, 1888-09-13
TOO MUCH E S
Aouestion Which u the Fat World.
What Doctors Say.

hygiene mas coupled SO much
from laymen or laywomen as the quee-
ton how to avoid growing fat. Doctors,
we think, as a rule take little interest in
it as long as it does not result in some
form of illness. About the inconven-
fence of being fat, there is generally lit
tie use in consulting them. Until within
about twenty-five years the fat people, if
we may use the expression, lie down
under their fat. The opinion that fat
ness was irremediable was in fact widely
diffused. Mrs. Fanny Kemble used to
say, in her grand manner, that when
there was a constitutional tendency to
fat, no oiet, nor exercise, nor sorrow
would avail"
Since she took this view, however, a
great change has come over what we
may call the fat world. Fat people re-
fuse any longer to accept their fairness as
hopeless. They deny that any portion of
h human family has been set apart by
Nature as the prey of obesity. This
great awakening was due in a large de-
gree to the celebrated Banting, an i'm
mensely fat man, who, by greatly re-
ducing his weight by combining himself
to heterogeneous food, filed all fat people
with the anticipation of a better day.
Tens of thousands followed his example.
oAAA SAb doNh LII VI ll1IlltLlStlN. Ou-
fortunately he died very soon after he
became lean, and a panic spread through
his followers. Distrust about the effect
of his system on the general health be-
gan to gain ground. Many people suf-
fered severely in strength and spirits by
following his regimen o strictly, and it
fell into more or less discredit. 1t would
now be as hard to find an original out
and-out disciple of Banting as Of Press
nitz, the h~ydropathist, or of Hahnemann,
the homeopathic. But many still fol-
low him in a slight degree, by eschewing
butter, eating but little bread and pota-
toes and sticking steadily to lean meat.
If his teachings and example had had
no effect at all, however, it would nave
proved that the fat people were less en-
terprising and energetic than other civil
lied men in our day ever are. They re-
fused to consider Banting's failure as
final. They declined to accept the doc
tors advice to ''let well enough alone"
They continued their demand that obes-
ity should be treated as a disease, and
a cure found for it. Accordingly every
few years a new fat doctor appears on
the scene, and the quacks fill up the in
tervals with the sale of more or less
deadly specifics. No great progress was
ALAehdSp AO"CfCl Lhl1 olbllld1Ch DCCdIlo
dissatisfied with his fat, and called for a
physician who could relieve him of it.
This physician appeared in the person of
a certain DR.. Schweniger, who cut down
the chancellor's weight to such an extent
that he had him nominated to a profess
sorship in the faculty of medicine in the
Berlin university, and insisted on his APP
pointment in the teeth of the opposition
of the other doctors, who had either never
heard of Schweniger before, or heard
what was bad. To the argument that
he had won no distinction in the profess
sion, the answer was that he had taken
fifty or sixty pounds off the princes
huge frame. Schweniger accordingly
rapidly became an authority on fairness,
and the pamphlet containing his system
is sold by tens of thousands.
The well known DIR. Yeo, of London,
discusses this system in The Nineteenth
Century. 1t ought to be said en- PEASANT
that Schweniger's cure is claimed also by
Professor Oertel, of Munich, who says
ne discovered it, but this avails him little,
because he did not treat the chancellor.
Schweniger maintains that the chief
cause of fat among men, as among ami
mails, is eating too much, no matter Of
what, and drinking too muchs even of
water, at ones meals, but especially of
wine, beer and spirits. The central
principle of this system is, that unless
you live by muscular toll you must cut
down the quantity you eat, and must
drink but little, if any, with your meals.
OF course he has minor rules, and makes
distinctions between different articles of
food, but to him quantity is the great
enemy of the obese. After him comes a
certain Ebstein, who also has his system,
which differs from both Banting's and
Schweniger's, but all three agree that to
be lean you must greatly reduce your
consumption of the carbohydrates or
starchy things.
Germany is the country where thc
most vigorous fight with fat is carried
on, and where fat cures excite most in
t%erest, owing, it is said, to the great
prevalence of obesity, a result in part of
the consumption of beer, and in part,
doubtless, of the frequency and hearth
ness of the meals. Accordingly the num-
Der of people who go to the'various baths
for simple corpulency is very large.
Oertel makes provision for this class by
prescribing carefully graded walks, in
which the ascent will stimulate the
hearts action and strengthen it.
All the masters agree that it Is mainly
through its effect on the heart hat fat
becomes dangerous. If you surround
your heart thickly with fat you impede
its working, and it gradually grows
weaker, and then, some fine day, when
you have put a little more fat on it and
call on it for extra exertion, it stops short
n down you go. Fat does not greatly
trouble the young and active in any
country. 1t is when, in middle life, ex-
ercise begins to be distasteful, but the
appetite remains as good as ever, that it
comes on people like a strong man armed,
and makes exertion, especially in hot
weather, very formidable. But the fat
people are aroused, and we feel sure their