Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1889-05-15
DIETETIC CRANKISM.
Why There Can Be No General Rule for
Eating and Drinking.


A Chicago physician has recently taken
the position that there are more people
killed every year by insuficiency of nour.
ishment than by overlooking their stomachs
The fact is, he says, that most people do not
eat enough, and, above all things, they do not
eat meat enough. In direct opposition to
this PHYSICIANS opinion, says the San Fran
cisco Chronicle, is the dicturn of the cele-
brated Abernethy that one hundred people
die of repletion to one Of starvation. Won
derful as its advances have been, the
science Of healing is still far from being
exact Given the same subject, the same
conditions, and two examining physicians,
and the chances are that the diagnoses will
be widely different.
One doctor will tell a patient that
the palpitation of the heart from which he
is suffering is due to permanent cardiac
weakness; while the second will assure him
that it is ascribable TO indigestion, and it is
only a temporary trouble. Post-mortem
examinations play havoc with the concrete
wisdom of an ante-mortem consultation; and
change of doctors without any change of
disease invariably means change of
treatment. But the object of this article is
not to arraign the medical profession, but
to enter protest against the harmful
utterances of the hundred and one pro-
fessors Of dietetics who persist in con-
founding their own stomachs with every
body else's stomach A popularity of the
authority on diet is that he is not content
with any thing less than cure-all
Some time ago the announcement was
made that the demon of dyspepsia must be
drowned in hot water, taken as drink
Forthwith the dyspeptics began to scaid
their insides and then wondered why that
which was tender before grew to be ten
derer still. Nor was the evil confined to
this tenderness. The new order of Galore
hydropaths insisted that it was necessary
to distend the stomach, and the stomach
having once got into the habit of being dis
tended, was constantly demanding disten-
sion. The desire so created was an urgent
one, and craving was set up which was
quite as absolute in its way as that which
arises from the Use OF ardent spirits or
choral
Directly opposed to the hot-water drink
ers were those who pinned their faith upon
the sovereign efficacy of cold water as an
article IF diet. 1t is Gods own brewing.
adams ale" they said, and the flowing
streams, purling brooks and limpid lakes
were pointed out as a pellucid proof that
cold water was intended to be the universal
drink of man. The stomach should be treated
TO glassful of this natural liquor before
breakfast and there would be no more dys-
pepsIa, provided cold water was used and
plenty of it. Then arose another sect who
declared that much cold water was Just as
harmful as much hot water, and very little
cold water should be drunk, and none at all
unless it had been boiled. II was just as
absurd, said this sect, for man TO drink
water in its natural state as il was for him
10 eat carrots or sleeps trotters in their
natural state. Every thing was fun of low
and dangerous forms of existence which
had to be killed by heat before II was fiji
article of food. Just as there were trichina
n pork so there were microbes in water,
and the man was fool who ran the risk of
taking in scarlet germs as he quenched his
thirst at the purling brook or endangered
his children's health by giving them horrid
and IN boiled bacteria out Of the lmpid
axe.
Against the gentlemen of the kettle and
cook pot were arrayed the believers in an
Edenc diet, who held that, so far as food
was concerned, whatever is, is right and
that a raw turnip was a very fl turnip.
Nothing must be cooked, not even rice, and
All that was necessary TO achieve a lusty /
and well-preserved old age was 10 feed on !
lncooked vegetables and MUNICH on uuboIIed /
cereals. These are but few examples Of the 4
stupid way in which some one particular
food or fashion Of feeding has been made 70
10 duty as general ncstrum The school .
If common sense is a good one to consult .
sometimes, and if its practitioners have I
,nly succeeded in mastering the truth that 4
what is one mans meat is another mans 1
poison, they have, al any rate, reached e .
,afe seat There can be no general rule for /
Eating, and the sooner we come 20 that con /
,lusion the better. Age, climate, occupa-
ion, constitution have all 20 be considered /
before attempting any experiments in Eu-
ritioa.