Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/339

Rh than with them. And confessedly there is little or nothing new to be said respecting a conclusion which has been so thoroughly investigated, discussed, and tested by experience, as this. It is useless, and indeed impolitic, in the well-intentioned effort to arouse public attention to the subject, to make exaggerated statements in relation thereto. But the important truth has still to be preached, repeated, and freshly illustrated, when possible, in every quarter of society, because a very natural bias to self-indulgence is always present to obscure's men views of those things which gratify it. While, in addition to this, an exceedinlyexceedingly [sic] clever commercial interest of enormous influence and proportions never ceases to vaunt its power to provide us with "the soundest," "purest," and most to be suspected of all with even "medically certified," forms of spirit, wine, and beer; apparently rendering alcoholic products conformable to the requirements of some physiological law supposed to demand their employment, and thus insinuating the semblance of a proof that they are generally valuable, or at least harmless, as an accompaniment of food at our daily meals.

It is not, however, with the evils of "drink" that I propose to deal here: they are thus alluded to because, in making a few observations on the kindred subject of food, I desire to commence with a remark on the comparison, so far as that is possible, between the deleterious effects on the body of erroneous views and practice in regard of drinking, and in regard of eating, respectively.

I have for some years past been compelled, by facts which are constantly coming before me, to accept the conclusion that more mischief in the form of actual disease, of impaired vigor, and of shortened life, accrues to civilized man, so far as I have observed in our own country and throughout Western and Central Europe, from erroneous habits in eating, than from the habitual use of alcoholic drink, considerable as I know the evil of that to be. I am not sure that a similar comparison might not be made between the respective influence of those agencies in regard of moral evil also; but I have no desire to indulge in speculative assertion, and suspect that an accurate conclusion on this subject may be beyond our reach at present.

It was the perception, during many years of opportunity to observe, of the extreme indifference manifested by the general public to any study of food, and want of acquaintance with its uses and value, together with a growing sense on my own part of the vast importance of diet to the healthy as well as to the sick, which led me in the year 1879 to write two articles in this review entitled "Food and Feeding." And since that date fresh experience has, I confess, still enhanced my estimate of the value of such knowledge, which indeed it is impossible to exaggerate, when regarding that one object of existence which I suppose all persons desire to attain, viz., an ample duration of time for enjoying the healthy exercise of bodily and mental function. Few would, I presume, consider length of life a boon apart