The Daily clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1866-1888, 1867-05-30
OVer-Eating.

Besides eating badly prepared food,
and at wrong times, many people eat
too much; yet the stomach is not q
travelling bag which can carry all that
can be stuffed into it, but a delicate
machine which too little and too much
food equally 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
"100 strings" of body and mind in
the incest tension. A man who should
put iron bars, sticks, or dirt into
piece of nicely finished machinery
would be counted fool or a 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
cOnveniences-treat their animal bod
les in cruel manner which should
arouse Mr.. Bergh to speechlcss wrath
They rudely awake their stomachs
from rest to feed them when not hun
CRY; they pour down fluids when not
thirsty; they swallow things half mas
ticated, as if the stomach could per-
form the functions of gizzard; they
cram their stomachs, they burden
them, they overwhelm them, they in
suit them, humiliate them, enrage
them, make enemies of them, and
force them into an alliance with an un-
reIenting 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 orge's
dinner, for quantity, washing it into
their stomachs with a rivulet of what
ever fluid pleaseS themselves and the
community in which they live in. Not
many things are 50 common and pop
ular as suicide-sometimes affected
deliberately and consciously, but
usually otherwise. People are all the
while tapping away at the walls of
their own bodies bending the springs
frequently to test their temper; loose
ming the screws and fastenings
thrusting in levers of their own to
reverse the machinery and make it
move another way; and exercising up
on it to the full of their ignorance,
medelsome curiosity and disposition
to do just as they please with their
own prOperty-fOr tits their own, Mr..
Winwoode Read says-so that the du-
rability of the machine is really its
most wonderful characteristic. And
so through some one of the little pin
holes which have been made, Death
comes at last and thrusts a little pin
farewell!
Dir. Dio Lewis well known as a
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 number of physicians, and
others, who set forth the injurious eff
fects of stomach stuffing. His RENE
dy, which he emphasizes with capitals,
and declares he has seen put into sue
cessful practice, is this rule: s'Before
you take the first mOuthful, place upon
your plate all you are to eat, and eat
but twice a day" The last direction
is good in its way, but not calculated
to be OF service IN repressing over
eating; the rest is worse than none,
provided a person eats all he puts up
on his plate, and it is useless if he does
not For if 4 person takes q seat at
table, and, without having eaten, fills
his plate, his eyes will very surely, in
the country phrase, ''be larger than
his stomach 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 a better rule yet-the only
natural and effectual rule-which may
be told in two words, eat slowly.
Animals in their natural state seldom
gorge themselves, except the larger
snakes, for which this Is natural. Ma
ture gave a guide which would be
always ready and safe if it were not
spoiled by abuse; this guide is per
sons 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 over
strained them, safety will follow ap-
petite at the precise moment when
enough of food has been taken, and
good digestion will follow both. But
rapidly boiting half-masticated food
Nils the stomach long before it salts
nes the appetite, and shortly after eat
fho IL -