Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-05-27
OVER-EATING.

BESIDES eatluH Dhuly prephTeu lOOui
and at wrong times, many people eat too
much; yet the stomach is not n travel
ing bag which can carry all that can be
stuffed into it, but delicate machine
which too little and too much food equal
ly disturb while the rare golden mean
keeps it in healthy change from rest to
work and back again, and makes it in
turn keep the 10000 strings OF body
and mind in the incest tension. A man
who should put iron bars. sticks. or dirt
into a piece of nicely finished machinery
would be counted fool or madman /;
yet men who employ trusty grooms and
engineers to take the incest care of their
horses and steam engines-as well as
many who own neither Of these conve-
niences-treat their animal bodies in a
manner,which should arouse Mr.. Bergh to
speechless wrath They rudely awake
their stomachs from rest to feed them
when not hungry; they pour down fluids
when not thirsty; they swallow things
half masticated as if the stomach could
perform the functions of a gizzard; they
cram their stomachs, they burden them,
they overwhelm them, they insult thom,
humiliate them, enrage them, make enc
mics of them, and force them into an
alliance with an unrelenting inquisitor
bearing the name of dyspepsia.
There is not much practical use in
telling people so, however for they will
all declare the statements very true, and
then gulp down an ogre's dinner, for
quantity, washing it into their stomachs
with rivulet Of whatever fluid pleases
themselves and the community they live
in. Not many things are so common
and popular as suicide-sometimes eff.
fected deliberately and consciously but
usually otherwise. People are all the
while tapping away at the walls of their
swn bodiess bending the springs fire.
quently to test their temper; loosening
the screws and fastenings thrusting in
levers of their own TO reverse the ma
chinery and make it move another way
and exercising upon it to the, full their
ignorance, meddlesome curiosity and
disposition to do just as they please with
their own property--for it is their OWE,
Mr.. Winwoode Reade says-so that the
durability of the machine is really its
most wonderful characteristic. And 80
through some one of the little pin.holes
which have been made, death comes at
last and thrusts little pin-farewell
DIR. Dio Lewis, well known as teacher
of gymnastics, thinks he has devised
remedy for the particular vice of over
eating, and he writes to the Independent
what it is. He quotes from a number of
physicians, and others, who set forth the
injurious effect of stomach stufing. His
remedy, which he emphasizes with capi-
tails, and declares he has even put into
successive practice, is this rule: " Be-
fore you take the first mouthful, place
apon your plate all you are to eat, and
eat but twice day" Tho last direction
is good in its way, but not calculated to
be of service in resressing over.eating;
the rest is worse than none, provided a
person eats all he puts upon his plate,
and it is useless if he does not For if
a person takes seat at the table, and,
without having eaten, fills his plate, his
eyes will very surely, in the country
phrase, be larger than his stomach" i"
that is to say, his eager appetite, and not
his judgment Of quantities, will WELD
the spoon and the knife, so that he will
load his plate first and his stomach next.
There is better rule yet-the only
natural and efeetnal rule-which may
be told in two words, eat slowly. Ami
mails in their natural state seldom gorge
themselves, except the larger snakes, for
which this is natural Nature gave
guide which would be always ready aud
safe if it were not spoiled by abuse
this guide is persons own appetite,
and the abuse of it is rapid eating If
only food be slowly eaten, slowly and /
thoroughly masticated and mingled with
the secretion of the salivary glands,
which in health are always equal to
their task unless the use of tobacco has
overstrainsd them, safety will follow
appetite at the precise moment when
enough of food has been taken, and
good digestion win follow both. But
rapidly boiling alfmasticated food fills
the stomach long before it satisfies the
appetite, and shortly after eating comes
the anaeonda.like feeling of fullness and
torpor, in which men appear as animals,
and &c very peer advantage even as
such. If the greatest epicure, the man
with the most prodigious appetite, and
the man who lives to eat, would but fol-
low this simple rule of abstemiousness,
they would in the end be able to eat
far greater quantity of food by being
able to live longer to eat-M T. Gazette !