THE VALUE OF FRUIT AS FOOD. 



115 



this is untrue. I am not a vegetarian and have no connection with any 

 vegetarian society. 



My attempt in life has been to discover a dietary best suited to 

 the health and longevity of various classes of the community, and to 

 be influenced in my search by my artistic and aesthetic sensibility. 



In this search and in the experiments I have conducted, and from my 

 personal observation of some four thousand people, whom I have strictly 

 dieted for various diseases, and from the records I obtained from the 

 four men whom I experimented on for a period of three months, under 

 the close surveillance of the " Daily Express," I have learned to have a 

 very great regard for the value of fruit as food. 



I would remind you, in the first place, that the same dietary is net 

 suitable to all persons. What is one man's meat is another man's 

 poison. What is an excellent dietary for a brawny navvy may be a most 

 unsuitable one for a fragile, sedentary student. A selection of dishes 

 which would be admirable in summer might be quite inadequate during a 

 rigorous winter. 



There are some constitutions which have stomachs like portmanteaus, 

 and though you fill them with lobster salad and pickled pork, washed 

 down with sour wine, and weighted with filberts, they will turn up smiling 

 and asking for more ; whereas to others- the capacity to digest the weakest 

 of paps is only kept up by the constant use of taka- diastase, papaine, or 

 similar digestive adjuncts. 



Some men live on beef and beer to a good old age, and therefore they 

 imagine that everybody ought to be able to do the same. 



If there is one thing more than another which my medical experience 

 has taught me, it is that personality plays an immense part in dietary, 

 and that any proper application of the fcod problem requires us to 

 recognise that there is an immensely large common ground to the human 

 race in food ; but that there is an equally important necessity for variation 

 to meet the individual needs of individuals of that race. 



When we come to the food value of fruits we are face to face with 

 the study of the world's history and the world's evolution, and the effect 

 of diet in an infinite number of countries and climates, and on an infinite 

 number of races under the most varied conditions. The subject is 

 therefore the study of a lifetime. Happily, however, that is not what you 

 want here. 



I imagine your feeling is much the same as my feelings were last year 

 when I saw notices of your great show, and when the Press, very wisely 

 commenting on the show, said : " Here is a wonderful collection of fruit 

 wonderfully grown ; but why does no one teach the people its real value 

 when it is grown ? " I therefore have come with the simple purpose of 

 helping you who are growers of fruit by trying to encourage the people 

 of England to become wise eaters of fruit. 



It is interesting to note that the word "fruit" is derived from the 

 Latin fructus, which comes from the root " to enjoy," and therefore fruit 

 is by its very name a thing of enjoyment ; and this, I think, appeals to 

 us all, for from childhood up we have been accustomed to associate the 

 oranges and grapes and fruity plum-pudding with seasons of joy and 

 merriment. 



L 



