CHAPTER XXV. DO APPLES 

 KEEP THE DOCTOR AWAY? 



IT was bound to come; the worm has turned. 

 A thousand times everybody has heard or 

 read that an apple a day keeps the doctor 

 away. Of course doctors don't want to be 

 kept away; wherefore it is surprising how 

 long they have silently endured this thrust 

 and even encouraged the habit of eating apples 

 and other fruit. But there is a limit to all 

 things. At last a doctor has raised his voice to 

 put a stop to this nonsense. William Henry 

 Porter, M.D., has written a book, Eating to 

 Live Long, in which he declares that the eating 

 of fruit, especially in conjunction with the 

 meals, as is commonly practiced in this country, 

 is "one of the most pernicious and reprehensible 

 of all dietetic follies." 



The physician's profession is a paradox. He 

 makes his living by curing people who are ill, 

 yet he is expected to tell them how to live so 

 as to avoid being ill. Can it be that Doctor 

 Porter has unveiled an atrocious plot? Have 

 the other doctors conspired to encourage fruit 

 eating because it brings them patients afflicted 

 with headache, neuralgia, neuritis, rheumatism, 

 sciatica, lumbago, skin eruptions, diabetes, and 

 Bright's disease, all of which, according to 

 Doctor Porter, "have their origin in nothing 

 more or less complex than the injudicious use of 

 fruit and fruit acids"? Can it be possible that 



