THE GENERAL NATURE OF DIET 159 



the ancient adage, "One man's meat is another man's poison." After 

 having discounted these supposed marked differences as mostly imagi- 

 nary, accidental, or merely as habits of thinking, whatever the habits' 

 origin, there certainly does remain a residuum of differences, often 

 striking, in the way in which various nutrients affect the organisms of 

 different persons. Some persons are regularly made sick by clams, others 

 suffer from a dermatitis after eating strawberries, tomatoes, etc. The 

 liking or disliking of flavors, proverbially unaccountable, concerns the 

 subject little or not at all. Chemical and other differences in the tissues, 

 circulating liquids, or digestive processes are probably at the bottom of 

 these idiosyncrasies of diet, but in detail most of these differences are 

 quite unknown. These conditions are facts, and often not less important 

 or more easily remedied because sometimes partly imaginary. When 

 fully established in an individual they must be complied with and the 

 diet accommodated to them qualitatively. 



DISEASE. In certain forms of disease due to digestive or metabolic 

 derangement, adaptation of diet is more or less useful or even cura- 

 ative. In invalid-feeding the aim is usually merely to support the tissues 

 and the strength of the patient. One employs for this purpose every 

 device for inducing the individual and his digestion to accept and digest all 

 the nourishment possible, adapting the means to the end. 



In diabetes, however, there are occasipnal cases in which actual cure 

 can be accomplished by diet of a certain sort, adapted to the special 

 need both in quantity and quality. The indication is to reduce as far 

 as practicable or even possible the ingested amount of carbohydrate, the 

 disease being a serious disturbance consequent on the abnormal excretion 

 of sugar in the urine. Meats (except liver), fish, shell-fish, and eggs are 

 the staples of the required diet, cheese and butter being used as largely 

 as possible. In mild cases, at least, milk is permissible, and such vege- 

 tables as cabbage, lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, mushrooms, cauliflower, 

 asparagus, onions, and tomatoes, while beverages, such as water, tea, and 

 coffee, are unobjectionable in any amount. Nephritis, or Bright's disease, 

 is another disease in which diet is important more or less. In this case a 

 diet of milk alone is usually prescribed, or one of milk extended by bread, 

 vegetables, and fruit. In tuberculosis a special diet is sometimes of 

 extreme importance, the object being to maintain the strength. In this 

 case the adaptation of the diet is more quantitative than qualitative, the 

 patient requiring to eat as much as he can possibly be made to digest 

 rather than to have any particular articles of food. The patient's meals 

 must be frequent and adapted in every other way to bring about the 

 desired result of forcing, so to say, the nutritive anabolism. Rachitis, 

 or rickets, is a children's disease characterized by defective nutrition, 

 especially of the bones. The patient needs in this case a diet relatively 

 rich in fats and proteids, and more or less lacking in carbohydrates. The 

 meats contain the earthy salts most desired, and with the fats will furnish 

 the deficient energy of the growing tissues. Carbohydrates usually lack 

 most of the inorganic salts. 



