Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/537

Rh for food, a lighter and more active brain, and a better state of health for most people not engaged on the most laborious employments of active life; while even for the last named, with due choice of material, ample sustenance in the proportions named may be supplied. For some inactive, sedentary, and aged persons the small proportion of animal food indicated might be advantageously diminished. I am frequently told by individuals of sixty years and upward that they have no recollection of any previous period since reaching mature age at which they have possessed a keener relish for food than that which they enjoy at least once or twice a day since they have adopted the dietary thus described. Such appetite at all events as has rarely offered itself during years preceding, when the choice of food was conventionally limited to the unvarying progression and array of mutton and beef, in joint, chop, and steak, arriving after a strong meat soup, with a possible interlude of fish, and followed by puddings of which the ingredients are chiefly derived from animal sources. The penetrating odors of meat cookery which announce their presence by escape from the kitchen, and will pervade the air of other rooms in any private house but a large one, and which are encountered in clubs, restaurants, and hotels without stint, alone suffice to blunt the inclination for food of one who, returning from daily occupation, fatigued and fastidious, desires food easy of digestion, attractive in appearance, and unassociated with any element of a repulsive character. The light feeder knows nothing of the annoyances described, finds on his table that which is delightful to a palate sensitive to mild impressions, and indisposed to gross and over-powerful ones. After the meal is over, his wit is fresher, his temper more cheerful, and he takes his easychair to enjoy fireside talk, and not to sink into a heavy slumber, which on awakening is but exchanged for a sense of discontent or stupidity.

The doctrine thus briefly and inadequately expounded in this paper may probably encounter some opposition and adverse criticism. I am quite content that this should be so. Every proposal which disturbs the current habits of the time, especially when based on long-prevalent custom, infallibly encounters that fate. But of the general truth, and hence of the ultimate reception of the principles I have endeavored to illustrate, there can not be the faintest doubt. And I know that this result, whenever it may be accomplished, will largely diminish the painful affections which unhappily so often appear during the latter moiety of adult life. And having during the last few years widely inculcated such general dietetic principles and practice, with abundant grounds for my growing conviction of their value, it appears to be a duty to call attention to them somewhat more emphatically than in preceding contributions already referred to. In so doing I have expressly limited myself to statements relating to those simple elementary facts concerning our every-day life which ought to be within the