The age-herald., 1901-12-30
THE STOMACH AND THE BRAIN.
The Latter Works Best When the Lat
 ter Is Not Overloaded.

The London Lancet assures its readers that a man who Is too we'll fed is not likely to do much brain work
 Tn a passage of his Confessions, de- scanting upon the nature of drunkenness, De Quincey concludes that the exact con- dition indicated Is a question Of accuracy in terms" says the Lancet. "IIe was as- .sured on medical authority, that a man could be, and had been, drunk on beef st teak This Is largely true, for even solid food may produce at any rate great men tai torment. The comfort of good din- ner may have suggested a writer's theme, but we doubt whether II ever promptly stirred his pen. It Is the empty stomach that best suits full head and ideas that flow out freely before retire with the entry of a substantial repast. Oliver Wendell Holmes with that charming blend of wit and scientific knowledge that gave the distinction to his writings, has ciscoursed upon this very point. He talks of the 'bulbous- headed fellows steaming as they write and shows how to meet the deamnds of thought and imagination.
 "The brain must have more of it's share of the circulating blood There must be no rival in the full liver or the actively digesting glands of the gastric mucous membrane. Do not eat heartily then, if you are soon to think hard. Either your ideas or your dinner will be neglected and lie in sorry weight upon your head or your epigastrium. The poor, half starving poet is familiar to every one. We may mitigate our pity by rehecting 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 overburdened 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 naturally of small appetite they | have exercised constant restraint, grudg- | ing from the play of higher functions every moment and every energy spent upon the animal activities of their nature. | Habit soon helps the fine effort of | such people. and it becomes natural for
 them to eat less, to drink less and to
 sleep less than their fellows. Thus, in | 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 nothingness of sleep or idl- | ing. Carlyle was Justified in declaring | capacity for work to be the essence of | genius. Whatever great mans life is read
 no matter how brilliant his natural gifts l sooner or later he Is found to have work
 ed with unswerving constancy and im- | perturbable devotion. Others as gifted have left no mark; 1t was in the will and
 power to work that the genius asserted
 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 denied the | title. In the natural sciences and pro-
 fessions. such as medicines, that depend ! upon them the inevitabeness of great
 work for great achievement is perhaps
 more obvious than in the service of are
 and literature.
 "The artist and the writer of genius
 are gifted with inspiration falling to
 no man of mere talent, however hard | he works. Yet even so the genius works | to illustrate his inspiration, whether 1t | Is Raphael at his easel or Shakespeare
 at his desk, with a kind of frinzy of ap-
 plication and a continuous determina-
 tion that are impossible to men not so
 endowed. Such labors of the will and | of the brain demand at the time the
 whole energies of a human being No l lower member of the confederated body
 must seek employment while the master
 parts are thus at work So 1t is then
 that the little-eating worker blesses the
 world with fruits which the voluptuary
 and the gourment may possibly enjoy at
 his well-fed ease, but can never hope to | emulate"