The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-05-12
Medical Notes.

: HESWINUl lNVGNSe
There is an old French proverb that
he who lives by rule will die a fool
and glance at some works on diet
would lead one to conclude that some
are born this way and others have it
thrust upon them
If the whole heavens were a sheet of
paper and the ocean pot of ink we
would lack material to write all the
many dietaries invented by men and
women and advocated as perfect We
can dismiss them all in a few words
AS a rule, no one diet can be formu-
lated as perfect, for the individual COL
lectiveiy. Age, sex, health and occupa-
ton must be considered as we'll as taste.
Fine-spun theories, elaborated in the
fertile brain of investigators and proved
Cd in chemical and physical laboratories
DO not always meet with the approval of
natures judge-the stomach. Epicures
strive to obtain food that shall tickle
the palate without regard to expense.
Economists. on the other hand, strive to
gain the most nutrlment at the least
expense, without regard to tate; while
between the two extreme we find sensi-
BILE people striving to take the happy,
middle way
Most people seem to believe in cheap
food both in first cost and IrepaT alton
and in food that shall be filing. Vege-
tables naturally form a large percentage
of such diet, fish and flesh being in
the minority. Economically this Is an
advantage; dietetically 1t is open to
question. There is a possibility that
fish chowder served Friday may be
made with a small amount of fish an
a large amount of fish trimmings and
heads. This is a supposition, but it is
NIT1
ing a fish often ask for several he ads
and they are not for the cat, either. AS
the waiter said to the man who found
two rabbits heads in a dish of StrW
sit don't cost you any more and it goes
further"
Corned beef with vegetables, and the
coincidence of bean soup the day fol-
lowing strongly suggests another old
fashioned economy, that of using the
liquor in which corned beef has been
boiled for making bean porridge with
leftover beans.
Possibly the vegetarian system may be
a good one, but it is matter OF taste
as well as effect, and the results are not
always satisfactory; indeed. some adyo-
Gates, by choice, would deem it very
poor diet, if forced upon them against
their will or taste.
The main objection to an exclusive
vegetable diet is the amount of food
necessary and the amount OF time need
ed for digestion; the food may be filing
and stay by one. but Is 1t sustaining in
the sense of nutritive?
Hunger Is a reflex. phenomenon; tho
cry of an exhausted system for a fresh
supply of potential energy. Yet a per-
son may be hungry and stop the gnaw-
ing of his stomach by filing it with
clay, as the ''Clay Eaters" of the South
actually do, while the sailor obtains the
same effect by Tightening his belt hole
or two. So we may fill the stomach
with bulky food of little nourishment
and yet not restore the system to- it's
wonted vigor.
We might live on milk alone but We
should require nine quarts day merely
to sustain life, and in order to imbibe
such an amount we should have to
carry a bottle around with us and take
it by installments or have our stomachs
stretched We might live on potatoes
alone. provided we could eat five quarts
a day, say an average of fifty small
ones The same Is true OF eggs. If one
could eat twenty-four a day. and so all
foods might sustain life. but the bulk
would be enormous beyond the capacity
of the stomach to contain or digest.
Vegetable foods contain an excess of
carbon as COupdT6O with dAAitiot AOVO
which contains an excess OF nitrogen
We cannot live by bread alone, nor can
we live by meat alone To get the neces-
sary amount of carbon and nitrogen in
our food material we must eat large
bulk of that material and consume an
excess of the one or the other element
A mixed diet is therefore rational and
necessary and by mixed diet is meant
a variety in the material and forms OF
prepar ring the material. When there Is
monotony and routine, when we have
bean day and fish day and so on that
comes as regular as the sun our appe-
titles and our StomachS rebel and If good
appetite waits on good digestion it is
no less true that the stomach waits on
appetite What the stomach diSlikes the
stomach digests poorly as rule and this
is especially true Of children. 1t is
mistaken idea to compel a child to cat
that which he does not want or dislikes
Compulsory diet may not be as harmful
as in the case of the good abbot who OBJ
served that anthony mot known by
that name at that time) fattened hogs
and who reasoned that it would also fat
ten his monks without breaking their
! fast. An anthony diet was therefore
ordered and the marks 6ied leaving the
name antimony. against monks, as a me
mento of the experiment.
So along the same line the story OF
the young doctor called to his first case
CT typhoid fever, must be amusing if not
! Instructive. The patient seemed doomed
to die, so the doctor told him he might
sat a red herring for which he craved
AS a matter of form the doctor called
the next day and, greatly to his aston
ishmeut, found the patient much better
There was but one conclusion in the
young doctors mind which he entered in
his note book: RED herring cures
typhoid fever" Eager to use his newly
acquired knowledge he prescribed it in
his next case at the outset. but the
patient died. He thereupon modified his
original note as follows, l'Red herring
LIZ