Page:Macfadden's Fasting, Hydropathy and Exercise.djvu/26

20 in trying total abstinence, in that extreme sense of the word, all the day long?"

In reply to such questions the lecturer ought to have added a few words on the subject of Diet and the Influence of Habit. A little child, according to Dr. Page's experiments, can be taught to guzzle day and night, or to content himself with being stilled about once in three hours. Little habitués of a hundred daily guzzles will howl horribly at the first attempt to restrict them to seventy-five, but after a month or two will get so used to ten nursings that it requires coaxing to make them accept a dozen.

And in the course of a few years the tapering-off process can be easily brought to an average of one meal a day. Baker Pasha (Sir Samuel Baker) ascertained that fact in studying the habits of the Abyssinian hunters. Youngsters of twelve years join the hunting expeditions of their tribe and think themselves lucky if the kettle can be set a-boiling to the extent of furnishing a good evening meal. In the repose of the kraal they might yield to the temptation of a noon-time lunch; but when game is scarce, think nothing of rolling themselves up in a blanket at night and trying a nap to forget the disappointment of the