INTRODUCTION". 



long-sustained fast, the wounded are far more likely to suffer from lock-jaw. It is a 

 good plan to serve out rations before an engagement, if possible ; the wor.it stomach 

 for a fight is an empty stomach. Then, again, in civil life, we constantly find that 

 the over-worked and poorly-fed supply the largest number of cases of hysteria and 

 neuralgia. How frequently neuralgia is met with in half-starved needlewomen! What 

 half these people want is food, not medicine. Even among the middle and upper 

 classes of society there are many people who fail to take enough food, although, it 

 must be confessed, that usually the fault is the other way. Many people do not 

 eat simply because they take little exercise, and have no appetite. Many perforce 

 lead solitary, sedentary lives, and will not eat simply because they are alone, and 

 they are tired of seeing the same things and same kinds of food put on the table day 

 after day. There is no doubt that bad cooking has a great deal to answer for as a 

 predisposing cause of disease. Many people go without food from religious motives, 

 and those who do this are usually the least fitted for the strain that it involves. 

 3 Liny people take absolutely enough food, but take no care to ensure variety. Some, 

 for instance, never take fruit in any shape or form. They regard it as a luxury ; it 

 is not put on the table habitually, and they never think about it. Then, again, 

 many people never eat fat, and this is especially the case with those who have a 

 tendency to consumption. Children very commonly cut off the fat from their meat, 

 and leave it on their plates. They should be encouraged to take a fair proportion 

 of fat with their food, but if they show a positive dislike to it, it is of no use trying 

 to force them. Even when hot fat cannot be eaten, the fat of cold meat is often 

 relished and easily digested. People who have a tendency to consumption should 

 take plenty of butter, and more especially milk. Consumptives often take as much 

 ,'lit pints of milk in the twenty-four hours with decided advantage. It should 

 be remembered that the milk is then to be used as an article of diet, and not for the 

 purpose of relieving thirst, and it should be taken at regular intervals like the meals, 

 and not in a Imp-hazard fashion. We believe that no better plan could be adopted 

 in threatened consumption than (where means and the season of the year permit) to 

 take up a summer residence in the Pyrenees or Alps, in some of those numerous 

 open valleys, in the pure air of the middle region, where the pastures are rich, and 

 with daily exercise in proportion to strength to try the ingestion of large quantities of 

 milk of tin- puivst quality. For people who will not take fat in other forms, fat 

 Karon for breakfast will often supply the want. White haricot beans or lentils with 

 rich butter sauce often, in these cases, form a valuable article of diet. Many indi- 

 viduals, if they fail to get their proper quantum of food, get weak, not only of muscle 

 and nerve, but also mentally weak. Some people do well on what is called 

 " Bantingism," whilst others suffer considerably under this regimen. Some 

 people ,^-t tat on the most abstemious diet, whilst others are always eating, 

 and as tln-ir friends say, never Bem a bit the better for it. The absence of 

 -in -tables, or of [e acids in some form or other, is a powerful 



osiii-r cause of scurvy. .Many people, especially women, do not take enough to 

 drink, and suffer, in consequence, from constipation. As we shall see when we 

 come to speak of this complaint, even long-standing torpidity of the bowels may be 

 removed by th- practice of taking a tumblerful of cold water the first thing in the 



