The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-06-15
THE EVIL OF EATING ALONE.
Talk and Compnpionship Are Essen
tiaI TO Proper Digestion.
From the Lancet

From the Lancet.
AT a time like the present, when the
marrying age of the average man of the
middle classes is being more and more
postponed, the physical ills of bachelor
dom come increasingly under the notice
of the medical man. 1t is not good for
man or woman to live alone. Indeed, II
has been well said that for solitude to be
successful man must be either angel or
devil This refers. perhaps, mainly to the
moral aspects of isolation, and with these
we have now no concern.
There are certain physical ills, however,
which are not the least among the dis
advantages OF loneliness. OF these there
is many clerk in London, many young
barrister, rising, perhaps, but not yet far
enough risen, many a business man or
journalist who will say that one of the
most trying features of his unmarried life
is to have to eat alone. And premature
dyspepsia is the only thing that ever
takes him to his medical man. There are
some few happily disposed individuals
who can dine alone and not eat too fast,
nor too much nor too little. With the ma
jority it is different, The average man
puts his novel or his paper before him
end thinks that he will lengthen out the
meal with due deibera ton by reading a
little with, and more between, the
courses. He will just employ his mind
enough to help, and too little to interfere
with, digestion. In fact, he will provide
that gentle mental accompaniment which
with happier people conversation gives to
a meal.
This is your soitary's excellent idea. In
reality he becomes engrossed in what he
is reading till suddenly finding his chop
cold he demolishes il in few mouthfuls;
or else he finds that he is hungry anu
paying no attention to the book, which he
filings aside, he rushes through his food
as fast as possible, TO plunge into his
armchair and literature, afterward in
either case the lonely man must digest
at disadvantage. For due and easy nu-
triton food should be slowly taken and
the mind should not be intensely exercised
during the process. Every one knows that
violent bodily excise is bad Just after a
meal, and mental exertion is equally so
Wise people do not even argue during
or just after dinner and observation of
after-dinner speeches will convince any
one that most speakers neither endure
themselves nor excite in their hearers any
severe intellectual effort
In fact, the experience of countless gen
erations, from the red Indian of the woods
TO the white-shirted diners of a modern
party, has perpetuated the lesson that a
man should not eat alone, nor think much
as this time, but should talk and be talk
ed 20 while he feeds. Most people do not
think much when they talk and talking
is natural accompaniment of eating and
drinking.
How does it fare with the many solitary
women of to-day? No better we know,
than with the men, but differently. Alone
or not man may generally be trustee
at any rate to take food enough eve
suppose, of course, that he can get IT..
With a woman it is different She is
more emotional, more imaginative, and
less inclined to realize the gross necessi-
ties of existence. Therefore, the woman
doomed to dine alone as often as not does
not dine at all She gets dyspepsia be-
cause her digestion has not sufficient
practice; a man gets 1t because his func-
tons practice il too often in thewTongway
Worst of all, perhaps, is the case of the
solitary cook. In the myriads of small
flats in London there are thousands OF
women doing" for their solitary masters
or mistresses. These women, whose main
occupation is to prepare food for others
find it impossible to enjoy, or even to
take, food themselves. As confection-
ers are said to give their apprentices a
free run of the stock of the shop for the
first few days, knowing that 1t will effect
ually cure appetite afterward, so the
women who are always occupied with
buying and preparing food grow unable
to use 1t for themselves. These people
suffer from dyspepsia, which is cured II
somebody else manages their kitchen for
a week, allowing them to take meals
without preparing them.
1t needs no moralist to declare the
evils OF solitariness. Man and woman is
a gregarious animal Physically and
intellectually we improve with compan-
ionship. Certainly it is not good to eat
and to drink alone. 1t is a sad fact of
our big cities that they hold hundreds
of men and women who in the day are
too busy and at night too lonely TO feed
with profit, much less with any pleasure.