through their being more slowly transformed into the 

 constituents of the blood and tissues ; they also undergo 

 less rapidly that decomposition which transmutes them 

 into the excretitious substances. By this strong food, 

 the labourer is enabled to resist the calls of hunger for a 

 longer period ; and this in spite of the obstinate denial 

 of mock-philosophers, who are deluded by their own 

 luxurious life into a contrary belief is the lurking 

 enemy whose attacks continually irritate the anxious 

 pater-familias among the poor. In these circumstances 

 the leguminous seeds are an essential alleviation to 

 sufferings arising from hunger. 



Corporeal exertion increases not only the expenditure 

 t bonic acid and urea, the voidance of water as well 

 as the excretion by the lungs and kidneys, but the ex- 

 ]>i liture by the skin and sudoriparous gland is also 

 lented. The loss of water, particularly, is increased 

 by those actions which directly produce a wore abun- 

 dant evaporation from the mucous membrane of the 

 tongue, throat, and lungs ; as, for instance, by talking 

 and reading, by singing and blowing. Hence, teachers 

 and lecturers, singers and trumpeters, glass-blowers and 

 public criers, are subject to extreme thirst ; so also are 

 all workmen who from their avocations are exposed to a 

 high temperature, which stimulates the activity of the 

 skin ; and in a high degree augments the perspiration. 

 This excites in glass-blowers the desire for drinking, and 

 is the main cau.se of the often-returning thirst in smiths 

 and iron-melters, sugar-boilers and cooks, bakers, and 

 gardeners working in hot-houses. On the contrary, 

 thirst is at a minimum in fishermen and sailors, who 

 ordinarily live in a moist atmosphere, into which a 

 smaller quantity of water escape* from the human skin 

 and lungs. That sailors are partial to brandy and other 

 spirits, arises from another cause ; for, on the one hand, 

 through the alcohol, which demands the inhaled oxygen 

 for its own Ooaramption, the food of these labourers, 

 which may be limited to a scanty meal, enables them to 

 hold out for a longer time; and, on the oth T, the fat, 

 which the alcohol assists to preserve, frequently protects 

 and comforts the mariner in the rough weather to which 

 he is exposed. 



A good beer partakes in all the advantage of the 

 alcoholic beverages, and at the same time usefully 

 quenches the thirst by its more abundant amount of 

 water. Hence, this beverage is particularly adapted to 

 satisfy the frequent thirst caused by bodily exertion ; it 

 is, therefore, a laudable custom to refresh artisans, who 

 have to work hard, in the morning and afternoon with a 

 glass of ale ; this beverage, by its proportionate amount 

 of albumen, whicli is equal to that of fruit, supplies even 

 a direct substitute for food. 



100. Ditt of the Artiat and Literary Man. It the 

 brain, like any other part of the human body, be subject 

 to the processes of tissue-change, it is evident that a 

 greater activity of this main organ of the nervous system 

 will augment the products of decomposition. Thus all 

 the sensations and passions which increase the mental 

 action as hope and joy, anger and ambition, : 

 expectance and happy love excite the instinct for food. 

 By vigorous exertions of the will, active imagination, 

 sustained thought, the chan<,'<; of matter is likewise acce- 

 lerated. It is true, this does not prevent one sensation 

 fiTiin l>eing able, as it were, to neutralise another. How 

 i do we observe, that from joy or love, anger or sus- 

 pense, a person cannot eat or, in other words, the sen- 



sation of hunger is not perceived while the intellectual 

 power of the brain is over-exerted. But the desire for 

 eating and drinking is only momentarily blunted ; and 

 after some time, hunger and thirst reassert their claims 

 with a double force. 



The far-spread error, that mental activity does not 

 increase the consumption of matter, originates in our 

 repugnance to admit the fact, so strongly forced upon 

 our observation that the power is inseparable from the 

 matter; for how many, even of those who have exclu- 

 sively devoted themselves to the observation of nature, 

 frequently engage in vain speculations, about an essence 

 of bodies, external to or hovering over them. And how 

 few have a clear insight into the position which, since 

 Spinosa, can no more be banished from science that the 

 total of all qualities makes the essence of a body. Only 

 too often we may observe, that in an unguarded moment, 

 intelligent men freely, and without prejudice, assert in 

 some single instance the doctrine, that their mental 

 actions are conditioned by the matter which by the nu- 

 triment is conveyed to the brain. But as soon as this 

 seeming casualty is raised to a general law, they are ter- 

 rified by their own significant presentiments, and fly f n >m 

 the clearness of conviction, in which only they could find 

 satisfaction. This vague separation, however, of matter 

 from power, which, pursued to the extreme, would lead 

 us to ascribe an immaterial spirit to steel and amber, 

 and other material substances, is not the only cause of 

 the frequent, but false doctrine, that the matter is not 

 wasted by the pictures of the imagination and combina- 

 tions of thought. Commonly the artist or literary man 

 is compared, not with persons who live quietly and in 

 indolence as regards their thoughts and sensations, but 

 with the corporally active artisans. In this case it is too 

 readily forgotten, that while in the intelligent workman 

 the brain is not inactive, the change of matter excited by 

 mental exertion in most artists and literary men, is mo- 

 derated by their sedentary lives ; and yet an increase of 

 the temperature of the body and of the desire for food 

 does actually take place in consequence of mental effort. 

 Artists and literary men, as well as the artisan, have to 

 compensate, by a greater supply of nutriment, for the 

 increased consumption, which transforms the essential 

 constituents of their brain into the decomposed ingre- 

 dients of their excretions. It is well known, that, not- 

 withstanding their sedentary life, artists and literary men 

 rarely suffer from corpulence ; and no one expects to 

 find that store of the more constant constituents of the 

 tissues, so remarkable in good living and in active per- 

 sons as characterising men of mental activity, excelling 

 by their accomplishments in art or science. A large 

 body and fleshy face may be suitable for monks and 

 gluttons longing for repose, but it is 7iot adapted for 

 men of intellect. Abundance of fat in the blood of the 

 brain paralyses thought, and hangs lead upon the wings 

 of the imagination. 



As a sedentary life renders digestion and the formation 

 of blood difficult, and moderates the secretion preceding 

 decomposition, which is increased by the activity of the 

 brain, the artist and literary men have to choose, within 

 the limits of a nutritious diet, the more easily digestible 

 aliments. A well-baked bread and lean meat, combined 

 with young vegetables, and such roots as are easy of 

 digestion, and contain a considerable proportion of sugar, 

 form a wholesome diet for thinkers and poets. 



Well-seasoned aliments and stimulating beverages, if 

 not taken in excess, are to be recommended to all men 

 whose toil is principally mental, for a twofold reason. 

 Spices, beer and wine, tea and cotfee,*if moderately taken, 

 stimulate the different digestive glands to an abundant 

 secretion, and therefore promote digestion, which, in a 

 sedentary life, is so apt to become sluggish : this is one 

 aspect of their usefulness. The other aspect bears di- 

 rectly on the brain : as the activity of this organ pre- 

 dominates in poets and thinkers, it/requires a constantly- 

 renewed stimulus ; hence the heating spices, with wine, 

 coffee, and tea, are appropriate and useful, imparting a 

 bolder sweep to the mental activity, which creates images 

 and combines thoughts into judgments. The oftener the 



