The age-herald., 1901-11-03
Food, Brains and Genius

From the Lancet.
 In a passage of his "Confessions'' de- canting upon the nature of drunkenness DeQuincey concludes that the exact con- dition indicated is question of accuracy in terms. He was assured on medical au- thority that a man could be. and had been, drunk upon a beefsteak. This is lar gely true, for even solid food may pro- duce at any rate great mental torpor. The comfort of a good dinner may have sug- geste ed a writer's theme, we doubt wheth- CT 1t ever promptly stirred his pen. It is the empty stomach that best suits a full head and ideas that flow out freely before retire with the entry of sub- stantial repast.
 Oliver Wendell Holmes, with that charming blend of wit and scientific knowledge that gave the distinction to his writings, has discoursed upon this very point. He talks of the 'bulbous- headed fellows steaming as they write" and shows how to meet the demands of thought and imagination. The brain must have more than its share of the cir culating blood. There must be no rival in the full liver or the actively digesting glands of the gastric mucuous membrane. Do not eat heavily, then, if you are soon to think hard. Either your ideas or your dinner will sbe neglected and lie sorry
 
 trium. The poor half-starving poet is fa- miliar to everyone. We may mitigate our pity by refiecting that in many cases he would have been no poet if he had not starved.
 Enough fuel to sustain the fire of life is necessary for work, but heap on the coal and you will deaden the overbur- dened flame. The great thinkers the great workers in any direction but a purely physical one have for the most part been abstemious men. If not natur- ally of small appetite they have exer- cised constant restraint, grudging from the play of higher functions every mo- ment and every energy spent upon the animal activities of their nature Habit soon helps the fine effort of such people. and 1t becomes natural for them to eat less, drink less and to sleep less than their fellows. Thus in a long life of intellectual activity many scores of hours are utilized for the main purpose which in the case of other men are squandered upon the dinner table or in the mere noth- ingness of sleep or idling
 l Carlyle was justified In declaring a ca- pacity for work to be the essence of genius. Whatever great mans life ls read, no matter how brilliant his natural gifts. sooner or later he is found to have worked with unswerving constancy and imperturbable devotion. Others as gifted
 
 the power to work that the genius as- serted itself. It is common to hear a man say, "So-and-so is a genius, if he worked he could do anything" Just because he does not work "So-and-so" must be de- nied the title. In the natural sciences and professions such as medicine that de- pend upon them, the inevitableness of great work for great achievement is, per- haps, more obvious than the service of art and literature. The artist and the writer of genius are gifted with inspira- tions falling to no man of mere talent however hard he works. Yet even so the genius works to illustrate his inspiration, whether it is Raphael at his easel or Shakespeare at his desk, with kind of frenzy of application and continuous determination that are impossible to men not so endowed.
 Such labors of the will and of the brain demand at the time the whole en- ergies of human being. No lower mem- Der of the confederated body which ia man must seek employment while tbe master parts are thus at work. So if is then. that the little eating worker blesses the world with fruits which the voIup- tuary and the gourmet may possibly en- joy at his well-fed ease, but can never hope in the least degree to emulate.