50 



♦ KNOAVLEDGE 



[July 27, 1883. 



system. If the health sufiers from goiBg entirely without 

 alcohol, then one tumbler of whiskey and water — at least 

 three parts water, per diem — is all that should be taken. 

 Even that should be reduced as the health improves. 



Any one who, being corpulent, is unwilling to go without 

 port, sherry, and other heavy wines, or without beer, 

 or without undue draughts of spirits and water, need not 

 read these articles. He must be one who has definitely 

 decided that health and strength, lightness of spirits, as 

 well as lightness of liody, are not worth even a small sacri- 

 fice. He is as one who, knowing a cup contains poison 

 ruinous to body and mind, drains it because the poison is 

 diluted in a sweetly-tasted liquor. 



I am aware, let me note in passing, that the advocates 

 of special systems of diet for reducing fat, insist on a rigid 

 adherence to certain rules, a rigid abstinence from certain 

 articles of diet. They are right according to their lights. 

 If we are to trust to Bantingism aloue, for instance, to 

 reduce fat, we must be rigid followers of the Banting 

 system, we must take no potatoes and no bread, no beer 

 and no milk, no butter and no sugar. And so of other 

 systems. But if we are following a broader system, or 

 rather a system of systems, we may take the good from 

 each, and reject the bad. 



Just here I may introduce a most important point, not 

 noticed as yet, so far as I know, in any system for reducing 

 corpulence. It is related closely to the question of quantity 

 in food ; but it is also related to that particular point on 

 which, as I have said above, the development of corpulence 

 in great part depends — the insuflicient action of organs 

 because of overwork. I refer to the proper mastication of 

 food. We most of us eat a great deal too quickly, gulping 

 down mouthfuls which have not received half or even a 

 quarter of the amount of mastication due to them. From 

 this gross fault two .serious evils follow. We eat much 

 more food than we should if we masticated all we ate pro- 

 perly, and the food we eat does us much less good than the 

 right amount would do if properly masticated. We throw 

 on the stomach much extra work, besides leaving some 

 work undone which the stomach was never meant to do 

 and is not competent to do. The overburdened stomach, 

 consequently, leaves a part of its own work undone, so that 

 the mischief is passed on to other organs, and the whole 

 system is thrown out of gear. Let it be remembered as we 

 eat that the teeth and the salivary glands have special work 

 to do which they leave undone if we bolt our food. By 

 making the jaws do their proper work, we make a smaller 

 quantity of food supply our wants, and we send that 

 smaller quantity to the stomach in a fit state for the 

 stomach to work properly upon it. Hence a considerable 

 saving of energy, and a corresponding reduction of those 

 waste products which result in the formation of fat. 



A lesser mistake, but still a noteworthy one, is to gulp 

 down great draughts of liquid food, instead of quietly 

 imbibing suitable quantities. 



(To be continued.) 



THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF MYTH. 



By Edward Clodd. 



THE closing remarks in my last paper made reference to 

 the terribly real form which belief in transformation 

 assumed in the INIiddle Ages. 



If wolves abounded, much more did the were-wolf abound. 

 According to Olaus Magnus, the sufferings which the 

 inhabitants of Prussia and neighbouring nations endured 



from wolves were trivial compared with the ravages wrought 

 by men turned into wolves. On the feast of the Kativity, 

 these monsters were said to assemble and then disperse in 

 companies to kill and plunder. Attacking lonely houses, 

 they devoured all the human beings and every other 

 animal found therein. " They burst into the beer-cellars 

 and there they empty the tuns of beer or mead, and pile 

 up the empty casks one above another in the middle of 

 the cellar, thus showing their difference from natural 

 wolves." In Scandinavia it was believed that some men 

 had a second skin, out of which they could slip and appear 

 in the shape of a beast. Perhaps the phrase " to jump 

 out of one's skin " is a relic of this notion. The Romans 

 believed that the were-wolf simply effected the change by 

 turning his skin inside out, hence the term " versipellis," or 

 " skin-changer." So in mediteval times it was said that the 

 wolf's i-kin was under the human, and the unhappy suspects 

 were hacked and tortured for signs of such hairy growth. 

 Sometimes the change was induced, it is said, by putting 

 on a girdle of human skin round the waist ; some- 

 times by the use of magical ointment. Whatever the 

 animal whose shape a man took could do, that he 

 could do, plus such power as he possessed in virtue of 

 his manhood or acquired by sorcery, his eyes remaining 

 as the only features by which he could be recognised. If 

 he was not changed himself, some charm was wrought 

 on the eyes of onlookers whereby they could see him 

 only in the shape which he was supposed to assume. The 

 genuine monomaniacs aided such an illusion. The poor 

 demented one who conceived himself a dog or a wolf, who 

 barked, and snapped, and foamed at the mouth, and bit 

 savagely at the flesh of others, was soon clothed by a 

 terror-stricken fancy in the skin of either brute, and 

 believed to have the canine or lupine appetite in addi- 

 tion to his human cunning. The imagination thus pro- 

 jects in visible form the spectres of its creation ; the 

 eye in this, as in so much else, sees the thing for which 

 it looks. Some solid foundation for the belief would, 

 however, exist in the custom among warriors of dressing 

 themselves in the skins of beasts to add to their fero- 

 cious appearanc. And it was amidst such that the 

 remarkable form of mania in Northern Europe known as the 

 Berserkr rage (" bearsark " or " bear-skin " wearer) arose. 

 Working themselves by the aid of strong drink or drugs and 

 contagious excitement into a frenzy, these freebooters of the 

 Northland sallied forth to break the backbones and cleave 

 the skulls of quiet folk and unwary travellers. As with 

 flashing eyes and foaming mouth they yelled and danced, 

 seemingly endowed with magic power to resist assault by 

 sword or club, they aroused in the hysterically disposed a 

 like madness, which led to terrible crimes, and which died 

 away only as the killing of one's fellows became less the 

 business of life. 



During the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the belief 

 in men-beasts reached its maximum, and met with no 

 tender treatment at the hands of a Church whose Founder 

 had manifested such soothing pity towards the "possessed " 

 of Galilee and Judaa. That Church had a cut-and-dried 

 explanation of the whole thing, and applied a sharp and 

 pitiless remedy. If the devil, with countless myrmidons 

 at his command, was " going to and fro in the earth, 

 and walking up and down in it," what limit could be put 

 to his ingenuity and arts ? Could he not as easily change 

 a man into a wolf or a bear, as a woman into a cat ; and 

 had not each secured this by a compact with him, the foe 

 of God and His Church 1 The evidence in support of the 

 one was as clear and cogent as in support of the other ; 

 hence were-wolf hunting and burning became as Christian 

 a duty and as paying a profession as witch-smelling and 



