The morning call., 1893-06-25


few, it is to be feared. The very term
most frequently used to express this con-
dition is indicative Of this ignorance. The
average victim of increasing weight says.
plaintively, 81 am growing so fieshy"-a
hideous phrase and wholly inapplicable to
the condition, for flesh is muscle. and
whatever else these victims may be doing
they are certainly not becoming muscular
What the Arabian writer Gala "the
termnatOr of delights and the separator
of friends" comes to most of US long be-
fore he should even be dreamed of.
Strictly speaking there is no such thing as
natural death, save that which takes
place by reason of old age, and the natural
decay of those powers in the human body
that resist death. Every other form of
dying is accidental and to be deprecated.
Unless we desire to do so, and deliberately
lay our plans accordingly, We have no
right to die, save of old age.
And beyond doubt the most frequent
weapon in the hands of our common foe
the one by which he most frequently
downs us-is superfluous fat. Talk about
oVerwork, oVerhurry and worry. nervous
prostraton and disregard of changes OF
temperature, they are comparatively harm
less beside this great and powerful instru-
ment of harm to which We attach so little
importance.
The majority of people have, somehow.
an idea that plumpness is an indication
OF good health, and that your lean indi-
vidual Is necessarily less robust than your
Well-rounded one with an inclination TO
embonpoint. A good many parents have
this idea IN regard to their little ones.
Thew worry if a child is thin, take ii to
tha a 10
they are wont to express it-"build it up"
l saw a six-year-old monument of adipose
the other evening who. ii the dietary
course | was told her parents fellow is
continued for a few years longer, is in
evitably doomed to q short life and one of
suffering.
The little one was said to live on cream,
and she looked it. To say nothing of the
tax upon her childish strength 10 carry
around her really excessive weight, and
that 1t involves very serious tax any
short person can testify, heart, lungs,
encroached upon by the excess Of
adipose, besides being overworked
by the burden laid upon them by dispos-
ing of this SUI erhuous accumulation and
keeping it healthy. just as too much fur
niture In house adds TO the housekeeper's
duties so superhu0us tissues add to the
work required TO be done in the organ
ism.
l care not who lie may be or what his
condition IN life. there is something radi-
cally wrong in the young individual who is
overburdened with fat. Such persons often
plead as an explanation that ''he inherits
tendency to take on fat; that ''it runs
in our family to be stout" This is often
undoubtedly the case, just as certain fam
lilies have faint of Scrofula or tuber-
culosis, but while we begin from
childhood to use every precautinn against
the development of these maladies where
We know the tendency exists. the much
more serious because more frequently IA
tai tendency TO form lat is more often
than not overlooked.
The chief difficulty with our American
people to-day is that we are overted and
underW orked.
That sounds heretical. when we are ac-
customed to think of ourselves as a hard
working people. but little given to the de-
lighIs OF the table. 1t is fact. however
that we are overfed with the wrong food,
at wrong times. and we are oyerworked
lin spots, while but few of US employ all
our faculties and powers so as to give the
entire organism that active sue that is
essential To well-being.
Look about you any day, at any hour of
the day, when you may be one of q number
of people, and study the types. You will
see young men with smooth. sleek, well
rounded bodies; plump. soft, buxOm Young
maidens; men of 30 to 40 whose vests show
decided rotundity, beginning Just below
the second button, and whose hands are
beginning to assume that unpleasant APP
pearance so aptly described by the word
'pudgy."
These are two significant signs in a man
of that age, and when they make their ap-
pearance their victim should begin to con-
slider dietetics If he has been so stupid as
to neglect them before. Then there are
women with tightly filled sleeves, pendu-
ious chlns and large hips and tip-tin ted
noses speaking eloquenily of the aid of
stay laces invoked to keep down the en-
croaching adipose and bring it into sub
lection. No woman should ever look thus
Any man under 90 should blush for shame
when his tailor tells him his waist meas
ure has increased. and begins to cut his
frock coats with little curve and a deem
gore at the skirt line. stood talking to a
man recently who is R tower of strength
in the educational world, and q COMPARE
lively young man. He was tall, should
have been Of commanding physique, but
his pale. soft cheeks, hollow chest, stopped
shoulders and rounded, pendulous stom-
ach. made me ashamed for him. Ii only
such man could but realize what he loses
In power. in magnetism, in imp
when he cuts such a figure as that, it
would perhaps sting him into physical
reformation.
II l were to start out to preach such
hSAoi L duuIGSS myself
to the careless and profgate, those reck-
less spirits who are burning the candle at
both ends and heaping up wrath against
q rapidly approaching day of wrath-but
should preach my sermon to "the unco
guld, those spotless people who lead ap-
parentlv lrreproachable lives and fondIy
lay the hattering JUNCTION to their souls
mat IL Is The even tenor of their admir-
able ways thai is causing them to grow
lat and heavy. They die of liver and
heart troubles, Of fatty degeneration.
levers and lung diseases. or frequently.
on this coast, of kidney troubles, and we
ponder upon the mysterious providence
that removes the good man from our midst
and leaves the bad one 10 flourish like
green bay tree.
what the young man or young woman
shouid do who has inherited family ten
dency to obesity is TO begin at once to fight
That tendency as he would fight tendency
TO any other form of disease. There is no
SgnS ON earth more pitifuily ridiculous
man the human being who is ign of
what Is required for his physical we'll
oelng. A man would be ashamed to ac-
knowledge ignorance of arithmetical laws,
yet Will with all the complaisance in the
world utterly ignore the commonest laws
of life.
We have outgrown that time whep it
was considered interesting and commend
able for women TO be delicate and men
given to gross excess. We have come to
see that we aud not an al-wise Providence
must bear the respon siDility of plaques,