Page:Personal beauty how to cultivate and preserve it in accordance with the laws of health (1870).djvu/57

 addition to the diet, daily exercise is used, the diminution will be more rapid. Riding, rowing, and parlor gymnastics may be commenced. But we know how disagreeable exercise is to the stout, so we state distinctly that the diet we have recommended is alone sufficient to reduce the size.

The bowels are to be kept loose, and for this purpose nothing is so suitable as Congress, Kissingen, Bedford, or Carlsbad water. But these must be taken in moderation, as must all other fluids.

The mind should be employed, as indolence is ever a provocative of obesity. There are always matters enough to think about or to study, if one has the will for it.

Lastly, a word is to be said about medicines. Several of these have a decided effect on the deposition of fat, and aid in dispersing it. But they are edged tools, very apt to cut those who ignorantly meddle with them. The most renowned are liquor potassæ, acetic acid, bromide of ammonium, iodide of potassium, the haloid salts of cadmium, and the fucus vesiculosus. Most of these are powerful stimulants to the secretory organs, and none of them should be used except under the supervision of a physician. Still less should any recourse be had to the patented, secret, or advertised nostrums for the reduction of corpulence. They are without exception perilous to the general health, or wholly inert. No medicines whatever are necessary if