The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1886-12-07
As to Food.

Opinions about eating have taken
m ore sensible turn under late medical
observations, contrasting with the time
in memory when conscientious people
studied to limit their fare to the fewest
ounces that would sustain life. Pious
people and iniidel philosophers alike
thought it an advance when they could
record their daily diet at fifteen ounces,
mostly of bread and weak drink. Rigid
persons carried scales to the table and
weighed their food allowing so many
minutes and so many ounces after
which they rose from the table hungry
or satisfied as the case might be. Hy-
gienic reformers are still harping on
the mistaken rule, always rise from
the table hungry. "as if the natural in
stincts of the body were given soley to
be disrcgarded, and to be constant I'M
easiness. This ascetic rule is one ex-
tremc of the food question opposing
which we may place the homely old say
ing, that the way to eat mush and
milk was to "sit two inches from the
table and eat until YOU touch. Science
and common sense alike forbid hunger
and repletion.
Dr. Hodges, before the Boston So
ciety for Medical Improvement, takes
high and wcll-sustancd ground that
''the body requires not only to be fed.
but filed" and says that the underfed
absorb large part of medical practice
for the relief OF diseases from lack OF
nutrition, among which are. nervous
prostration. anemia, neuralgia, cough
and throat troubles, constipation, back
ache, and nausea or sick headache. y
The symptoms Of ''chronic starvation,
he declares, are found not only in Irish
and Lanchasire famines, OF among I'M
derpaid operatives and shop girls, but
in good families, among growing
school children, boys fitting for college,
society girls, young mothers OF fam.
lilies, and working women. Quality OF
food, with all the heat and force it may
contain, will not make up for quantity,
aud the better educated classes readily
deceive themselves, and mislead others,
as to the amount of food necessary
for welfare. Under the conreit
that eating heartily is neither whole
some nor refined, habit of going with
out enough sustenance is established,
till the stomach grows contracted from
want OF sufficient ctualing, and the
result is low tone, and weakness OF
body and brain. Much Of the ill-humor,
the dullness and fairness OF intercourse,
the fa lure in business and literature,
is directly traceable to defective nutri-
ton. The mind is slow or confused,
the nerves give way under strain, and
that snappishness results which is
really form of hystcria, in men and
women. The shortcomings OF the usual
diet are apparent, when it is seen that
the ordinary ration OF mixed fare
should weigh with in an ounce and a
half of seventeen pounds OF the heart
lest food. The utter inadequacy OF the
genteel restaurant portion was forcibly
shown at the international Health Ex-
hibition in London, when the Vege-
tartan Society plumed itself on fur
nishing six-penny dinners TO four or
five hundred persons daily. From the
carefully kept account OF bill of fare,
compared with the standard diet agreed
upon by Psychologists, it appeared
that six of the six-penny dinners would
be needed TO support man during a
hard days labor. And growing crea-
lures, hard students, and overtasked
women require not less than two-thirds
this amount, or the body languishes.
and it takes but few years to estab-
lish disease. Experience confirms the
necessity of II heartier diet. Within
twenty years the ratons of armies, and
of charitable institutions, hospitals
and prisons have been literally increas-
ed. 1t is hardly possible to exagerate
the necessity for an amended diet gen.
erous in quantity, quality and variety.
The Comgregationalist