232 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from errors in diet, require something of this kind occasionally. 

 Electrical appliances and electric baths are quite useless as fat- 

 reducing agents. Quack remedies of all descriptions should be 

 avoided like poison ; if they reduce weight they do it at the ex- 

 pense of health. Of this I have seen repeated examples, and this 

 induces me more particularly to make these observations. 



The meager diet and quantity of water drunk at some of the 

 spas abroad, of course, clears the system of waste ; but this is only 

 a temporary benefit, as the individual is not taught what little 

 alteration he should permanently make in his diet. He comes 

 home to his luxurious surroundings, and rapidly recharges the 

 system with fat, gout poison, and other injurious products that 

 form the elements of certain food which he takes in too great 

 excess. 



Exercise, proper selection in diet, and a little abstinence are 

 better means of warding off an attack of gout than all the spas in 

 existence, and the symptoms of an impending attack are well 

 known to sufferers. As soon as the system is overcharged with 

 the poison, an acute attack comes on. How much better to pre- 

 vent the system being charged at all with an unnecessary poison, 

 and this is only to be done by a proper selection in diet ! Hard- 

 worked laborers and the poor never suffer from gout, and the 

 Scotch are entirely free. It is a disease of overfeeding more 

 especially in certain articles of food and drink and underwork- 

 ing, and entails on its victim much misery, if not worse, and his 

 progeny inherit the curse for generations after. 



The evils that arise from errors in diet are properly remedied 

 by diet. An excess of fat invariably depends upon the individual 

 indulging to too great an extent in sweets and farinaceous food, 

 and in not taking sufficient exercise to work it off. The surplus 

 in such a case becomes stored in the system as fat, and can easily, 

 as previously pointed out, be got rid of by a properly constructed 

 dietary. This may be very liberal indeed, but all fat-forming in- 

 gredients must be carefully cut off. I have known twenty-five 

 pounds of fat lost in a month by dietetic means alone, with vast 

 improvement in the general health and condition. Indeed, a loss 

 of surplus fat always means a great improvement in condition as 

 well as in activity and vigor.* 



Different constitutions have peculiarities in regard to the way 

 in which they assimilate food, and the old adage that what is one 

 man's meat is another's poison is a very true one. There is no ail- 

 ment more common in middle life and in old age than indigestion. 

 This, of course, depends upon improper food taken too frequently 



* See Foods for the Fat : the Dietetic Cure of Corpulency, by Dr. Yorke-Davies. Lon- 

 don : Chatto & Windus. 



