Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-05-02
DIETETIc CRANKISM.
Why There Can Be No General Rrs- f
 Eating and Drinking.

Why There Can Be No General R~s- for Eating and Drinking.
 Chicago physician has recently taken the position that there are moro people killed every year by insufficiency of nour-
 tshment than by overlooking their stomachs
 The fact is, he says, that most people do not
 eat enough, and. above all things, they not
 eat meat enough. In direct opposition to
 this physician's opinion, says the San Fran
 CISCO Chronicle, is the dictum of the cele-
 orated Abernethy that one hundred people
 die of lrepletion to one of starvation Won
 oerIul as it's 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 patient that
 the palpitation of the heart from which he
 IS sunerlng IS due to permanent cardiac
 weakness; while the second will assure him
 that it 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 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 peculiarity 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 drink
 Forthwith the dyspeptics began to scald their insldes and then wondered why that vxyh{ {e1p <av,. h1f
 derer still. Nor was the evil confined to this tenderness. The new order of caloro- 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 it's way as that which arises from the use of ardent spirits or chloral.
 Directly opposed to the hot-water drink CTS were those who pinned their faith upon the sovereign efficacy of cold water as an article of diet It is Gods own brewing. "Adam's 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 0A 0AOoAAooo anu GACIO WOulu De no more avs pepsla, 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. It 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 sheep's 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 fit article of food. Just as there were trichina, in pork so there were microbes in water, and the man was a 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 un boiled bacteria out of the lmpid 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 l was concerned, whatever is, is right, and | that raw turnip was a very fit turnip | Nothing must be cooked, not even rice, and l all that was necessary to achieve lusty | and Well-preserved old age was to feed on | uncooked vegetables and munch on uuboiled | cereals. These are but few examples of the | stupid way in which some one particular | food or fashion of feeding has been made to | do duty as general nostrum The school | of common sense is 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 a safe seat There can be no general rule for eating, and the sooner we come to that con- clusion the better. Age, climate, cccupa- tion, constitution have all to be considered | before attempting any experiments in nu-