DIETARY FOR THE SICK. 111 



necessity is of value to agriculture, farmers should feel satisfied 

 that their interests are being well looked after outside the pale of 

 politics. It requires no effort to emphatically show that already 

 many, many millions of dollars have been gained to agriculture 

 through the disinterested efforts of scientists. Scientific investi- 

 gation will continue in the future as it has in the past, and it is 

 fair to assume that each year will see much good work done. 

 Certainly no other class of labor is receiving greater benefits from 

 science than is agriculture at the present day. 



DIETARY FOR THE SICK. 



By Sie DYCE DUCKWOETH, M.D., LL.D., 



PHTSICIAK AND LECTURES ON MEDICINE AT ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL; 

 HON. PHYSICIAN TO H. E. H. THE PEINCE OF WALES. 



IN the practice of medicine as now carried on, one marked 

 feature is the particular and detailed attention directed to the 

 diet. It thus happens that as much heed is paid to "kitchen 

 physic " as to pharmaceutical agents. Dietetics, according to 

 modern enlightenment, has secured careful study, more particu- 

 larly within the last quarter of this century, and the subject was 

 certainly insufficiently appreciated before that time. Now, guided 

 by the researches of the physiologist and the chemist, we have 

 more exact knowledge to bring to bear in the dietetic treatment 

 of many morbid states, and a good deal of this knowledge is now 

 well established and beyond dispute. 



The duty of the practical physician is to apply this knowledge 

 and to test it in his efforts to re-establish health. And here, as in 

 the case of the employment of drugs, we have to consider the 

 clinical side of the question, apart from the researches of the 

 physiologist and the chemist in their laboratories. The progress 

 of our art depends on the steady work of both sets of investiga- 

 tors. The ultimate appeal is to the clinical results. In the matter 

 of diet we meet with strange differences of opinion — differences 

 relating to the employment and value of sometimes very simple 

 forms of aliment. Some of these plainly arise from ignorance in 

 respect of the properties and qualities of certain foods. Some of 

 them result from the foisting of mere personal or of very limited 

 experience of such articles on patients ; and some of them can only 

 be described as mere vagaries and " fads." 



The whole subject has naturally a large interest for several 

 classes of patients, notably among the well-to-do, the luxurious, 

 the hypochondriacal, and the dyspeptic. Such persons having 

 exhausted many methods of drug treatment, resorted to spas, 



