The Arkansaw traveler., 1883-08-04
CRANKY HEALTH NOTIONS.
Pail Mali Gazette.


 The way health journals and sanitary pa6Aeis;s taboo agreeable luxuries that have been found innocuous, if not bene- ;ieiai, for many generations, Is " adding new terrors to life, If il takes none from death.' IL is certainly a noticeable fea- ture Of the doctrinaires of the hygienic sehool-the Halls and bio Lewises and thelr kind--that they condemn modes of life. kinds of food, fashion of clothing. habits of resting or exercising that have prevailed for years with no visible harm. Day after day they take away something that some of us have been in the habit of eating or doing, or pu, in something we have been in the nabi, of not doing or eating, till we feel like Sancho Panza at his banquet at Barra,aria. Fruit is too moist" said the doctor of the table, the bio Lewis of Barra,aria, "the roast meat increases thirst, patrdges are dangerous, stewed coneys are a sharp-haired food i, ollapodrlda is too course: therefore, eat one hundred rolled up waters and some thin slices of marmalade.' No wonder if we cry out, with the hungry Sancho, To deny me any victuals, though II is against the grain of Signor Doctor, and though he should say as much more against It, say. is rather the way 10 shorten my life than to leng,hen H." The sensible half of the world will say amen to ,he honest Manchagan. :" Never eat hearty supper before going to bed, says the Barratarians of health journals. But we know our fathers and yrand- fathers, on their farms, would eat horses meal of mush and milk, or johnny cake and beans and cold cabbage. be in bed and asleep in half hour, and up al daylight, as hearty at sixty as d Barra- tartan health broker or banker at forty.
 Lord Cockburn tells Us that the Rev. Sir Harry Moncrietf had his supper of roast chicken and claret at II o'clock at night all his life and died at ninety. Ever since Conaro changed from de- bauchee to an ascetic and measured ou, his bread and meat by the ounce and his drink by the teaspoonful, and lived to be over hundred, there have been fools who believed that one mans meat was all mems health, and one mans doctrine was all mems duty. bio Lewis lays down the law, and 10000 men break it every day and live long and well. Others
 S>y A'' eAS S'SNiy. iHc "tsc law Ol food IS that of the brusque, but sagac- ious, Aberne,hy. "ls venison whole some, doctor:' asked nobleman with the gout. Do you like ,:' was the reply. "ies.s Does it agree with you v "les.' Then it IS wholesome There is no better health law regulating food than that. Let the Barratarians say what they will of nourishment ? or blood-thinning" qualities of food or drink, the right rule IS to eat what you like If 1t agrees with you, and let the Ear ratarians go hang. Why, it is but few weeks since some professor from Sancho panza's island proclaimed that walking was not healthy exercise unless it was very brisk and rapid" The world will never be healthier for the promulga.ion of such stuff as that. The great want of most of the world, even of our own part of il, is to get food enough and clothes enough and time enough to sleep, not to repine upon modes and qualities to ft the theories of schools or authorities = Health authorities are mighty apt To be humbugs.