Page:Food and cookery for the sick and convalescent.djvu/41

Rh :3. Air and sunlight supply.
 * 4. Good environment.
 * 5. Exercise.
 * 6. Rest.
 * 7. Sleep.
 * 8. Bathing.

It is safe to state that two-thirds of all disease is brought about by errors in diet,—either the food principles have not been properly maintained or the food has been improperly cooked. To one accustomed to visiting children's hospitals, or children's wards in general hospitals, this statement cannot seem an exaggeration, as the results of mal-nutrition are everywhere in evidence. Correct feeding should begin at birth, and continue through childhood, youth, manhood, and old age. Children more readily succumb to disease than older people; herein lies the necessity of paying the strictest attention to their nourishment and care.

"I have come to the conclusion that more than half the disease which embitters the middle and latter part of life is due to avoidable errors in diet, . . . and that more mischief in the form of actual disease, of impaired vigor, and of shortened life accrues to civilized man ... in England and throughout central Europe from erroneous habits of eating than from the habitual use of alcoholic drink, considerable as I know that evil to be."—

The effect of foods on metabolism is a subject which has received much attention during the last fifty or sixty years. "Metabolism is the sum of the chemical changes within the body, or within any single cell of the body, by which the protoplasm is either renewed or changed to perform special functions, or else disorganized and prepared for excretion."

As early as the seventeenth century the idea was advanced that food furnished the necessary fuel for the body, but this theory attracted but little attention and seemed to be of almost no practical value as an aid to better living.