266 REGULATION OF DIET. 



each case must be selected with intelligence and judgment. Even 

 when a selection is thus made, it too frequently happens that in- 

 structions are not observed. Ignorance, prejudice and carelessness 

 prevent compliance, with judicious advice. Nevertheless, health is 

 maintained, and where impaired is often restored, in spite of these 

 drawbacks. Robust health would be more common, recovery more 

 rapid, and mortality much less, were dietetic rules universally 

 observed. 



Violation of Instructions Wrong Neglect, or positive 

 violation of instructions in this respect is unpardonable. The physi- 

 cian prescribes certain food just as he prescribes certain medicine. 

 But while the medicine may be honestly given, the food is withheld 

 or other food substituted. The patient and the friends of the 

 patient often deceive the physician with reference to diet and deem 

 the original transgression and the subsequent deception trivial 

 offences. The consequence is that the recovery of the patient is 

 retarded and the physician and his treatment are disgraced. Infrac- 

 tions of dietetic instructions are always occurring of which nothing 

 is known unless aggravation of the disease be so marked as to lead 

 to disclosure of the indiscretion. 



The impossibility of prescribing fixed regulations for diet is 

 obvious, from the fact that some persons can take what others are 

 obliged to reject. The saying, " What is one man's meat is another 

 man's poison," contains much truth. Even when there is a similar 

 derangement of the digestive organs some persons can eat with 

 impunity what others must eschew. Some of the least digestible 

 articles of food, such as fried fish, cabbage, cheese, fats, etc., may be 

 eaten by some dyspeptics, while others cannot partake of then? 

 without suffering severely. 



In considering the kinds and proportions of food to be eaten, 

 it should be remembered that even healthy persons do not always 

 assimilate all the elements possible. Some escape digestion and 

 pass out of the system with the waste, and allowance must be made 

 for this. Food which requires some strength of digestive function 

 may be thrown away upon an old person whose limited secretions 

 cannot dissolve it and who may therefore be only insufficiently 

 nourished, while the same food would be easily and advantageously 

 assimilated by the young. On the other hand, easily digested diet 

 suitable and sufficient for an old man might be unsuitable and in- 

 sufficient for an active youth. The employments of life also 

 necessitate variations in kind and quantity. Even appetite is not 

 an infallible guide. Physical and mental labor, out-door and in 

 door work, demand difference in diets. The nursing mother requires 

 more food and of a different kind from that taken by the quiet 

 housewife of sixty years of age. The patient suffering from chronic 

 unhealthy discharges must meet that drain upon the system. 

 Morbid conditions and functional derangements of different organs, 

 though not amounting to an illness, or sufficient to keep a person 



