376 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



gourmands, certainly prone to over-indulgence in diet. I find, in con- 

 versing with rational people — and most people are rational to this de- 

 gree — that they are quite willing to subscribe to this much : " With- 

 out doubt we eat too much, and indulge in many dishes of an un- 

 wholesome nature." There are, to be sure, many persons who call 

 themselves small eaters, and who do, in fact, eat very little food ; 

 such would be inclined to take issue, and upon apparently good grounds, 

 with the assertion that their colds could spring from overeating. But 

 we must bear in mind that " excess in diet " is a relative phrase ; the 

 quantity of food, if we regard a physiological diet, must be propor- 

 tioned to — 1. The amount of labor performed, or exercise taken ; 2. 

 The degree of cold endured ; 3. The amount of oxygen taken into 

 the blood ; i. e., the purity of the air habitually breathed, since all 

 these circumstances affect the needs of the organism for nutriment, 

 and therefore the amount of the digestive fluids that can possibly be 

 secreted from the blood by the appropriate glands of the stomach, 

 liver, pancreas, and intestines. Moreover, it must relate to the pres- 

 ent physical condition of the individual : for example, the man who 

 has recently been purified by a "cold," may carry off, without ex- 

 periencing serious indisposition, a dinner of a dozen courses [curses, 

 as Dr. Abernethy used to call them), either one of which would alone 

 suffice to produce a violent " attack " of indigestion in the case of his 

 neighbor who might be approaching, or already standing on, the " dead- 

 line " ; but a succession of such indulgences, or continuance of the 

 prevailing mode of living, will ere long again bring him to the end of 

 his tether, so to say — to the brink of the surfeit-precipice upon which 

 so many habitually live — ^to that condition of the system wherein a 

 single dish of the most wholesome food constitutes an excess. In such 

 a case the form of the disorder will depend upon various circumstances, 

 as the constitution, temperament, or " diathesis " of the individual, the 

 kind of food eaten, amount, etc. — headache, nausea, colic " cramps," or 

 cholera-morbus (in the South, during the heated term, genuine cholera 

 or yellow fever) ; or it may excite the symptoms of that initial/ever 

 popularly called a cold. Many people eat little, simply because it is 

 physically impossible for them to eat much. Nausea or lack of appetite 

 prevents them, not from overeating, but from eating a large amount. 

 Such people habitually overeat. Even the small quantity swallowed, in 

 face of Nature's protest, lack of relish, is relatively a greater excess 

 than the huge dinner eaten by a " good feeder " when in condition. 

 Hence, their frequent efforts to eat (every five or six hours, or of tener), 

 especially in view of the kind of food necessary to " tempt the appe- 

 tite," prevent a ready return to a normal condition — prohibit a natural 

 appetite, i. e., a relish for plain food. For all such patients I would 

 direct, first, a rest for the stomach (and thus a respite for all the vis- 

 cera concerned in digestion, and relief for the excretories as well), and 

 then attention to the due nutrition of the body, not the tickling of the 



