The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1909-05-29
OUR STOMACHS.

Buckle. in his History of Civilization" makes
some ridicuousy absurd statements about Scot
land when Caledonia stern and wild" was Catho-
lie. and the utterly priest-ridden character of the
Scottish celt Nobody ever took him seriously, and
the best proof of the unreliabity of his history is
the oblivion to which he and his history have been
consigned
He and his writings were submerged in a sea of
laughter. The historian was especially indignant
on the nature and frequency of Scotland facts"
and dwet with a mournful sympathy on the pitt
able fact that in those days men, at times. passed
an entire day without tasting food. Sir Humphry
Davis very properly remarked. on reading Buckle
that the Scot suffered far less from his long asts
than from cookery, and good many of in
entire accord with the illustrious chemist.
And now comes Dir. Oser who in his address
before the Harvard Faculty of Medicine tells us
that: adults eat too much; physicians are be-
ginning to understand that the early degeneratons.
particularly of the arteries and kidneys, leading
to Bright's disease which were formerly attributed
to alcohol. due in large part to improperly
cooked food and to excess in eating
Every days experience confirms the statements
of Sir Humphrey and DR.. Osler; they spoke the
truth applicable to far wider area than the bat
tlemented and picturesque land of "Aud Scotia and
Massachusetts. Indeed the cry is heard all
these United States-the land of "life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness curse of bad
cooking has fallen on our homes, colleges, hotels
and restaurants 1t is this curse which is filling
this splendid country with drunkards, dyspeptics.
divorces and suicides. This curse of bad cooking
is one cause for discomfort with life for enlarged
livers and unruly and protesting stomachs.
Many an ill-used wife would have been a happy
mother, and a serene whte-haired matron had she
only known how to treat her husbands stomach and
digestive organs, and through these retain his af
fections and keep him from the saloon and the
street corner. This shameful ignorance of cookery
is wasting more food. wrccking more homes, dark
ening more lives. and more seriously imparing
health than all the beer and whiskey in Utah.
There is pathos, as also sad kind of humor
in the petition of the dyspeptic versifier who
prayed that death would carry off the kitchen
wench who was always humming snatches of dime
stage-songs and neglecting her cooking. In ono of
his paroxysms or it may be after awful indiges-
tive attack he breaks out:
O, Lord above. send down your love-
And pity poor hummer,
Send cook. who's fit to cook
And take away this hummer.
Equally sad and mournful was the wall of Car
lyle:
God pity the man whose wife cannot properly
cook
A dinner, iron shirt or darn sock"
1t is possible that even the prophet jeremiah was
suffering from an attack of acute Indigestion
brought b. bad cooking when he cried aloud:
us there no balm in Gilead or is there no phv-
stefan here Z"
The wife who gives her husband and sons ehog-
wash for coffee and ptomanc chuck" for we'll
cooked meat may laugh at her own helplessness. but
she is wrecking her own peace of mind all the same
Is it something to be very much wondered at that
amid the endless idioces and all the "ologies' and
educational fripperics taught our young girls. an