Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-04-20
STAMINA AND FAT FOODS.
Proper Feeding Rational Preventive
of Consumption.
From the Baltimore Sun.

From the Baltimore Sun
DR.. A. n. Bell. in recent issue of the
Popular Science Monthly, discusses in a
suggestive way the relation of tuberculosis
to stamina, finding that persons who MAIN
tain their stamina by means of proper diet
and sanitary surroundings not subject
to consumption. In the last seventy-five
years the average duration of life has been
raised among civilized people from 49,
years to 49, years. This considerable gain
has been effected chiefly through a larger
application of intelligent minds to questions
of sanitation aided by multitude of use
full discoveries to the cause, cure and
prevention of certain classes of disease.
Mortality from zymotic disease is greatly
lessened and deaths from consumption have
been reduced nearly so per cent. But for
poorly nourished and feeble persons there
is no immunity from tuberculosis. 1T is ar
gued no matter how healthful the sur
roundngs or how pure the air. The bacilll
that produce the disease are floating every
where in the air breathe. Every fndi-
vidual is subject to the disease, caused by
inhaling them Hence 1t is, says Dr.
Bell, that one-quarter of all the deaths re-
corded during adult life is caused by tuber-
cuosis and nearly one-half of the entire
population at some time of life acquires the
disease
Am I in a condition to resist the ia
cilli of tuberculosis? Is my health fortified
by vigor of all the organs and functions OF
the body?" A person thus equipped, If be-
set by tubercle bacilli, effectuaily resists
them, devours them by oxidation and casts
them off.
1t becomes a practical matter, therefore,
to look after ones stamina, for this, after
all. is ones safeguard not only against tu-
berculosis but against other diseases. Fee
bleneSs is to be avoided as the open door
for all sorts of mafadieS. AbStemiousnesS
causes it in many cases, now that the reac-
ton against overeating has become a fad.
INADEQUATE nourshment." DR.. Bell con-
tends lis the most frequent of all incitants
to tuberculosis or consumption. But
big eater may be in fact under-nourished
if he abstains from some essential food nee
esSary for the maintenance of health. Stam-
ina depends upon the supply of nutrlment
in the kinds and proportions required by
orr bodies We need two kinds of food
for repair of tissue and for fuel. No diet
Is wholesome unless it contains, for adults,
from thirty to forty-fve ounces of so-called
solid food a day, and an essential part Of
ones daily menu is an allowance of about
two ounces of fat. Hog and hominy Ii is
asserted are an excellent combination, and
the great healthfulness of the slaves in the
south before 1865 was due to the fact that
fat pork or bacon formed regularly "a
standing portion of at least one daily meal
Consumption, for this reason, was rare
among the negroes in ante-bellum times and
the frequency of the disease among negroes
now is caused by their inferior diet. Hog,
saws the author lis notable by its absence
from the daily fare of most of them; no
other fat meat has taken its place, and con-
sumption among them Is more than twice
as great as it was formerly.