Year: 1873

papers.


From the Chicago Times.l


If there be any one thing calculated
to drive the newspaper reader to dis
traction, it is the contradictory state
ments of physicians and the like, which


he finds in almost any issue of any
journal published anywhere. When
one reflects that there are great many


people who never read anything but
newspapers who find in the daily


periodical their confession of faith,


their shorter and longer catechism


who look to it for their political views,


their dispensatory, their recipe and


cookbook, it is easy enough to see that


such readers may be daily driven to the


very verge of distraction by the con-


tradictiOns which meet him in the col


umns of his favorite journal.


A case in point is that furnished in


the dietetic line. One day the reader


lights upon the theories of DR.. Dio


Lewis. He finds to his horror that he


is eating himself to death. He learns


that tea and coffee are poisons, meat a


frightful luxury, pastry a devilish in


vention in the interests of undertakers.


He discovers that all nature requires is


a few spoonfuls of cracked wheat, soft


ened in hot water for a piece de re-


sistance, with a glass of milk for


dessert. Occasionally, the main dish


may be varied by a substitution of oat-


meal, with such a variety in the dessert


as may be afforded by glass of water


in place of the glass of milk.


Scarcely had the reader adapted him


self to the regimen, when his news
paper gives him the views of some STALL
| fed BritOn. Now he learns that the
| only true method of preserving life is to
gorge soup, roast beef, mutton, venison,


all sorts of vegetables, no end of des-
| sert, together with tea and coffee, with
four kinds of wine at dinner and un-
limited brandy-and water after it. The
| cracked-wheat theorists clamor for no
more than two meals day, the heaviest
| of which shall be as many hours as pos
sible before bedtime, while the Briton
points complacently to the magnificent
health of his people with their four
meals day, the grandest of which
occurs after the labor of the day is done.


Then there is the tobacco and whisky
difficulty. One is convinced by his
newspaper that tobacco and whisky,
even in the most temperate form, are
serious evils; but he has no more than
broken his pipe and thrown his decanter
out of the window than there enters the
field another apostle who demonstrates
conclusively that tobacco and spirits,
used In moderation, are conducive to
comfort, health and long life.


If there be any one thing upon which
there has been unanimous agreement
in the dictG of the newspapers, it is
that morning bath in cold water is
prerequisite to vigorous health. We
have all ordered our baths and sponges
we are faithfully carrying out the hy-
dropathic theories, when there has just
entered our authority who assures us
that daily bathing in cold water weakens |
one that it is useless for purposes of |
cleanliness that nature is impeded in |
place of being assisted by too frequent |
bathing, aud that tepid bath weekly |
is the very most that health and cleanli- |
ness require.


Then there arises the cholera nostrum |
whenever the cholera becomes menac-
ing, an cold physician" invariably |
rises to explain, and announces that |
with the following prescription he has
cured IL 200 cases and never lost sin
gle one. People have scarcely gotten |
the prescription pasted in their hat,
when there enters another competent |
authority who announces that some
thing exactly unlike the other is the
only remedy, and that everything else
is fraud and failure.


How many years have people followed
the "early to bed and early to rise"
formula, only to find, after q quarter of
a century, from some one who knows,
that the late sleep in the morning is the
most restful and healthful, and that all
along they have been getting out at
daybreak to their own irreparable in
jury. "Jump out of bed the instant
awake p have long said some, and "de-
vote at least an hour to waking up, be-
fore rising" says Henry Ward Beecher;
and both authorities urge their plan
upon the plea of health.


Anybody will remember a thousand
just such other cases, in which there is
a fiat contradiction with reference to
the same precise thing. Indeed, if one
attempts to follow the hygienic theories
of his newspaper, there is scarcely a
week in which he will not find himself
at both extremes with respect to any
one particular matter.


The weak point in this contrarietv of
views is that the prescriptionists of the
newspapers regard every one man as
exactly like every other man, and that
what is suitable for one is suitable for
all the rest. Nothing is more absurd
than this. Not only are there scarcely
two people who require the same diet
and the same medicine, but there is
man who requires the same
food and same treatment for any two
periods of his life. The matutinal cold
water plunge that will invigorate one
man will seriously weaken and depress
another. A cigar will soothe one in
dividual and excite some other one.
One person will thrive on a sparse
diet, while another will starve
unless he have an abundant supply of
juicy meats and large variety of food.


The people who present these differ
ent theories of eating, drinking, and
living would be right were they to limit
the application of their teachings to in
dividuals or classes in place of trying to
apply them to all. The only fool in the
case is the man who attempts to follow
all these teachings, and who is carni-
verous and gramnivorous, a hydropa-
thist or a non-hydropathist an allopa-
thist or homeopathist by turns, accord
ing as he may happen to be influenced
by the last theory in his newspaper.