THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



If each one of us were properly fed, so that our 

 digestion and assimilation were as perfect as that 

 of our brute neighbors, we should doubtless share 

 their unbroken good health. We should resist aU 

 germ diseases — typhoid, smallpox, diphtheria, 

 pneumonia, tuberculosis; the germ would find no 

 soil in which it would thrive. Keep the blood pure 

 and full, and we are self-armed against nearly all 

 human ailments. If our stomachs were properly 

 fed, there would be no appendicitis, or liver-com- 

 plaint, or rheumatism, or kidney-trouble, or pre- 

 mature old age. Overwork might still claim its vic- 

 tims, and excessive grief destroy the overemotional, 

 but there would be fewer of each. It is probable that 

 even cancer would finally disappear from a race per- 

 fectly fed. 



But we goon just as we did when we were babies, 

 putting everything into our mouths, even tobacco 

 and alcohol, tea and coffee. The animal is stimulated 

 by its food, but we resort to all sorts of artificial 

 stimulants. Of course, we can't live as the animals 

 or the savages do. Dining with us is a fine art; but, 

 if it were a perfect art, it would touch nature again, 

 and we should feed as sanely as the birds and the 

 squirrels do. We should not corrupt nature, but fol- 

 low her. 



In the case of the lower animals the taste, or the 

 appetite, is apparently a safe guide. What the crea- 

 ture loves, that agrees with it, or vice versa. The wild 

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