Connecticut western news., 1895-12-12
FOOD AND MORALS.
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THG SPiR- rTuAL AND PHYSICAL.

Nutriments That Exert . Good or Bad In-
 nuence on the Soul or Body-Common Hygienic Lawn That Should Make Every Housewife . Moral Agent.
 Few things in domestic life deserve more careful study than the influence exercised 5y food on our health and our moral life, and 1t is to be feared few of these obtain less attention. Indeed, with an unfortu- nately largo number of people the study 1 of food is looked on as almost wicked, cer tainly derogatory, and the duty of 'shigh thinking and low living is insisted on ad nauseam.
 Now that it Is possible to attach too much importance to the question of What shall we ca. and what shall we drinks" nc one win for a moment deny. At the same time 1t is probable that inattention to that very important question has far moro to answera for. From the way some persons talk itwould almost seem as if the phys teal body and the mental body were two entirely separate entities, absolutely inde- pendeBt the one of the other, though for practical purposes the greater and more important WAS, so to speak, imprisoned in the lower and least considerable DOT ton. If this were true, DO doubt much might be said in favor of the doctrine that Sur mental and moral powers are to bs considered above our bodily ones But aa . matter of fact plainly demonstrated by modern research, these two entities have, at present anyway, no separate existence, but, on the contrary, are inextricably bound up in one complex whole the spir- itual reacting on tho bodily and the body In its turn influencing the spirit or soul, call it which you will, and 1t Is to this re. ciprocal action that we owe the absolute Importance of the food question.
 1t Is not too much to say that no i'll fed man can be either thoroughly sane O in- trinsically moral, and unluckily Ill fed does not necessarily mean under or insufh- ciently fed, for in that case the remedy would be of the simplest, viz, a more gen. erous supply of nutriment. Of course ii may not be in the poor mans own power to obtain more food, but 1t would certain ly make the task of those anxious to re- lieve him easier, as 1t would be plain what to do.
 Broadly speaking, all disease 4 origi. nally preventible. Eliminate dife and its spiritual prototype. sin, and the human race would be both healthy and happy. As, unfortunately, we can, however, get rid entirely of neither of these factors, we car only do our best to minimize their effects, and in this work, little as many appear to realize 1t, no one has moro part than tho house mother. Do not shirk the knowledge that such and such tendencies are, so te speak, in your blood, but face 1t, and make 1t your study to counteraot them, Il not in yourself, at least in your children. sn rr,d Ia nd hfar4l lu a firm ally. Take baby, for instance, and see how entirely Its moral condition de | pends on its bodily. A healthy, properly | fed and tended baby Is never @ fretful, pee wish, little imp, always on the whine, ana restless and uneasy just when 1t ought ts | be asleep. We hear great deal of the i'm provement in the health of our girls, ana | attribute 1t to the increasing pnysiologica | knowledge of the day. As matter of fact | 1t is due to the increasing amount Of out | of door exercise, fashionably considered [ part of actual education by the well to do which enables them to digest and assirni | late their food better than in the old days | when a mile was looked on as an unusu ally long walk for we'll bred gentlewom | an, and battledoor and shuttleoock, or a | most Ia grace, was the extent of their ath letics. A mans diet, and more particular | ly a woman's, requires to be carefully ad | justed to the manner of life. If hard ou | of door work is their lot, strong nitroge nous food is in our climate both suitable and necessary, but when o sedentary ant confined life is inevitable, the diet should be, while nourishing enough to repair thu waste of tissue, yet light and digestibl enough not unduly to tax the already over I worked internal organs.
 At the same time 1t must be borne il mind that too much coddling Is as harm ful as neglect. From overzeal some house keepers study the wholesomes so exclusive ly as to hopelessly weaken the digestiv organs they desire to spare. There Is rage just now for condensing food, so t. speak, by removing to the very uttermos all innutritious matter from our foot stuffs, leaving as much as possible onl, what can be absorbed into the system Now on the face of 1t this would appear wise plan, but as Q matter of fact 1t is pro ductive of great harm. We arc formed t lead useful, industrious lives, bearing ou fair share of the heat and burden of tn day. not to be the coddled, idle inhabit ants of kind of intellectual hothouse. s we are given organs of various kinds fit tod for the work we are to perform. But a 1t is a law of nature that unused power should be taken away this ooddling pro duces the very effect it is intended to pre- vent-i. G., by want of use it graduall withers away the digestion we do not seen to need, and then when we have to leav this hothouse atmosphere, as sooner or Is ter we all must, we find ourselves unfit ted for the struggle before us, and blam l poor heredity fer the evils brought on u either by the ignorance or the overzeal c our upbringers.
 To produce successful results our die should not only be generous and whole some, but 1t should be suitable to ou manner of life, adapted to our oonstisu tions, varied enough to give work to a
 our internal organs by turns, and suff
 ciently appetizing to tempt us to take th
 necessary and wholesome food required b our way of life. Unless 1t is so regulate
 we shall not be healthy, and In oons'
 quence shall probably be morose an gloomy from dyspepsia, irritable and UT
 certain from nervous prostration, and, 1
 short, unfitted for the life before us lon before we should be out of our first you'll
 There is another very serious point to
 considered in regard to food. A well fe man Is less liable to the morbid craving
 that beset an unsatisfled digestion, s-id {
 Is less predisposed to what some peopl
 call our national sin, drink, while a ma
 weakened by indigestion and i'll feeding more apt to fall prey to the hundred an
 one diSeases that surround us on all hand Those acquainted with the awful epid
 mics of hot climates will tell you that in munity from such is due more to mora
 than to medicine, and that once Q man ' morals give way his health pretty surel follows 1t. Now, this is only another VIC of saying that man who has led a whol
 some healthy life Is less apt to lot h r nerves run away with him, and. withor : begging the question, 1t may Snhesita
 ingly be asserted that "nerves" Is onl
 another word for digestion-or indigo ton, as the case may bel--London Queel