Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1876-02-24
Helena, Montana, Thursday, February "a, 1876.
Great Eaters.

Never i've long. Il VOTaClOuS appclItc, ~
far from being sign of health, is certain
indication of disease. Some dyspeptics are
always hungry; feel best when they are eat
ing, but as socn as they have eaten tney
enter torments, so distressing in their nature
as to make the unhappy Victim wish for
death. The appetite of health is that which
inclincs moderately to eat, when eating time
comes, and which, when satisfied, leaves no
unpleasant reminders, hlultitudes measure
their health by the amount they can eat; and
of any ten persons, niue are gratitied at an
increase of weight, IS if mere bulk were an
index Of health; when, in reality, any excess
of fatness is, in proportion, decisive proof OF
existing disease; showing that the absorbents
Of the system are too weak to discharge their
duty; and the tendency to fatness, to obesity,
increases until existence is a burden, and
sudden death closes the history. Particular
INQUIRY will almost unvaryingly elicit the fact
that a fat person, however rubicund and jolly,
is never well, and yet they are enyied.
While great eaters never live to an old age,
and are never for a single day without some
symptom, some feeding sufficiently disa-
greeable to attract the minds attention un-
pleasantly-smail eaters, those who eat regu-
larly of plain food. usually have no ''spare
flesh are wirS and enduring, and live to an
active old age Remarkable eXemp,ificatlons
of these statements arc found in the lives OF
centena.ians OF past age. Gaien, one OF the
most distinguished physicians among the
sncienls, lived very sparingly after the age OF
twenty eight, and died III his hundred and
fortieth year. ketigcrn, who never tasted
spirit or wine, and worked hard all his life,
reached a hundred and eighty-tiye years.
jenkins, q poor Yorkshire fisherman, who
lived on the coarscst diet, was one hundred
and sixty-nine years old when lie died. Old
Parr lived to hundred and fifty-three; his
diet being milk, cheese, whey, small beer,
and coarse bread. The favorite diet OF
Henry Francisco, who lived to one hundred
and forty, was tea, bread and butter, and
baked apples. Ephriam Pratt, Of Shutes-
bury. Massachusetts, who died aged one
hundred and seventeen, lived chiefly on milk,
and even that in small quantity; his son
Michael, by similar means. lived to be a hum
dred and three years old. Father Gull, a
Methodist clergyman, died last year at the
age Of hundred and five, the main diet of
| his life having been salted sWine's flesh
| (bacon) and bread made Of Indian meal.
! From these stateIicnts, nine general read
| ers out of ten will Jump to the conclusion that
milk is ..healthy' as are baked apples and
bacon These conclusions do not legltimately
follow. The only inference that can be
| safely drawn is from the only fact running
through all these cascs-that plain food and
life of steady labor tend to great age AS
to the healthfuness and d!ife-protracting quail
ties of any article of diet named, nothing can
be inferred, for no two of the men lived
| on the same kind OF food; all that can be
nationally and safely said is, either that they
lived so long in spite of the quality of the
food they ate. Or that their instinct called for
a particular kind Of food; and the gratitica-
ton of that instinct instead of its perversion.
with a life of steady labor, directly caused
heal,hfulncss and great length Of days. We
must not expect to live long by doing any one
! Miag which an old man did, and omit all
| others, but by doing all he did, that is, work
steadily, as well as cat mainly particular
! dish.