Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1922-08-14
AS ONE WOMAN SEES IT
Tho Fact That Methuselah Ate What
he Found on His Plato May,
pletItIars coneede, ,Have Had
Something to Do Win
His Long Life
BY SARAH ID. LOWRIE

MIHEN I was a child lots Of oldish per.
w sons who came to the house used
word that I grew to hate, because they al
ways threatened me with 1t. The word was
dyspepsia
They claimed to be great sufferers from II
themselves and refused to eat this or that
on the score of It. And it always seemed
to me that they gazed on what we children
ate with envious and at the same time dis.
approving eyes. shaking their heads and
calculating:
You'd better not" or, "You will lie
awake tonight, If you do not have bad
dreams :"
AS n matter of fact we were given very
simple food as children. and at such hours
as would insure easy digestion before our
bedtime. but apparently these sufferers from
dyspepsia found even simple food at early
hours as trying rs tasty dishes of odd fla
vors at odd times. Nothing agreed with
them.
The truth Of the matter was they had
ruined not very strong digestions, probably.
by careless or haphazard or too hearty eat.
ing in their early years, and as no one much
understood diet and few doctors made any
but the sketchiest food lists out for their
patients, the wrong once accomplished was
difficult to right.
DABIES of we'll nourished, we'll to. do
- families would 60 to deaths door and
sometimes out Of 1t because of this very lax
treatment of the food subject. And babies
cried great deal more than they do now,
because collie was very common trouble
with even the ones that we're supposed to be
healthy. 1t was taken for granted.
Then suddenly Cat least 1t seemed sudden)
there came change. The whole matter of
food for infants: the variety, the healing as
we'll as nourishing qualities. the accent on
| this or that ingredient to make up for some
lack, the regularity and the quantity. the
weighing afterward, the way the food was
| administered, all these factors that were
| never considerations before were part Of the
regime not only of a well-to-do, much
served household. but. thanks to clinics.
| possible even to the baby of an ignorant
| immigrant.
AS for the regime of adults in regard to
| diet, whole libraries have been written about
| food. and been read, too. When It came
to the home hygiene classes of the war the
| whole subject of diet, with knowledge of
| balanced meals, was part Of being patriotic
| for the housekeepers of the country. In fact,
| the food shortage drove that lesson home in
many n household to q very salutary de.
gree. The right food, rightly cooked and
conscientously eaten, became part of VIM
ming the war.
Until then each locality had its fetish
the food il would have whatever else it went
without. The cake in the country sections,
the hot breads and grddle cakes of the
South, the pork and potatoes of the Irish
families, cornmeal mush and scrapple and
sausage of the Pennsylvania Dutch the
beans and Goldfish balls of New England, the
strong brew of tea for the settlers from
Great Britain. and the strong brew of coffee
for the settlers from Scandinavia, the cab
bage and soaked meat Of the Slavs and
Germans and the raw fruits and greens and
spaghetti Of the southern Europeans. The
universal desire of the young person for
sweet things and cold things might be said
to have constituted the only general food
taste in the country until the war.
During the war. and since the food en-
barge has been lifted. there is n growing
| tendency TO be less sectional, less racial in
| diet among Americans, and too, at all events,
| give our bodies the benefit of a varied and
| at the same time balanced diet.
| TT IS hard to realize that this growing
L intelligence about food and this real desire
| on the part Of American mothers to provide
we'll balanced meals for their children has
| scarcely found an answering echo in Europe,
| except where tho Rcd Cross and the Ameri
can food relief forces have influenced indi-
| vidualS here and there.
spent part Of this morning with a
| woman who has just returned from visiting
| her daughter. who is living in England and
| who has lately had a baby. Fortunately. it
| was not her first child or the end Of the
story would have been different and sadder.
The parents saw TO it that the best nurse
| prOcurabe and the best known English doc
| tor were on hand for the occasion. The baby
came into the world fnt and healthy and
| began life well. for its mother was also
healthy and with plenty food for it. But to
| the latter's astoniShmcnt no embargo was
put upon how much or how often the child
| was fed. Her first baby. born in America,
| had been very much more carefully treated
! However, both doctor and nurse seemed so
authoritative and sure she let the doubt in
| her mind rest.
child specialist. who Immediately took it off
| its mothers milk and put it an infant s
| food, giving it morphia at intervals in order
TO quiet II. The baby grew rapidly worse.
| and as soon as the mother could get her
strength she set herself TO the task Of finding
some one who really knew or cared about
diet in the American way. She discovered
a baby's hospital with a doctor who was so
progressive as to be almost without public
| support. but in whom she found a kindred
soul, for he could speak her language about
diet and sounded like Holt or Starr in his
ideas concerning babies. She got him to her
baby in timc--just in timo-and they pulled
the child back 10 normal babyhood.
DIT her experience had been 50 terrifying
d and her search had been so drastic that
she was filled with distress at tho honighted
| state most of the practitioners of England
were apparontly in with regard to tho whole
matter Of diet She brought about meet =
ing between Dr. Fcxner, of the Rockefeller
Institute, and the progressive doctor of the
BABY Hospital, with the frankly expressed
hope that this one progressive hands might
| he upheld from the great fund that is de =
signed for the purpose of making the knowl-
edge of the few the wisdom of the many.
WAS sent not long ago by Dr. Charles
/ De Wall, Of the College Of Pharmacy, n
very amusing and should think, immensely
able paper he read last winter lie rather