Jul? 27, 1883.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



49 



A-N IttffSTFIATED 



MAGAZINE OFFENCE 



PiAINLffoRDED -£XACTMESCR1B£D j 



LONDON : FRIDAY, JULY 27, 1883. 



Contents of No. 91. 



Fat . 



to Get Stroug : Keducing 



49 



Birth and Growth of Myth. 



XII. By Edward Clodd 50 



Spots on the Sun. By R. A. Proctor 61 

 Chemistry of the Cereals. II. By 



William Jago, F.C.S 52 



The Great Pyramid 63 



Principles of Dress Reform. By 



E. M. King 51 



The Moon in a Three-Inch Tele- 



scope (Ilhcs.) By F.R.A.S 58 



PAGB 



Sun-Views of the Earth. (Illut.) 



By H. A. Proctor 57 



Flight of a MissUe 58 



Editorial Gossip 59 



Cholera (Preventive) 60 



Correspondence : Geometrical and 

 Eeal Perspective — Skyers — Dress 

 Reform — Short Answers to Letters 



Received, &c 60 



Our Mathematical Column : Geome- 

 trical Problems 62 



Our Chess Column 63 



HOW TO GET STRONG. 



REDUCING PAT. 

 {Continued from paije 35.) 



WE come next to the consideration of those methods of 

 reducing fat which depend on quantity and quality 

 of food. 



So much attention has been directed of late to special 

 forms of diet for the reduction of fat, that the comparatively 

 less pleasant but not less effective method of diminishing 

 the quantity of food taken, seems in danger of escaping due 

 attention. In the system — really a very old one — with 

 which ]Mr. Banting's name has been associated, the ques- 

 tion of quantity is scarcely considered at all. Many meals 

 may be taken each day, and at each meal much solid and 

 liquid food, so long as certain prohiliited articles are not 

 touched. It is the same with other dietary systems. Now, 

 there can be very little doubt that such systems have in 

 them something of the mischievous character of medicinal 

 methods. They depend in part for their action in 

 reducing fat on the disturbance which they cause the 

 troubled body. The absolute absence of certain articles 

 of food to which we have been long accustomed causes 

 something like a shock to the system, and through the 

 distress caused by this shock there conies a sort of drain 

 on the body as certainly as when we take exercise, but 

 not as advantageously. Diminishing the quantity of food, 

 both .solid and liquid, taken daily, is at once safer and 

 better. Wo may either reduce the number of meals, or 

 the quantity taken at each, or effect the reduction in both 

 ways, as may best suit the constitution. For most, the 

 third system will be found to act best. One who lias been 

 accustomed to four meals a day may take three, without 

 harm from tiie change. Where two cups of tea or 

 coffee have been taken, and two glasses of water or of 

 other liquids at a meal, a single cup and a single 

 glass may l)e taken, the change being scarcely noticed at 

 all. The .solid food may be diminished at each meal by the 

 omission of that last slice, or serving, or course, as the case 

 may be, which changes satisfaction into repletion. In a 

 day or two the change will have become a habit, and no 

 inconvenience will bo felt. I do not lay down, be it under- 



stood, the rules. When eating, leave off hungry. When 

 drinking, leave off thirsty. There is a good deal of sound 

 sense in what Charles Lamb said about these rules — that 

 one might as well say. When washing to leave off dirty. 

 But there can be no doubt that most of us continue both 

 to eat and to drink, at meals, after the appetite is really 

 satisfied. 



The same carelessness — for the fault arises more from 

 carelessness than from greediness — causes us to eat be- 

 tween meals, a most mischievous habit for all, except those 

 few whose constitutions require that they should eat little 

 and often. 



Any one who pays attention to the matter for a few 

 days, or until habits of sensible eating and drinking have 

 been established, will be surprised to find how much of his 

 daily supply has been altogether unnecessary, and can 

 therefore be dispensed with. The extra meal, the extra 

 platefuls and glassfuls at each meal, and the mischievous 

 snacks between meals, which most of us take, would suffice 

 for the whole day's food of a moderately abstemious man. 

 The wonder is that more of us are not overweighted with 

 fat. But Nature benevolently gives to most a power of 

 disposing of more than we ought to take — though the power 

 is used at the expense of the working energies. Those 

 who have not the power are those who when they tak§ 

 more food tlian is good for them became overweighted with 

 fat — not wholly the product of the extra food, but partly 

 (and chiefly) resulting from the extra work put on the 

 bodily organs by the unduly large supplies taken into the 

 system. For fat is a proof among other things that the 

 forces of the body have been overtaxed in such ways that 

 the digestive organs, the circulation, the respiration, the 

 excretory organs, have been unable to do their fair share 

 of work. 



Yet undoubtedly great good may be done by attending 

 to the quality as well as to the quantity of the food. 

 Those articles of food which certain mischievous and 

 rather dangerous fat-reducing systems would dispense with 

 altogether may most advantageously be reduced, and there 

 are some articles of food which persons of corpulent 

 tendency may altogether discard. Bantingisiii excludes 

 beer, butter and sugar, bread, potatoes, and milk. Of 

 these, beer alone should be absolutely excluded. Butter 

 and sugar should be taken in very small quantities. Of 

 bread, potatoes, and milk, the fat should take about half 

 as much as they generally do. To many it is beneficial to 

 go almost entirely without butter, milk, and saccharine 

 food. The sudden disappearance of headaches, especially 

 of the so-called bilious headaches, shows the benefit of the 

 change. But it will not suit all. Bread and potatoes 

 can be diminished in amount without any particular 

 trouble. But potatoes should not be altogether excluded. 

 They form an important item of food as food is taken in 

 Europe and America. By taking one half of the quantity 

 which has been usual with him, the fat man gets all the 

 good he needs from potatoes, and avoids the mischief they 

 have been doing him by adding to his fat Taking tea 

 without milk or sugar is pleasant enough, though the tea 

 should then be weakened and cooled by the addition of a 

 little cold water instead of milk. Coffee and cocoa without 

 milk or sugar arc medicine to most. But collee and cocoa 

 are not good for the corpulent, though they act mis- 

 chievously in an indirect way only. All such wines as 

 port, sherry, madeira, champagne, and sweet wines gene- 

 rally, are unsuitable for the obese. Claret is better; 

 whiskey and water better still. But the less of any 

 alcoholic stimulant taken the better. Best to take none. 

 The control of the appetite, especially for flesh food, is 

 much greater when no alcohol at all is taken into the 



