i 4 INTRODUCTION 



give up eating bread and potatoes. " What do you have 

 with your bacon and eggs for breakfast ? " I have often been 

 asked. "Apples, pears, strawberries, tomatoes, salad, or 

 any other green stuff that comes handy," is a true reply 

 that generally excites the crippled and chronic invalid to say 

 that sooner than lose his bit of bread or toast, he'd keep 

 the "rheumatics," of which I wish him all the pleasure 

 he can extract from them. I know my pathology sufficiently 

 to be aware that the ailments in question, being set up 

 by causes which are by no means uniform, cannot in all 

 cases be successfully treated in a routine manner. The fact 

 however remains that there are a large number of middle- 

 aged and old persons who have difficulty in digesting starch, 

 and who consequently get dyspepsia and from it rheumatism 

 by eating a greater or less quantity of bread and potatoes. 

 I happened to come under that category, and therefore 

 profited by Dr. Rabagliati's favourite prescription. For 

 such people, that gentleman (see his admirable book) justly 

 regards bread as the staff of death. Banting's system 

 also enjoined abstinence from starch, but it failed in not 

 recommending a full supply of fruit and green vegetables, 

 and in counselling too great dependence on meat. As 

 a complete investigation into this subject is not within the 

 compass of this book, I beg to refer my readers for further 

 information to their family doctor, who will no doubt tell 

 them all about the evils of an excess of uric acid caused by 

 an ill-chosen diet. 



Much as we may admire the people who can ride in the 

 van through a fast Leicestershire run, we cannot ignore the 

 fact that it is impossible to accomplish this feat without 

 money or money's worth (first-class horses or credit), no 

 matter how big may be one's heart, how fine one's hands, 

 how strong one's seat, or how matured one's judgment. On 

 a crock of sorts, like many I have steered, one may, if one 



