Evening star., 1909-08-29
DANCERS OF UNDERTAKING
STUDIES OF MINIMUM DIET
MAN CAN LIVE ON.
Laboratory Feeding Does Not Pre-
pare Body to Withstand Disease.
Don't Be Stingy at Table.

1t is a common saying among vege-
tarians and other apostles OF a slender
regimen that man digs his grave with
his teeth. and that two-thirds OF our
diseases are due to overfeeding." To
such the facts advanced by DR.. Woods
Hutchinson in the Cosmopolitan will
doubtless cause considerable perturbation.
Certainly some weighty arguments will
be necessary to dsprove them. The
habit of eating was early seen to have
two serious drawbaeks-it was expensive,
and If one ate too much one became
uncomfortable. Ergo to eat as little as
possible consistent with survival, was a
virtue" Various tests have been made
as to the minimum diet on which life
can be sustained.
A squad of soldier volunteers. as brave
as any that ever faced the cannon's
mouth. may survive for six weeks on a
laboratory diet calculated by the higher
carbohydrates and hydrocarbons instead
Of real food; but what would be the re-
suit the next time they happened to be
exposed to typhoid, tuberculosis. summer
dysentery or even a bad cold? What
was the effect OF this starvation diet on
such a squad has already been told by
Maj. Woodruff, and it does not exactly
encourage imitation. Five out OF nine
reported that they felt badly and were
always hungry during the test. and were
weak and depressed at its close, and all
but one had gladly returned to regular
diet. One who had continued the diet
for three months thought he had been
injured by II, and another thought he
would have died If he had continued on
the diet. Several confessed that they
had been compelled to go out and get
square meal repeatedly during the test,
and that others. did the same. Moreover.
one of those who were later placed on
such diet-a young man in the prime
of life and vigor-died of a comparatively
trivial disorder which developed hemor-
rhagic complications for no other reason
whatever that could be ascertained than
his prolonged food deprivation.
Starvation Diet.
DR.. Hutchinson holds that 1T is no
principle of progress to hold men down
to a starvation diet any more than it Is
to starvation wages; and while economy
may be an admirable thing in business.
1t is, in dietetics. usually not only short
sighted, but wasteful. for compared with
human life and health food is one Of the
cheapest things there is Time was
when a superintendent OF a hospital,
IL he wanted to make a record for econ
omy would cut down the expenditures on
the food bill. Now many of our hos
pitals, particularly those for the care of
the insane. are beginning to see light
on this subject. to provide more abun-
dant and attractive dietary. to consult
the appetites and preferences Of their
patients, and to allow their physicians.
instead of the superintendent or matron,
to control the precise diet of each pa
tient, with the result that money Is ac-
tually being saved by curing the patients
faster and enabling them to get up and
go back to work in a shorter time"
With regard to the view that the appe
tite is mere gross animal impulse
which it is positive virtue to thWart
and SUPPRESS, the overwhelming con-
sensus of opinion "of the laboratory, the
hospital. the family physician. the SAN
atorium and the diet kitchen is that the
appetite is to be treated with the great
est respect. is to be thwarted only for the
best of reasons and in special emergen-
cies. and is, all things considered, the
most reliable, indeed almost the only,
guide that we have in matters of diet"
The Mother Of Galleries.
The now famous standard diets, laid
down by Psttenkofer and Volt about
fifty years ago, ranged from 1.50O caio-
ries or heat units for the subsistence diet
to 1900 calories for the heavy-work diet:
and these figures have never been mark
edly altered by the thousands of tests,
both practical and laboratory, to which
they have since been submitted The
subsistence QleI Is the SMALLEST amount
that will prevent starvation. Now the
modern starvationists claim that the hu-
man body can be maintained In q full
working power and much better health
upon / 800 calories, some of them even
going SO low as 100 and 1.OO0." On this
DR.. Hutchinson remarks:
mo normal average, unspiritual indi-
vidual has ever been able to live upon
any such diet as 1.50O calories day with
out impairing either his health or his
working power. One of two results prac-
ticalIy invariably follows: either the die
tary is abandoned altogether or the
standard is quietly hitched up from 80
to 90 per cent.
From the extraordinary claims put |
forth for the advantages of slender diet |
one would surely conclude that the most |
imposing array of diseases in our text |
books Of medicine and the hugest totals