Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1900-07-25


had a stomach Up to that time he
merely had suspicious that he was in
possession Of such an organ. Occasion
ally these suspicious, II is true, had
come painfully close to a certainty.
Even in his boyhood days on the farm
he had on two separate and eventful
days, once aided by half dozen green
apples and on another by butt of a
strong, black cigar, almost realized
this profound physiological truth. But
IL was not until one morning in his for
tieth year, waking as the clock struck
Q, that all his doubts were cleared
away.
Once having made discovery, It
was the nature of John Edwards Eliot
to make the most of 1t.
Having once become deeply interest
edlin the subject, II struck him as
most remarkable how many articles on
the question of diet he ran across in the
course of his casual reading. When he
dropped into the club after breakfast
on the morning of the discovery and
started to look over the papers half a
dozen items on the subject uppermost
in his mind stared him in the face.
He cut out and put in his card case
paragraph containing BOB" Inger.
soils epigrammatic statement that "tht
frying pan has killed more people than
the sword" In the light of his new
experience that struck him as one of
the finest things in all literature. Then
he ran across an article in which a
prominent physician declared his be-
lief that diet composed almost entire
ly of oatmeal would enable a man to
retain his health and strength to an
advanced age. The sturdy health of
the Scotch peasantry was instanced as
proof Of the theory. He had oatmeal
porridge for breakfast outmeals for
luncheon, and an oatmeal pudding for
DESSERT WIN MS UlnneT.
One evening just as he was beginning
to persuade himself that he liked the
oatmeal diet and was getting fat on 1t,
he went to call on an elderly lady who
was also, though he was ignorant of
the fact, a victim of the diet habit. He
was so full of the subject that he could
not refrain from telling her Of his Is-
covery and what he was doing for it.
She was Mortified and brought out a
copy Of six-year-old pamphlet, in
which the awful fallacies of the oat-
meal diet were fully exposed. She con-
WINGED him that the proper food for all
reasoning beings was purely vegetable.
He started, therefore, with a lighter
heart on a diet on rhole wheat and
nuttose, ana persisted until a month
later he went to New York. BY this
time his stomach was naturally fore
ing itself on his attention more and
more, and he went to consult special
list on nervous dyspepsia. The wise
man looked him over and prescribed
grated raw beefsteak three times day.
So John Edwards Eliot came back to
Chicago and made a cannibal of him
self or six weary weeks. Then he ran
across a copy of a magazine called
How to Live a Hundred Years" AT
this point he found it necessary to give
up golf and his law Office and devote
himself entirely to his stomach. He
began to wish at intervals that he had
never discovered 1t.
The most. convenient plan he found
was to spend most of his time at the
club. There he could sit in the library
and wait for the clock to strike the
even hours, when he knew the boy
would bring him in light rejection
on tray covered with a napkin. The
magazine How to Live a Hundred
Years" had especially recommended
certain food preparations, which could
he obtained only in their pristine pur-
ity by writing to the Office of the pub
fishers, and Elliot followed the direc-
tons to the letter.
He felt rather ashamed to see the boy
come in with food so often and wonder
ed what the other men would think of
him. But he saw no way out of it
until one day a friend, who had also
discovered his stomach, suggested that
by adopting predigested and condensed
food sufficient supply in the form of
pllets could be carried in the vest
pocket and he could go about his bust
ness as usual. This worked well for a
time, and Elliott added to the excite
ment by subscribing for several maya
zines devoted to the subject of diet and
began to attend conventions composed
Of people who were devotees of differ
ent and antagonistic plans for prolong-
ing life. Gradually his name got on
to the mailing lists of various firms
who had health foods to sell, and 1t was
not an average morning that did not
bring him half dozen samples and as
many warning circulars declaring that
the man who did not eat "Antiseptic
Soda Crackers or Jones" Extract of
Oriental Buffalo Beef" was simply in
viting disaster.