Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-05-22
DiETEl1c cRANk,sM.
Why There Can BE No General Rule fol
Eating and Drinking.


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
eatenough. and, above all things, they donot
eat meat enough. In direct opposition to
THIS physicians opinion, says the San Fran
CISCO Chronicle, is the dictum of the cele-
DRAFTED Aoernethy 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 viii
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 win assure him
that 1t is ascribable to indigestion, and it is
only 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 q 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 a cure-all.
Some time ago the announcement was
made that the demon of dyspepsia must be
drowned in hot water, taken as a drink.
Forthwith the dyspeptics began to scald
their insides and then wondered why that
which fnn6or hof0
derer still Nor was the evil confined to
this tenderness. The new order Of Galore.
hydropaths insisted that it was necessary
TO dlstend the stomach, and the stomach
having once got into the habit of being dis
tended, was constantly demanding disteu-
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, aud the flowing
streams, purlng 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.
pepsla, provided cold water was used and
splenty 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 1t had been boiled. IL was Just as
absurd, said this sect, for a man to drink
water In its natural state as it was for him
to eat carrots or sleeps trotters in their
natural state. Every thing was full of low
and dangerous forms of existence which
had to be killed by heat before it was a Al
article of food. Just as there were trichinn
in pork so there were microbes in water.
and the man was fool who ranthe risk of
taking in scarlet germs as he quenched his
thirst at the purling brook or endangered
his chlldren's health by giving them horrid
and un boiled bacteria out of the limnid
lake.
Against the gentlemen of the kettle and
cook-pot were arrayed the believers in an
Edenic diet, who held that, so far as food
was concerned, whatever is, is right, and
that raw turrip was very fit turnip.
Nothing must be cooked, not even rice. and
all that was necessary TO achieve a lusty
and well-preserved old age was To feed on
uncooked vegetables and MUNICH on unboiled
cereals. These are but few examples of the
stupid way in which some one particular
toOu VI idShlou oI Ieeulhg mas been made to
do duty as general nostrum The school
of common sense is a good one TO consult
sometimes, and if its practitioners have
only succeeded in mastering the truth that
what Is one mans meat is another mans
poison, they have, at any rate reached n
saIe seat There can be no general rule for
eaung, and the sooner we come TO that con-
cluslon the better. Age, climate, occupa-
tion, constitution have all to be considered
before attempting any experiments in nu-
triton