The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-06
Medical Notes.

A.o~~~-o~>~~--~-~
In marked antithesis to simple eaters
are those who have become famous as
gluttons. MaXimin is recorded to have
eaten sixty pounds of bread every day.
Albinus devoured, in one morning, 500 figs,
100 peaches, 10 melons, 20 pounds of
muscatel grapes, 100 becaficoes Gan ltal-
ian bird, the fig-eater) and forty dozen
oysters. Phago, appropriately named,
since phagos, in Greek, means a gIutton,
ate, in the presence of Aurelius, no mean
glutton himself, a wild boar, pig, a
sheep, and 100 loaves of bread, washing it
down with cask of wine. 1t must be
remembered that the ancient gluttons
were in the habit of eating until full
going outside, taking an emetic, throw
ing up the food already eaten, and re-
turning to the festive board.
The Princess Paltine, describing the
menu of Louis XIV. says: II have often
seen the king eat four plates full of Diff
ferent soups, a whole pheasa ant,
partridge, a. large plateful of salad, NUT
ton and garlic, two large slices of ham,
a plateful Of pastry and still have room
for confectionery and fruit
He ate much, chewed little, and suf-
fered from indigestion like other less
royal persons who follow his example.
Consequently the Journal of the Health
of Louis XIV contains a constant repe-
tition of the items vertigo and indiges-
ton, rheumatism and govt, fevers and
fuXes, BLACK chagrin and tedious ennui''
No wonder that it is recorded of the
autopsy that the stomach was aston
lshing beyond conception, and the bowels
were double the ordinary volume and
length
These were men who could afford to
eat but who counted their future COM
fort as naught. They have their modest
imitators, today who eat, not to live but
to die. Gastronomic suicides are they,
equity gluttonS, who make the poor en-
Vious, yet who suffer the tortures of an
internal and Internal ever-devouring
thirst and hunger, which gnaws with
eVer-lhcreasing f1erceness at their vitals.
Luckily for the poor they cannot fol
low this example, but unfortunately for
the poor they cannot even get a square
meal. Statistics affirm that man at
hfty years of age has eaten 10000 pounds
OF bread, 10000 pounds of meat, 5000
pounds of vegetables, and the like: while
he has consumed $4,000 quarts of various
liquids, sufficient to make a lake 800 feet
square and three feet deep. But this ap-
pies only to the few; the vast majority
have had but the scraps and crumbs of
this feast, the bones and pickings.
Alcott chose cornmeal diet because
ne mad the courage of his convictions as
a vegetarian and honestly thought animal
tood injurious. He also had very laud-
abIe idea and one founded on fact that
woman was too much the slave of the
cook stove and the dining table and
J by simplifying the menu he thought to
i give oVerWorked woman a chance to
rest and improve her mind
Thoreau was a PHILOSOPHER but he rea
hi
wouldn't pay his taxes for one thing
which might have been right from his
point of view, and he wouldn't work at
his trade of pencil maker. He preferred
10 commune with nature and has left
the world legacy of thought and a
memorial of true insight into nature. He
choSe poverty as a martyr chooses the
stake; his meager diet was therefore a
matter of choice and no privation Tn
choosing poverty, however, he pointed q
way by Which those who are poor against
Ihelr Will, who are victims of adversitv
may better their condition. and it Womb
De well for all people, rich or poor to
reao Walden and learn thrift and content
ment thereby.
Neither Of these men was In the strict
sense Wage-earner. True, Thoreau was
d newer Of wood and a tiller of the soil
When the mood moved him thereto but
ne was selfish in all his ways a seIf-made
outcast from society, stunning the world
and Stunned thereof
AS you cannot build a fire without fuel
make steam without water, sound the
melod1ous harmony of the organ pines
without wind, or build castles in the air.
SO you cannot expect man insuflcfently
fed to do a mans work
F. man worth to the community is the
dynamic force which he can exert from
day to day, force which can be meas
ured in foot pounds like the power of
steam, power which leads to manifest
results, whether he be fighting or work
ing, building up or tearing down. Call
1t brute force If you will; it makes the
comparison 1lore striking The draft
morse is led that he may exert his great
est force with the least harm to him
sell; the man who owns him feeds him
self as best he can.
True, death from actual starvation is
rarely seen nowadays; that is. acute
starvation, but death from chronic starry
alton is much more common than society
is willing to admit
Chronic starvation has its svmntorns
like any disease, symptoms too easily
mlslnterpreted as those of actual disease
but often called by other names.
See that emaciated man, with his belt
Drawn to the last hole around him. That
is to deaden the gnawing pain In his
stomach, not to assuage hunger for
that has long passed away to loathing
of food. His pale face shows CHASTITY
white under its coat of toil-stained
CRIME while his wan cheeks are scanned
with deeply-cut lines, premature wrink-
les craven by poverty. Fferce-looking
and widely-dilated eyes stare at you from
deeply sunken orbits with the hungry
glare of a hunted beast His ragged
clothing hangs loosely on his emaciated
body; he drags his weary limbs along
| as If they were partially paralyzed. as
perhaps they are; his air Is one of Ian
guor and hstlessness; speak to him and
| he answers with irritability in a hollow
voice; take him by the hand and his
grip is feeble; his pulse is slow and soft
Perhaps he has some disease, you say,
possibly syphilis, or wasting fever ch1An,
fc dysentery or malaria True. he NAV
have, but perhaps 1t is starvation that
has melted the disease or made him an
| easy victim, for plague, pestilence and
famine are inseparable companions. Per
haps he has consumption but Ii is
| consumption of his very bone and muscle
! Perhaps he is just beginning to starve.
but the end is near Inyestigations
show that when he has lost 40 per cent
of his original weight he will die of IN
anition, of feeding on his own flesh and.
/ blood
Saying, for example. that he .weiobs