he would only regulate their use in cases where the tendency has been clearly ascertained. "Of all medical powers, diet is the most efficient, because it acts incessantly, day and night, sleeping or waking: it ends by subjugating the individual. Now the diet against corpulency is indicated by the most common and active cause of obesity; and as it has been proved that farinaceous food produces fat, in man as well as in animals, it may be concluded that abstinence from farinaceous substances tends to diminish embonpoint. "I hear my fair friends exclaim that I am a monster, who wishes to deprive them of everything they like. Let them not be alarmed. "If they must eat bread, let it be brown bread; it is very good, but not so nutritious as white bread. "If you are fond of soup, have it à la julienne, or with vegetables, but no paste, no macaroni. "At the first course eat anything you like, except the rice with fowls, or the crust of patés. "The second course requires more philosophy. Avoid everything farinaceous. You can eat roast, salad, and vegetables. And if you must needs have some sweets, take chocolate, creams, and jellies, and punch in preference to orange or others. "Now comes dessert. New danger. But if you have been prudent so far, you will continue to be so. Avoid biscuits and macaroons; eat as much fruit as you like. same The system recommended by Savarin is, as our readers will observe, in essentials the as that which Mr. Banting has proclaimed, with so much pomposity, to be an original discovery; but how infinitely more elegant and refined is the carte sketched by the Parisian gastronome, than the gross fleshmarket bill of fare propounded by the English epicure? It will be observed that veal, which is expressly forbidden by Banting, is recomWe side in mended by Savarin. opinion with the Frenchman. Beef, as a constant article of food, is too nutritious for persons with a corpulent tendency. Roger Bacon, in his treatise, De retardandis Senectutis Malis,' expressly forbids it to old men, warning them that, if they accustom themselves to such meat, dropsies will be engendered, stoppages in the liver, and in like manner obstructions in the spleen, and stones in the kidneys and bladder. Veal and chickens, he thinks, ought decidedly to have the preference. And the following instance is strongly confirmatory of that view. Humphries, the pugilist, was trained by Ripsham, the keeper of the He was sweated jail at Ipswich. in bed, and afterwards twice phy After dinner take a cup of coffee and a glass of liqueur. Tea and punch sicked. He was weighed once a will not hurt you. "At breakfast brown bread and chocolate in preference to coffee. No eggs. Anything else you like. You cannot breakfast too early. If you breakfast late, the dinner hour comes before you have properly digested; you do not eat the less; and this eating without an appetite is a prime cause of obesity, because it often occurs. "The above regulations are to prevent embonpoint. The following are for those who are already victims: Drink, every summer, thirty bottles of Seltzer water-a large tumblerful every morning, two hours before breakfast, and the same before you go to bed. Drink white wines, and rather acid. Avoid beer like the plague. Eat ra day, and at first fed on beef; but as on that food he got too much flesh, they were obliged to change it to mutton. As there are many persons whose health and appearance would be materially improved by putting on a little more of that garb of flesh which has proved such an intolerable burden to Mr. Banting, we confidently recommend to their study the treatise of M. Savarin, wherein the means of attaining a becoming degree of pinguitude are Leanness, elaborately explained. says this wise philosopher, though it may be no absolute disadvantage to a man, "is a great disaster for ladies, for beauty is their life, and beauty consists chiefly in the rounded limb and graceful curve. The most recherché toilet, the best dressmakers in the world, cannot supply certain absences, or hide certain angles. But a woman who is born thin may be fattened like a chicken. It may take more time. The ladies must pardon me the simile, but I could not find a better." Clearly he is in the right. Even the savage instinct recognises the charms of female pinguitude, and takes care that it is properly cultivated. Art follows closely in the wake of instinct. What painter has ever dared to depict, or what sculptor to chisel out, a wood-nymph in attenuated form, or an angular and Scraggy Venus? No wonder that Mr. Banting, having a natural tendency towards corpulence, found himself, in his sixty-third year, much fatter than was at all convenient. He has, with amiable candour, given us a sketch of his former dietary, and after perusing it, we cannot wonder at the result. Buttered toast, beer, and pastry, were his favourite articles of consumption; and moreover, he was in the habit of taking four meals a-day, which is greatly too much for a man of sedentary habits and occupation. We are strongly inclined to think that if Mr. Banting had somewhat restrained his appetite, practised occasional fastings, and entirely abstained from heavy wet, buttered crumpets, muffins, and pâtisserie, he would have fully attained his object, without discontinuing the use of bread, sugar, or potatoes. Men have been known materially to reduce their weight, and at the same time to gain additional health and strength, by restricting themselves entirely to the use of the simplest farinaceous food. Such is the case of Wood, the miller of Billericray in Essex, stated in the Transactions of the London College of Physicians. This man, it would appear, had attained On to such a degree of corpulency by the free use of flesh meat and ale that his life had become a burden to him, but he succeeded in reducing himself to a moderate bulk by the following means: His reformed diet consisted of a simple pudding, made by boiling coarse flour in water, without salt. Of this he consumed about three pounds in twenty-four hours, and took no fluid whatever, not even water. this he lived in perfect health for many years, went through a great deal of exercise in the open air, and was able to carry five hundred pounds weight, "which," says our authority, "was more than he could lift in his youth, when he lived on animal food, and drank freely of ale." In fact, the man fed upon porridge, from time immemorial the favourite diet of the Scottish peasantry, among whom obesity is unknown. Pure farinaceous food can never be hurtful. On the contrary, as Mr. Banting may learn from a perusal of the first chapter of the Book of Daniel, it is infinitely more wholesome both for mind and body than a dietary of butcher-meat and wine. But buttered toast, pastry, and beer, are proper materials for the formation of a Lambert; and so long as Mr. Banting indulged freely in those luxuries, which we object not to his stigmatising as "beans," he was necessarily compelled periodically to enlarge the limits of his girdle. Mr. Banting, with great propriety, wishes that the subject should be well" ventilated," and we are doing our very best to gratify that desire. His own experiences, we are bound to admit, have been quite satisfactory, inasmuch as, by adopting a certain dietary, he has reduced his weight from 14 stone 6 lb. to 10 stone 10 lb. with apparent advantage to his health, and hitherto without any evil consequence. It is also remarkable that these results have been attained without the necessity of having recourse to violent exercise or the use of medi - cine, which latter consideration is Failing exercise, their best means undoubtedly in favour of his sys- of maintaining health is to use fretem. Mr. Banting indeed makes quent abstinence, and always to mention of a certain corrective cor- be strictly temperate. Meat breakdial which he calls the Balm of fasts and continuous indulgence in Life, a spoonful of which, taken the flesh-pots of Egypt, are every before breakfast, he found remark- whit as dangerous as the copious ably salutary. The recipe for this imbibation of wine, or the condraught he declines to give, but we sumption of ardent spirits; and have little doubt that it is of the they may be confident of this, that same nature as that recommended a gross gladiatorial diet will neither by Mons. Brillat-Savarin for the secure them immunity from disease, reduction of embonpoint — viz., a nor promote their chances of longteaspoonful of bark, to be taken evity. Man is an omnivorous aniin a glass of white wine, about two mal; but nature, by limiting the hours before breakfast. But he number of his canine teeth, has does not seem to have used any distinctly indicated that animal medicines of a purgative nature, food ought to form the smallest such as trainers sometimes adminis- portion of his nutriment. Dr. ter a decided point in his favour; Cheyne, in his "Essay on Health,' and altogether it is reasonable that gives the following calculation of he should hug himself on the suc- the quantity of food sufficient to cessful result of his experiment. keep a man of ordinary stature, But nostrums, if we may use such a following no laborious employment, term, are not infallible. Mr. Bant- in due plight, health, and vigour. ing is to be commended for his He allows eight ounces of flesh prudence in not insisting too strong- meat, twelve of bread or vegetaly upon the universal applicability ble food, and about a pint of of his system, which may not, as he wine or other generous liquor, candidly admits, be suitable for in the twenty-four hours. But every constitution; for great harm he adds that the valetudinary, might ensue if his suggestions were and those employed in sedentary to be implicitly adopted, and viol- professions or intellectual studies, ent changes made in their dietary and mode of living by persons whose bulk is not excessive. All sudden changes of diet are hazardous; and more especially when the change is made from what is usually considered a light diet-that is, one in which vegetable substances predominate to a heavier kind of nutriment. Excellent is the advice given in the Regimen Sanitatis of Salerno. must lessen this quantity if they would wish to preserve their health and the freedom of their spirits long. That may appear but spare diet; and we freely grant that a foxhunter or other keen sportsman might add to the allowance both solid and liquid, without any risk of evil consequences. But no man engaged in literary work will be able to accomplish anything worth sending to the printer, if he begins the day with kidneys, bacon, and mutton-chops, indulges in four substantial meals, and crams himself with as much butcher-meat as would satisfy the maw of a hyena. Of course his stomach would be equally clogged and his brain addled if he stuffed himself with buttered toast, muffins, beer, and pastry; but such viands are more affected by ladies of Mrs. Gamp's profession than by men of intellectual pursuits, who know and feel that a clear head and a light stomach are indispensable for the prosecution of their labours. We rise from the perusal of Mr. Banting's pamphlet with our belief quite unshaken in the value of bread and potatoes as ordinary and universal articles of diet. We maintain the excellency and innocency of porridge and pease-pudding; and we see no reason for supposing that any one will become a Jeshurun because he uses milk with his tea, and sweetens it with a lump of sugar. Starch and sugar are eminently nutritious, but they are not therefore unwholesome; on the contrary, if used in moderation, they will promote longevity, and prevent many of those diseases which the copious consumption of flesh is exceedingly apt to engender. Mr. Banting has certainly found a remedy for the complaint which weighed so heavily on his spirits; but we feel assured that he would have found the same measure of relief had he simply exercised some control over his appetite, given his stomach more time to digest by lessening the inordinate number of his meals, abstained altogether from beer, and resolutely steeled his heart against the manifold temptations of the pastry-cook. We advise no one, whatever be his weight or girth, to adopt implicitly the system recommended by Mr. Bant ing, at least until he has tried the effect of a temperate mixed diet (the vegetable element preponderating) combined with early hours and a due amount of exercise. We have no sympathy with the vegetarians who decry the use of animal food, and believe that Nebuchadnezzar's hallucination in the way of pasturage was prompted by a natural instinct; but we are assured there is no instance on record of death ensuing from the use of farinaceous food, whereas close behind the carnivorous gorger stalks the hideous form of Apoplexy, ready to smite him down when his stomach is full, and the veins of his forehead distended with indulgence in his fleshly lusts. A mixed diet is the best: and after all that has been said and written on the subject, Temperance is the one thing needful to secure a man against the evils of inordinate obesity. A party of astronomers Went measuring of the earth; And forty million metres They took to be its girth: Five hundred million inches, though, Go through from pole to pole; So let's stick to inches, feet, and yards, And the good old three-foot rule. The great Egyptian Pyramid And when the masons finished it, The chap that planned that building, And now 'tis proved, beyond all doubt, Here's a health to every learned man That goes by common sense, And would not plague the workman But as for those philanthropists Who'd send us back to school, "O bless their eyes if ever they tries" |