Imagine what a mockery it would have been to give such a standard as that of "M.D." to the agricultural labourer about the middle of last century, a typical one with a large family, and one who worked as men do not work to-day, and had to rear his family on a few shillings a week. How could such a one have provided more than a fraction of what "M.D." says is necessary, either for himself or his children?

The broad fact is, that all the hardest work of the world has always been done by those who get the least food. As one who has had some experience of labour, I doubt if the workers could have done so much if it had not been for a spare diet. Certain it is, that since they have more to eat, they are much less inclined to work.

My contention, then, is that there is no fixed standard of proteid needed by the body, but that the quantity depends on the development that is in progress and is only discoverable by the natural guides of appetite and taste, ruled by reason and love of others. Moreover, I contend that even if there were such a standard as "M.D." says physiology has found, it obviously is not known.

I cannot help recognising in "M.D." one whom I gratefully love and respect. He helped me on the road, and now that I differ from him I do not forget it, and I ask his forgiveness if I seem to be arrogant. He thinks I cannot see what he sees because I am underfed, and I think he cannot see what I see because he is overfed. In a sense we are both right, and we form a beautiful illustration of the different states of mind that belong to different physical conditions. I urge the laymen like myself not to be afraid of that musty old ill-shaped monster called Science[7] when he is up against the eternal truths that belong to every simple untutored man. Shun the monster as you would a priest, to whom he has a great likeness, and unite with me in a long strong pull to get "M.D." out of the rut in which the monster holds him, so that we may have him with us on the road, for he carries much treasure and we cannot do without him.

A.A. VOYSEY.

[7] I do not wish to be misunderstood. No sane man despises real science, but when the mixture of science and ignorance, which usually stalks about in the name of science, wants to usurp our heaven-born instincts we cannot but notice his ugly and monstrous shape. It is the function of science, or a true knowledge of details, to fill in the mosaic of the temple of wisdom, but the mosaic can never be the structure itself and is only useful and good when it is subservient to that structure and harmonious with it.



CAMPING OUT.

FOOD QUESTIONS.

"We have to consider," I said, "the question of what food to take and how to cook it."

"Camping out," said Sylvia, "ought to be a complete holiday from the food bother. Why not live on unfired food, such as tinned tongue, sardines and bottled shrimps?"

Thereupon Felix laughed a great laugh, and said: "Just try and do a thousand miles on sardines."

Felix is Sylvia's brother, who has spent some twenty years in America, travelling for weeks through country that contained no people, and spending nearly two years in a single journey to Dawson City and home again. He plainly knows far more about bed-rock camping than anyone else in the family and we allowed him to take the floor for a time.

"The first thing is bread." said Felix, "because you can't do without bread. You must take some yeast or else some baking-powder with you to make it rise, or you must bake it very quickly so that the steam aerates it. You might take a Dutch oven with you, but it's nothing like the Dutch oven that you know in this country. It is an iron pot on three legs, with an iron lid. You stand it in the fire and cover the lid with hot brands and you can cook anything inside it—ducks and chunks of venison, and bread of course."

"But Mr Freeman has barred the oven," said Sylvia, "and if we are not going a thousand miles from home perhaps we can do without it."

"As you like," answered Felix. "I only mention it so that you can get hold of the general principle. You can make very good bread in a frying-pan. You must mix the dough up stiff so that when the pan is nearly upright it won't tumble out. You fix the pan up with a prop behind it so that the dough faces the fire, quite close, and you draw some more fire behind it so that the back is warmed as well. When it burns a good crust on both sides it is done."

"What are flap-jacks," I asked.

"Just pan-cakes made without eggs or milk," said Felix. "You mix a quart of flour with a tablespoonful of baking-powder and put in water till it is just so thin that when you take up a spoonful and let it drop back you can see the shape of it for a few seconds before it melts into the rest. You fry the batter in bacon fat or butter just like pan-cakes, and the cakes are very good."



"That's a good tip for us," I said, "and another good thing to take is cuddy biscuits, a kind of captain's biscuit. Soak them a few minutes in water or milk and fry them. They're nice with tomatoes or anything, or by themselves."

"Mebbe," said Felix, and his tone said, "Mebbe not." "I'm only discussing general principles, and you've got to work your own way out in the light of them. I've known an outfit come away without a frying-pan. How do you make bread then?"

We had to give it up, and Felix went on: "Open your flour sack, turn down the edge like it is in a baker's shop, make a little hole in the flour and pour in water to make a pond. Mix in what flour you want to use and get your dough into the shape of a snake, wind it round a stick and cook it like that. You've got your bread then like a French roll, and very good it is."

We all liked the idea of making bread every day and eating it hot. Here was something to be had in camp that you could not get at home. And we liked the idea of learning our cooking by means of first principles. Whether we liked it or not, Felix liked talking about it, and he began to grow anecdotal.

"Once," he said, "I met a whole lot of men, ten of them I should think, camped on a cold frosty night with nothing to eat. They were trying to do a journey of thirty miles on rough prairie and their horses were tired and they could not get on. They had brought their lunch and eaten it long ago, and they told me they were starving. They had nothing to eat, nothing to do any cooking with and no wood to make a fire with. I never saw such hungry people. They were new settlers just out from England and it was up to me to do something for them.

"'What have you got in that great waggon?' I asked. They told me they had some sacks of flour and two frozen quarters of beef, but there was nothing to cook it in and no wood to make a fire.

"There was any amount of cow-dung on the prairie, and it was dry as chips. I set them collecting that and soon enough had a fire. I filled a bucket with water and put it on to boil. I chopped off some meat and put it in. Then I made some dumplings and put them in. You just put them into boiling water, you know, and then they cook at once on the outside and don't come to pieces. If they boil too much they get pappy, and if not done through they're not good. Most dumplings you eat in England are not done, but mine were just right and those ten hungry men had just as good a supper as anyone could wish for."

"Tell us about the coffee you used to make," said Sylvia. "What horrible stuff it must have been."

"The very best coffee ever I drank," said Felix.

"We used to make it in a pot that was nearly a yard high. We never turned out the grounds, but let them settle and put in a little more every time we made coffee, till the pot was so full that it wouldn't hold any more water."

"I don't see anything against it," I said, when Sylvia and Gertrude were both expressing their horror. "There is no tannin or other bad principle in coffee and you never get anything worse out of it than you do at the first soaking."

"The fellows that work the logs on the river have their own kind of coffee that they call drip coffee," said Felix. "They have a tall pot like ours was and they tie the coffee in a sack above the water, so that the water never touches it, but the steam goes up and fetches it out in drops. They don't change the sack every time, but keep adding coffee till it won't hold any more."

"The moral of which is?" said Basil, who had for some time been growing impatient.

"That there are plenty of ways of cooking an egg besides frying it," said Felix, "and that a bit of common-sense is about the best article you can take with you out camping. Take your food as raw as you can get it and know how to cook it. Also know a good herb when you see it, and never overlook a chance of getting a meal from the country that will save your stores."

C.R. FREEMAN.

Food reformers will have their own opinion about a diet of shrimps, sardines, tinned tongue and stale coffee when camping out: the most important part of the outfit is doubtless an adequate supply of common-sense.—[EDS.]



SEASICKNESS: SOME REMEDIES.

In the April and May numbers of the present year we published an article by Mr Hereward Carrington entitled "Seasickness: How Caused, How Cured." The following supplementary suggestions by the same well-known writer will be useful to many readers.—[EDS.]

A very good plan, when you think of undertaking a voyage, is to begin to prepare for it several days in advance. For three or four days, before embarking, eat only very simple and somewhat laxative foods—such as fruits—so as to open the bowels well and tone up the system. This simple diet should be followed for the first two or three days aboard—of course not so rigidly, but taking care not to indulge in many heavy, greasy dishes. Unfortunately, the food on board is usually very rich and plentiful, and tempts one to eat. If one suffers from seasickness, there is not this same temptation, to be sure; but the malady may certainly be warded off, in the majority of cases, if only reasonable care be taken of the diet before and during the voyage, and if instructions herein laid down be followed.

As before stated, drugs are as a rule useless for the cure of seasickness; but on occasion a "seasick cure" of some kind may prove effective. The harm which results from the drug may perhaps be more than counterbalanced by the benefits which the system derives from the cessation of seasickness. A preparation of this kind which is very highly recommended by many travellers is known as "Antimermal," and though none of these remedies are to be recommended with assurance, this one—and perhaps one or two others—might at least be tried, in cases of dire necessity, when seasickness has already supervened.

It is hardly necessary to say that the patient should remain in the open air continuously, until all symptoms of seasickness have paused. Live in your deck chair until you feel quite well and able to get up and walk round. Do not attempt to go downstairs into the dining-saloon to meals, if you feel in the slightest "squirmish." Rather have some hot soup or broth of some kind sent up to you, and drink it sitting in your chair. Do not be afraid to drink water at all times, even if you feel ill—as the water is easily returned, and it is less strain on the stomach to be able to bring up something than to find nothing in the stomach when an effort is made to eject what is not there. Water will serve to allay this strain, and thus serve a useful purpose.

In very severe cases of seasickness, the stomach of the patient should be emptied and washed out at once. This is usually an easy matter. Have the patient drink one or two glasses of water, warm or cold, with a little salt or bi-carbonate of soda added—say a teaspoonful to a pint of water. This will have the desired result! In extreme cases of seasickness, dry cold, such as ice-bags, placed behind and about the ears, will sooth the patient, and help to allay his suffering. Cold cloths to the forehead will also prove helpful. Full baths had best be omitted, until the attack has worn off, as they are injudicious on account of the reactions they induce.

In prolonged cases of seasickness, there is often a craving for acids and fruit juices. The continued absence or diminution of the acid contents of the stomach, and the privation from normal food, accounts in part for this, and it is highly proper to satisfy such a craving—providing due care is taken not to add to the stomach's distress by taking too much juice, or the juice of unripe fruit, or by swallowing the fibre of the fruit, which is allowable only when recovery is complete.

HEREWARD CARRINGTON.



IMPORTANT.

If readers who possess copies of the first number of The Healthy Life (August 1911) will send them to the Editors, they will receive, in exchange, booklets to the value of threepence for each copy.



A SYMPOSIUM ON UNFIRED FOOD.

In the November number we published a letter from a reader containing the excellent suggestion that readers who had experimented to any fair extent with unfired diet should be invited to contribute to a conference on the subject in THE HEALTHY LIFE, and that the symposium should be gathered round the following points:—

(1) The effect of the diet in curing chronic disease.

(2) Its effect on children so brought up—e.g. do they get the so-called "inevitable" diseases of chicken-pox, measles, etc., and especially have they good (i.e. perfect) teeth?

(3) The effect of the diet in childbirth.

(4) The cost of maintaining a household in this way, as compared with the cost under ordinary conditions.

(5) Is the diet satisfying, or is there a longing for conventional dietary (often found amongst food reformers)?

(6) Is the diet quite satisfactory in winter?

Two letters were published in the January number. Two more in February. Others will appear in future issues. We are anxious to receive a large number of personal experiences, but they must be brief, and classified under the above heads as far as possible.—[EDS.]

ST ALBANS.

In response to your invitation I am sending you my experience with vegetarian dietary. Although, as you will see, this has not been altogether "unfired," I think it should be of interest to many.

(1) I became a vegetarian at the time of my marriage, nearly three years ago, my husband being already a vegetarian of eleven years. I considered this a good opportunity to commence. Previous to this I had for some time suffered from indigestion, which continued for a few months after marriage. I attribute the cure to the change of diet, and drinking hot water after meals.

(2) We have one child eighteen months old, totally breast fed for twelve months, and another four months: on breast and Ixion Food and some fruit juice.

She has never had any disease whatever, and so far her teeth are perfect and she has cut them quite easily. She is a bonny, sturdy little girl, and very intelligent.

(3) With regard to childbirth, I previously followed the advice of Dr Alice Stockholme in "Tokology," avoiding flesh meats and bone-making food and adopting a diet of fruit (chiefly lemons) and rice, brown bread and nut butter, wearing no corsets and taking frequent baths. The effect during pregnancy was highly satisfactory. I enjoyed perfect health the whole time, free from the usual discomforts, and at childbirth I received similar results: a speedy and safe delivery. Indeed, since marriage, my husband, baby and myself, have been singularly free from even minor complaints.

(4) As we do not have the specially prepared, expensive vegetarian foods (supposed to substitute meat), but mainly the simple foods, I consider the diet less costly than the meat diet.

(5) We are honestly quite free from the craving for meat or meat foods.

(6) In the summer-time we live principally on salads, cheese, rissoles, etc., made from beans, peas, lentils, etc., fresh fruits, brown bread and nut butter. In the very cold weather we seem to need rather warmer stuffs, such as porridge (carefully cooked) and cooked vegetables, etc.

D. GODMAN.

* * * * *

BRIGHTON.

I have read with the greatest interest the correspondence in The Healthy Life on the unfired diet. As the majority of your correspondents have not been living exclusively on unfired food, or have only done so for short periods, may I suggest that some of your correspondents or contributors live on an entirely unfired diet, excluding dairy produce, for a period of six or twelve months and then relate their experiences. In this way some valuable evidence would be obtained. At any rate I am prepared to do this myself.

With reference to living on the unfired diet on 4d. a day, I have often had two unfired meals for less than 4d., and two meals a day are sufficient for anyone. Of course to do this one has to buy the food which is in season and therefore cheap. Dried fruit and nuts, followed by a cress salad with oil and lemon dressing, does not cost more than 2d. An unfired rissole made from grated carrot and flaked peanuts cost at most a penny, and if followed by dates or figs would be a sufficient meal, and 2d. would cover the cost.

In conclusion, I have no difficulty in producing a "two course" unfired meal for 2d.—but perhaps I should have left the subject of cost for Dr Bell to deal with. Yours faithfully,

ALFRED LE HURAY.



MORE ABOUT TWO MEALS A DAY.

With reference to my article, "Two Meals a Day," which appeared in the May issue of The Healthy Life, several correspondents have asked me to give more particulars about my life and diet. I do so gladly; but I must be brief, as the demand upon space in this magazine is now very great.

Resolved into a single sentence, what all my correspondents wish to know is this: Is a two-meal dietary best for all?

To this question, however, a definite answer cannot be given, for the simple reason that scientific experimentation with respect to food quantities and times of meals, etc., has gone such a little way, so that it would be presumptuous to set a limit in regard to meals and food reduction. To my mind, apart from the question of the quantity of food to be taken, there is a great and important field of inquiry open with respect to the effect of rest upon the stomach and the intestines, upon the digestive and assimilative powers of the body.

Now the whole purpose of my article was to show that a reduction of one's dietary was a matter of training, of gradual adaptation, but also—and this is the important fact-of gradual strengthening. My theory is that the two-meal plan is possible owing to the immense economy in digestive energy that is effected through giving the stomach adequate rest, and also through keeping the blood stream pure and unclogged, almost absolutely free from surfeit matter. A rested stomach will get more nutriment out of a small amount of food-stuff than an overworked stomach will get out of a much larger quantity. But experimentation which is sudden and covers a few weeks only, is worse than useless, as it tends to disprove the very principles that a saner method of experimentation would probably establish. And if I can impress this fact upon the reader I shall have performed a good service.

Carefully undertaken, and properly graduated, I believe there are few people in these days who would not greatly benefit by a reduction in the number of meals and in the quantity of food they take. By means of a healthy and cheerful habit of introspection—not morbid and feverish—I am firmly convinced that by cutting down their meals most people would not only greatly improve their health, but their mental and spiritual condition as well, and also greatly increase their capacity for work ... And if in this way we can effect such an improvement in our life and condition it does not really matter whether we get to the two or even one meal basis or not.

As to myself, my work is chiefly literary and my life moderately sedentary. But the fact is that I now have two moderate meals a day whereas I used to have four pretty good ones. But I have many friends whose work is mechanical, and demands much muscular energy, who are two-mealists. One lady I know, who is one of the healthiest, strongest and best physically developed persons I have ever met, is a two-mealist, and not only does she work at a mechanical occupation for ten hours a day, but on several evenings each week conducts a ladies gymnastics class as well. But in her case, as in mine, the two meal was an ideal that was gradually and slowly attained, and not a sudden reform. Indeed, the main thing to remember is that it is all a matter of training, it being quite impossible to say where the limit is. For of one thing I am quite sure—viz. that most people, were they to adopt a slow process of food and meals reduction, on the lines I suggested in my article, would be astonished at the result. The number of people one meets, chiefly among those whose life is more or less sedentary, who say they can't work as they should, are subject to pains and heaviness in the head, constipation and indigestion, is simply appalling; and on questioning such people I come to the conclusion that in the majority of cases it is because they eat too much or too often.

My meals are very simple, and the simpler they are the better I like them. I like a cold lunch about noon, and a hot meal about six. I have tried a wholly uncooked diet, but as yet my body does not seem ready for it: perhaps it will be after a little while. The first meal usually consists of wholemeal bread and fruit, green or vegetable salads, just according to my needs at the time. In winter I take a more liberal supply of dried fruits and nuts. Pulses I eschew altogether. My second meal consists of a substantial entree with one or two conservatively cooked vegetables—occasionally I have a soup and a sweet in addition. But of course it is for everyone to find out his or her own ideal diet; and let me say that it is worth while to do so, even though it involves much confusion and perplexity during the period of experimentation.

WILFRED WELLOCK.



A BALLADE OF SKYFARING.

Ye whom bonds of the city chain, Yet whose heart must with Nature's be; Ye who, bound to a bed of pain, Dream there of torrent and tower and tree, Here behold them—the magic key, Turned by a thought in yon gates of blue, Even now has revealed to me Alps and Mediterranean too.

Why of the bondage of earth complain? Wide as heaven is our liberty! Where are the streets and their smoke and stain When to the land of the lark we flee? Where is the sight that we may not see, Cloudland's citadel passing through? Switzerland beckons with Sicily, Alps and Mediterranean too.

Here, 'twixt walls with the marble's vein, Oared on a river of gold are we; There we watch, on a sapphire main, White fleets voyage to victory. Day unto day flashes grief or glee; Night to night utters speech anew, Figuring forest and lane and lea— Alps and Mediterranean too.

ENVOY

Prince whose course through the world is free, Fare you better than dreamers do? Here are the mountains and here the sea— Alps and Mediterranean too.

S. GERTRUDE FORD.

From Lyric Leaves, by S. Gertrude Ford. Cloth, 2s. 6d. net; 2s. 8d. post free from The Healthy Life, 3 Amen Corner, E.C. This charmingly bound book makes an excellent holiday companion, for it contains many beautiful lyrics, all characterised by serious thought, generous human sympathies and a delicate imaginative quality.



A REMEDY FOR LONGEVITY.

Once upon a time there was a little boy whose parents took things very seriously. They answered all his questions with painstaking precision. At a comparatively early age he could prove that fairies were non-existent. At the same time his toys were marvels of mechanical perfection.

At the age of seven he was sent to a very efficient school, where, being naturally a bright boy, he gained high marks every term and passed all the examinations, for he had a wonderful and well-trained faculty for remembering exactly what his teachers had told him.

When he left school he entered a London merchant's office, where his knowledge of arithmetic was of the greatest assistance in bringing him to the front. Moreover, he could argue very tellingly with all the clerks and warehousemen, and always knew what the morning papers were saving about health, neck-ties or religion.

In course of time he grew a moustache, joined the Territorials, was made a partner in the firm, married a well-educated young lady and became a strong supporter of the local Liberal Club, where his opinions were so well known that it was unnecessary for anyone seriously to combat them. He was never known to vote for the Conservative candidate or to lose his head. His concluding speech in the historic debate on The National Health Insurance Act will always be remembered, by those who heard it, for its earnest defence of the medical profession. In fact, the Mayor, who was in the chair, and was a doctor himself, warmly congratulated the speaker, who was evidently very pleased.

Ten years later he became a Town Councillor, opened several Institutes for the Care of the Poor, and sent his second son to join the eldest at the same kind of school at which he (the father) had been so well trained. About the same date he bought a new edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and carefully compiled a list of facts and figures showing that idealists and all new-fangled ideas were the greatest danger to the increasing trade and expansion of the Empire.

At the age of fifty he took a house at Surbiton and was continually congratulated on his hale and hearty appearance. His opinions were known and respected by all who met him. His sons were models of what the children of such a father should be, and they supported him in every argument.

At the age of fifty-two he retired from business. A month later he had an idea; and it so interfered with all his opinions, and so affected his general health, that he died.

EDGAR J. SAXON.



A SIGNIFICANT CASE—II.

He stopped smoking tobacco on the second day, and does not mean to resume its use. Of course he had no alcohol in any form during the fast, but he never has taken much alcohol, although he was not a pledged abstainer. The temperature was taken many times and seems to have been almost always subnormal, about 97 degrees Fahr., but this is not so unusual a condition as to call for comment. The chief cause of a subnormal temperature, in my opinion, is blocking of the body with too much food. No doubt in prolonged fasting the temperature may fall also; but sometimes a fast will be the cause of raising a subnormal bodily temperature, as happened in a case of mine in which on the twenty-eighth day of the fast there was a large elimination of urates by the kidneys and a rise of temperature from 96 degrees to 98.4 degrees. Subnormal bodily temperature has not received the attention which it deserves. It is usually one of the forerunners, or prodromata as they are called, of the onset of incurable diseases like cancer, Bright's disease or apoplexy. The commonly accepted view that the heat of the body depends upon the food, and that people eat blubber in the Arctic and Antarctic regions to keep the bodily heat up, is one of the chief causes for neglect of the study of subnormal temperature. And it is quite surprising that physiologists have not thought it necessary to explain why nature has provided sugar and palm oil and cocoa-nut oil and ground-nut oil in the tropical regions, as well as abundance of olive oil in the warm temperate regions of the earth if these foods keep the bodily heat up. They ought to have been more abundantly supplied in the Arctic and Antarctic regions if the accepted view is correct. Besides, if we must eat blubber to keep bodily heat up in the Arctic regions when the outside temperature is 50 or 100 or more degrees lower than that of the body, what ought we to eat in the tropics to keep bodily heat down when the outside temperature is 50 or even 80 degrees above that of the body? Physiologists have not explained this, although assuredly an explanation is wanted. But the true explanation, the correct explanation, would have demolished the doctrine that bodily heat is due to the food, and so it has not been given. It is too simple to imagine that the bodily heat is, like the body itself and all its functions, the effect of the life-force that inhabits the body and builds up the body so that the body shall be a fit dwelling-place for itself—this explanation is too simple and too idealistic for modern science, which is less and less disposed, we are told, to invoke the aid of a force of life to account for vital phenomena, although it assumes an attracting force to account for gravitating phenomena, and an electric and chemic force to account for electric and chemic phenomena. Modern science (and ancient science, too, apparently) which sees well enough that an idealistic or a materialistic explanation would equally account for the nexus of the phenomena of the universe, deliberately and almost invariably prefers the materialistic explanation. She is anxious that we should be kept free of superstition. But the superstition that forces are the effects of things does not seem to distress her at all. And so we are told that gravitation is a property of matter, and are forbidden to think that perhaps gravitation, a force, procreates matter, a thing, in order that the effects of the fore may be perceived by dull sense. We are told that the function of the liver and the brain depends on the structure of the liver and the brain respectively and we are not allowed to think that perhaps the force of animal life, feeling the need of an instrument to secrete bile, on the one hand, and to secrete cerebral lymph to act as a vehicle for the conveyance of thought and emotion and higher things, on the other, introduces the liver with its elaborate structure and the brain with its still more complicated structure, in order that both the one function and the other may be well performed. And so, although all forms of kinetic energy (and among them zoo-dynamic, or the force of animal life) manifest warmth and luminosity as qualities, science attributes animal heat to chemic force and refuses to consider that perhaps zoo-dynamic uses chemico-dynamic for its own purposes, even if these purposes are unconscious, because the higher force always dominates the lower. Properly speaking, science is out of her sphere, though she does not seem to know it, in making these suggestions. When she keeps herself to the investigation of facts, their exposition, their sequence and their laws, in her painstaking and accurate manner, we accept her revelations thankfully, and beg her to allow us to make our own philosophic and other explanations in attempting to account for the existence, sequences and relations of the facts of life.

After his return home, patient continued to gain weight, as might have been expected. On the seventeenth day after ending the fast he weighed 140 lbs. and on the nineteenth day 144 lbs. On that day he received from a hospital a report that the reaction of the physiologico-pathological test was negative. This has naturally had a great effect on the patient; and it is worthy of very careful consideration. Of course one negative result may not be conclusive although it was positive before the fast. But if the result should be repeated, and especially if it should prove to be permanent, the importance of the fact can hardly be exaggerated, since the suggestion arises in our minds that perhaps we may be able to cure profound blood-poisoning by fasting, neither the usual treatment nor the use of Salvarsan enabling the investigator to say that the result of the pathological reaction was negative; but this has followed after a heroic fast of 56 days. The result if confirmed would not be unique. Quite recently I saw a specific ulcer close to the ankle-joint for which operation had been recommended. It seemed to me that operation would be likely to open the joint, and that therefore it was a risky proceeding. But under a restriction of the diet, putting the young man on barley-water for a few days and then advising him to eat once a day only, the ulcer became very much smaller, and no operation has had to be performed. Blood-poisoning of this nature, of course, is not caused by improper nutrition, but it may readily be believed to be aggravated by the ordinary conventional over-feeding to which, so far as I can see, we are all subjecting ourselves, especially as persons who put themselves in the way of contracting blood-poisoning do not generally belong to the class of those who are attracted by the suggestion that it is noble to keep the body under, and that if we do not strive to keep the body under, it will be very likely to keep us under. Although we shall be liable to be infected, however we live, still we may believe that we shall be more likely to be badly infected (if we put ourselves in the way of contracting disease) if we have been previously subjected to the bad effects of over-feeding. This consideration renders a possible cure by fasting, a not impossible suggestion. And if, therefore, we have in fasting the suggestion of a remedy which offers us the hope of eradicating such a fearful disease from the human system, it certainly behoves us to make use of it.

As a rule it seems to me that bad forms of blood-poisoning of this nature are incurable. In three or four generations they destroy the strain affected by it, do what we will. Meantime it shows all the signs and symptoms of a hereditary disease, for the children are born suffering, showing a coppery rash, and old before they are young. And when they get a little older they have no bridges to their noses, their teeth are ill-formed, their vision is imperfect, their intellects dull. It seems as if nature could not forgive crimes of this nature. She seems to treat them as the unpardonable sin. If we find cancer appearing in a family at 55 years of age in 3 or 4 successive generations, there is no proof of heredity in that. Inquire and see if like causes acting on like organisms in 3 or 4 successive generations have not produced the disease each time. The children are not born cancerous, and our efforts to prevent the disease may succeed. But children often are born with specific disease, and there is no doubt at all about its being a hereditary disease. Even now I should not like to sanction marriage in the case of this man who has heroically fasted for 56 days, although he seems for the present to have got rid of his disease. But the outlook is hopeful, more hopeful than I thought, and in the hope that the suggestion may convey a message of hope to those who are willing to do penance for crimes against the body, I send out these remarks. The opinion expressed by the patient that he was getting rid of the Salvarsan which had been injected into his blood to cure his disease is, of course, his own only. I offer no opinion upon it. But I think the whole case very instructive, and it will be deeply interesting to follow it up with special regard to the inquiry whether the pathological test remains negative. The reflective reader of these remarks will need no hint from me to suggest how a study of questions of this sort raises in our minds all sorts of other questions, physical, metaphysical, philosophical, social, religious; what are laws of nature, how they come to be what they are, whether they can be disregarded without paying the penalty, and whether we men are bond or free. Each of us will settle these questions for ourselves, for each of us is responsible for his own conclusion. But as to the inevitableness with which such questions do rise in our minds, I take it there can be no difference of opinion.

A. RABAGLIATI.



HEALTHY HOMEMAKING.

For the benefit of new readers it seems well to explain that this series of articles is not intended for the instruction of experienced housewives. It was started at the special request of a reader who asked for "a little book on housekeeping, for those of us who know nothing at all about it; and put in all the little details that are presumably regarded as too trivial or too obvious to be mentioned in the ordinary books on domestic economy."

XXI. HIRED HELP.

It does not seem proper to conclude the present series of articles without touching upon the "servant problem," but I do not pretend to be able to solve it. It is a problem usually very difficult of solution by the homemaker of small means. If she has but few persons to cater for, and is not the mother of a young family, she is often very much better off without hired help, except for a periodical charwoman. But it is not always indispensable to the woman who has other duties besides housekeeping.

I am not here concerned with the housewife who can afford to keep more than one efficient servant. Indeed, I am hardly concerned with one who can employ a really good "general" at from L20 to L25 per annum. The person I am concerned with is the homemaker who can afford at most to employ an inexperienced young girl at from L10 to L14 per annum.

I will draw the worst side of the picture first, for although it is the worst side it is true enough, as so many harassed housewives know.

The young "general" often comes straight from a council school where domestic economy had no place in the curriculum, and from a home in name only. Such an one is usually slatternly and careless in all her ways, has no idea of personal cleanliness, and regards her "mistress" as, more or less, her natural enemy! She is "in service" only under compulsion, and envies those of her schoolmates whose more fortunate circumstances have enabled them to become "young lady" shop assistants, typists and even elementary school teachers. If she had her choice she would prefer labour in a factory to domestic work; but either a factory is not available, or the girl's parents consider "service" more "respectable" in spite of its hardships. Its hardships? Yes, it is its hardships that account for its peculiar unpopularity. For there are hardships connected with domestic service in small households that do not apply to other forms of much harder labour.

Everyone who is familiar with the small lower middle-class household knows how often the life of the little "general" resembles that of an animal rather than a human being. All day long she drudges in a muddling, inefficient way, continually scolded for her inefficiency yet never really taught how to do anything properly. Her work is never done, for she is always at the beck and call of her employers; yet she lives apart in social isolation, is referred to contemptuously as the "slavey," and even her food is dispensed to her grudgingly and minus the special dainties bought for Sundays and holidays. This is domestic service at its worst, of course, but the prevalence of such "places" in actual fact is undoubtedly at the root of the young girl's objection to it. How can she help gleaning the impression that such work is "menial," when her employers more or less openly despise her? Being human, how can she but envy those of her old friends who have their evenings to themselves? What contentment can she find in a life of drudgery unenlightened by intelligent interest in learning how to do something well? What wonder that all her hopes and ambitions become centred in the possession of a "young man," and that reason—stunted from its birth for lack of room to grow—being entirely absent from her choice, she marries badly and too young, and becomes the mother of a numerous progeny as helpless, hopeless, stunted and inefficient as herself?

Some conscientious women try to remedy this state of things by treating the girls they take into their homes as "one of the family." This may answer well sometimes, but it has its drawbacks, both for the girl and the "family." Husband and wife, brother and sister, inevitably find the constant presence of a stranger with whom they have little in common very irksome. While the girl herself is equally conscious of restraint when forced to spend her leisure time with her employers. She would usually infinitely prefer the solitude of the kitchen, if combined with a good fire, a comfortable chair and a story book.

Among the girls I have spoken to on the subject I have not found "socialist" households popular. One girl I met refused to stay in such a place for longer than three days, because she "never had the kitchen to herself." Another told me that she found it intensely boring to take meals with the family, because she was not interested in the things they talked about.

I think that the ultimate solution of the "servant problem" will not be that every woman will do all her own housework, but that domestic work will become, on the one hand, very much simplified and, on the other, will be put on the same footing as teaching, nursing or secretarial work. That we are beginning to move in this direction is evidenced by the coming into existence of schools of domestic economy, to which "ladies" do not disdain to resort for training. This will undoubtedly result in domestic labour becoming a much higher-priced commodity than it is now, the housewife will have to pay at least as much for three hours help per day as she now does for nine hours, but the fact that the help will be skilled, combined with the greater simplicity of housework, will surely more than compensate for this.

But what is the homemaker of limited means, who must have some help, to do under present conditions? This we must consider next month.

FLORENCE DANIEL.



HEALTH QUERIES.

Under this heading Dr Knaggs deals briefly month by month, and according as space permits, with questions of general interest.

Correspondents are earnestly requested to write on one side only of the paper, giving full name and address, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. When an answer is required by post a stamped addressed envelope must be enclosed.—[EDS.]

BOILS: THEIR CAUSE AND CURE.

Miss L.C. writes:—I should be deeply indebted to you if you would advise me in the following matter. I have been suffering from a recurrence of boils on different parts of my body during the last six months. I have consulted a local doctor, but he can find no reason for their appearance, but suggested I should try a mixed diet, to include some animal food, rather than adhere to vegetarianism as I have done for some two years past.

My diet is about as follows:—

On rising.—Tumblerful of hot water.

Breakfast (eight o'clock).—One egg, toasted bread (wholemeal) and butter, with either a little lettuce or marmalade and either weak tea or cocoa.

Lunch (one o'clock).—Steamed green or root vegetable, with cheese sauce or macaroni cheese or similar savoury, or nuts. Boiled or baked pudding or stewed fruit with custard or blanc mange.

Tea (four o'clock).—Tea or cocoa, with or without a little bread and butter and cake.

Supper (7 o'clock).—Vegetable soup, milk pudding and a little cheese, butter and salad and wholemeal bread.

I am forty-nine years of age, lead a fairly active life, frequently taking walking exercise. I am very tall and weigh twelve stone. Have had no serious illness, but been more or less anaemic all my life.

If you can tell me whether there is anything wrong in connection with my diet and suggest the cause of, and treatment for, the boils I shall be exceedingly obliged.

In order to help this correspondent to permanently get rid of these boils, we must first ascertain what those troublesome manifestations are and look to the causes which produce them.

A boil is a small, tense, painful, inflammatory swelling appearing in or upon the skin, and is due to the local death or gangrene of a small portion of the skin's surface. This eventually comes away in the form of a core, and, until this has cleared away, the boil will not heal or cease to be painful.

Boils occur chiefly on the neck, arms or buttocks. If very large they are known as carbuncles, and if they occur on the fingers or toes they are described as whitlows. It is often the friction of a frayed-out collar or cuff, of tight waist clothing, or, in the case of whitlows, the introduction of some irritant or poison between the nail and the skin that determines the precise site at which they will come.

Boils, although rarely dangerous to life, are usually accompanied by pain severe out of all proportion to the extent of surface involved. This gives rise to much broken rest and loss of vitality, which at once ceases when the boil has finished its course. Boils usually occur in series or crops.

Now large numbers of people wear collars and cuffs with frayed edges, or handle irritants with their fingers, but they do not necessarily contract boils or whitlows. Therefore, we see that there must be other factors to be taken into consideration to account for their presence. The orthodox germ-loving practitioner may tell you that a boil is a purely local disorder and that a certain form of microbe, known as the Staphylococcus pyogenes, is the cause of it. This germ, he asserts, lives normally on the surface of the skin and, when this surface becomes broken, it enters the part and infects it, thereby starting the boil.

If this is true every person who wears old collars or dabbles his hands in dirt should without exception contract boils. This is obviously untrue.

The factor to be considered, then, is this. What is it that induces boils in one person and not in another under identical circumstances? The answer is obvious. The boil is not a local disease at all, but is a manifestation of some constitutional defect, or of some impurity of the blood stream, which enables this microbe to find a congenial breeding ground.

The people who suffer most from boils are young or middle-aged adults, and we usually find the two extremes among sufferers. There is the full-blooded, often overfed, individual and there is the pale, debilitated and emaciated person whose constitution is broken down by worry, overwork, sexual troubles, unhealthy surroundings or badly selected foods.

If we inquire into the constitutional history of these cases we shall almost invariably discover that the digestive or assimilative processes of the body are not working smoothly. This may be due to the worry or overwork, or to unhealthy surroundings which dis-harmonise the digestive and nutritive functions, or to nervous exhaustion from one cause or another, or it may be due to the wrong diet, which is filling the colon (or large bowel) with fermenting poisons.

When the body is clogged in this manner nature often proceeds to get rid of the accumulating waste through the skin. By a vigorous effort on the part of the life-force the impurity is thrown outwards to the surface. Looked at in this light a boil is really a most salutary cleansing agent, and the Nature-Cure practitioner, who calls it a "Crisis," often does everything in his power to produce boils when treating chronic diseases.

The alternative is often some more deeply seated form of elimination, resulting in serious organic disease of the organs or tissues. One of the first signs of improvement in disorders like diabetes, consumption, arthritis, Bright's disease, or even cancer, is the appearance of boils, showing that the vitality has improved to an extent sufficient to enable the foreign matter to be expelled by means of relatively harmless boils. The hydropathic expert also tries to induce this condition by means of his mustard and water packs.

If our correspondent wants to rid herself of her boils she must adopt all means to improve her vitality and to cleanse her body of its impurities. She can do this along many lines. She can take a holiday and rest from her work; or by positive thinking she can set to work to get rid of her worries. She can learn to laugh as often as possible, and to breathe deeply, slowly and fully. If her house is unsanitary she should make it sanitary, or move elsewhere.

Then she must restrict her diet and take only those forms of food which create a minimum amount of poison in the system. She must cleanse the colon daily with warm water enemas, and encourage the action of the kidneys in doing their rightful part in the elimination of poisons by the drinking of distilled water or a good herbal tea on rising, and of clear vegetable broth at night.

Clay packs, applied cold, are the best form of treatment for application to the boils themselves. They should never be cut or squeezed, as this only intensifies the trouble. Hot applications, as poultices, are bad, because they induce the boil to mature prematurely, and also are conducive to reinfection of the skin in other parts. Drugs or medicines are of very little use in the treatment of boils, because they do not go to the root of the trouble. The only remedy that I have found of any avail is yeast. In former times this was taken in the form of fresh or dried brewers' yeast, and it was, if unpleasant, a very effectual remedy. Yeast yields a free supply of what is called nuclein and nucleinic acid. These, chemically, are identical with the same substances found in the human cells. Nuclein is a powerful antiseptic. It has been found that the toxins or emanations from diphtheria and other deadly germs are precipitated and destroyed by nucleinic acid.

It is for this reason that yeast extracts, such as Marmite, often have a beneficial effect in disorders accompanied by the formation of pus matter.

Our correspondent's diet should be amended as follows:—

On rising.—A cupful of unseasoned Marmite.

Breakfast.—One scrambled or lightly poached egg with stale, yeast-made, wholemeal bread and nut butter, with lettuce or other salad food. No marmalade; no tea or coffee.

Lunch.—1 to 2 oz. of grated cheese or flaked pine kernels, finely shredded raw cabbage, or grated radishes, or grated raw roots with oil and lemon dressing. No cooked savouries, no puddings, nor stewed fruit with custard or blanc mange should be taken.

Tea Meal.—Cupful of Marmite, only.

Supper.—Clear, unseasoned, vegetable broth, with Veda or wholemeal bread, or Granose biscuits, with nut butter and some fresh fruit.

At bedtime.—A cupful of Marmite.

NOTE.—The unseasoned Marmite should be used, as the ordinary kind is rather heavily salted.

A BAD CASE OF SELF-POISONING.

Mrs H.W. writes:—I should be very glad if you would give me enlightenment on one or two points about my diet. I am suffering from a somewhat dilated stomach, also a catarrhal condition of nose, throat and alimentary canal, with constipation and much flatulence in the bowels. My teeth are decaying quickly, my nails have got softer, and I have become anaemic and generally debilitated, being unable to properly assimilate my food. All my joints crack when moved, and the knee joints creak as well. Is this a uric acid condition, or do you think it merely due to a lack of nourishment, causing a lack of synovial fluid? The joints are not swollen and not painful, they merely crack. My whole system seems to be over-acid, and my mouth gets sore and ulcerated. I have got very thin, having lost a stone in twelve months.

I notice that you always advise for dilated stomach greatly restricting the liquid part of the diet. Will you tell me just how much one may drink in a day, because when I go without drinking my constipation and other troubles are worse and the urine gets thick and muddy.

You also deprecate milk. This puzzled me until you explained to a correspondent last month in The Healthy Life. Will you tell me if the same applies to dried milk—will it tend to increase intestinal trouble? I am anxious to know this because I have been relying somewhat on Emprote and Hygiama lately, for I had got so that I could scarcely digest anything.

Do you consider it better to use the enema than to take a mild aperient? I do not want to start with the enema again if I can possibly manage to do without, because I found that my bowels depended upon it. And that is why I want to ask if it is absolutely necessary when on an antiseptic diet to entirely avoid fruit. I find it so necessary to keep the bowels working naturally.

I do want you to answer me these questions, because I have got so worried and fearful (people's theories are so varied) that I scarcely dare eat any food at all. I am at present taking only two meals daily (I like the two-meal plan best): at eleven A.M. and 6 P.M. I take a cup of weak coffee on rising, without milk or sugar—this warm drink seems to start the peristaltic action and I then get bowel action. I think of changing the coffee for Sanum Tonic Tea or Dandelion Coffee.

At eleven o'clock I have an egg with Winter's "Maltweat" bread and almond butter, and some conservatively cooked vegetable (celery or carrot or spinach).

At six P.M. I have one or two baked apples, a teaspoonful or two of malted nuts, or Emprote, and more "Maltweat" bread and butter.

At four P.M. I take a cup of barley water or carrot water, and at bedtime another cup of barley water.

Do you think that if I went on to a milk diet for a time it would do good?

This correspondent seems to be suffering from auto-toxaemia, or self-poisoning in a severe form, and a condition of what is termed arterio-sclerosis or premature old age. Associated with it are evidently symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, which is affecting her joints and teeth. It is not one of ordinary gout or uric acid poisoning. The trouble no doubt has been caused by past errors of diet, so that the present efforts at reform have come too late to be of service to her. Something more than diet is now needed to clear the acids and toxins from the system. It is not a simple case of digestive catarrh, for the whole body is affected. The present diet will answer very well as it stands.

The first thing to do is to obtain a well-fitting dilatation belt. This must have leg straps and firmly support the lower half of the abdomen. The next thing is to promote skin action so as to encourage the clearing out of poisons along this line of elimination. Vapour baths, wet-sheet packs or alkaline hot baths can effect this purpose. An alkaline hot bath should be of a temperature of 105 degrees Fahr. or more, and to the bath should be added 1/4 lb. of bicarbonate of soda and 1/4 lb. packet of "Robin" starch. She should remain as long as possible in this so as to well clear the acids from the skin and induce as much skin action or perspiration as possible. The first baths must be of very short duration, and she should be careful to avoid chill after the bath; it is best to lie prone and completely relaxed for half-an-hour at least after the bath. Finally massage and Swedish movements directed to the entire back will help to disencumber the central nervous system, which is evidently very badly depleted of its vital force. It is, of course, a pity the correspondent cannot get away to a properly organised Nature-Cure home and have the continuous attention and treatment which her condition really necessitates.

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.



CORRESPONDENCE.

AMANZIMTOTI, NATAL.

To the Editors.

SIRS,

You will see that your little magazine finds its way even to this out-of-the-way corner of the globe, and you may be sure that it is appreciated. I am specially interested in Dr V. Knaggs' contributions and should like to ask him a few questions. May I say that I have some knowledge of chemistry and that I try and take an interest in the scientific aspects of food reform.

(1) P. 237. What grounds has Dr Knaggs for speaking so definitely about human magnetism and that of vegetables? How would he recognise or test for either, and where can I get further information (scientific) on the question of food magnetism.

(2) Same page. Dr Knaggs says salt added to cooking vegetables converts organic salts into inorganic. I cannot follow that. What organic salts are so converted? One or two examples would suffice.

(3) I have been reading Dr Rabagliati's Conversations with Women Concerning their Health and that of their Children.[8] In it he says that food is not the source (cause) of body energy, but is used merely to replace waste material. Elsewhere I read that "Professor Atwater's investigations into nutrition have shown in a most convincing manner that the body derives all its energy from the food consumed. This may be regarded as established." Which of these definite and contradictory assertions does Dr Knaggs support, and why? Where can I get information re Professor Atwater's experiments and other recent works on similar subjects?

To me the questions involved are intensely interesting, hence my queries. I hope they do not read as if I were hypercritical or sceptical.

With all good wishes for the success of your healthy little magazine. I am, yours, etc.,

W. BLEWETT.

[8] 5s. net. C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Amen Corner, London.

We handed the above interesting letter to our contributor, Dr H. Valentine Knaggs, and append his reply:—

HUMAN MAGNETISM.

There is very little information available from ordinary scientific sources anent the question of the life-force or of the animal magnetism which animates our bodies and is the motive force common to all organic structures whether animal or vegetable. We do know that fresh fruits and vegetables are strongly magnetic because the magnetism which they emit can be gauged by means of delicate galvanometers. It has been found that leaves, flowers and seeds are positively, and roots negatively, charged. We also know that the same conditions are found in the human subject, since Dr Baraduc, who is a celebrated French Psycho-Therapeutist, in his book, "The Vibrations of Human Vitality," tells us that he has invented a machine called a biometer to test these very vibrations. I have had one of these machines myself and have experimented with it a great deal. By its aid we can make the machine work differently with different persons, and by careful tabulation of records Dr Baraduc has been able to elicit some very remarkable information about the magnetic currents which are constantly flowing into and out of the human body. If our correspondent really wants to know more about the wonders of human magnetism he should read some of the voluminous literature upon the subject published by the Theosophical Society. Just recently also a Dr Kilner has invented a form of coloured screen by which he and others who have some psychic sight can actually see the magnetic emanations which flow through a person placed in a darkened room.

SALT-COOKED VEGETABLES.

The one object of the vegetable kingdom is to build up, for the use of the animal or organic realm, the constituents found in the mineral or inorganic kingdom. These mineral constituents are dissolved, sorted out and built up in the right proportions for the use of animals when taken as foods. Whenever these foods are not so eaten they are sent back again to the earth by the aid of microbes during the process of decay, to be again available for plant use. Cooking is a process invented by man which is analogous to that of decay, for it dissolves and disintegrates the structures which Nature has built up. When man eats food that is partially disintegrated he does not obtain from it the right sort of nutriment which Nature intended him to have. To intensify the wrong-doings of the cook, man further hastens the disintegrating process by adding to the things that he cooks a due proportion of a common and very stable mineral, called salt. It is powerful, because it is not easily disintegrated. The salt greatly expedites the process of decay, whether in the natural form of fermentation, or whether by the application of heat, as in cooking. Salt is used in Nature to promote the flow of those electric and magnetic currents which are a manifestation of the universal life-force which pervades all things seen and unseen. It is an essential constituent of the sea because the ocean is the life-blood of the earth. It is an essential constituent of our own blood, because it is needed to make the blood stream a good conductor of magnetic currents. When you put this salt into water and then proceed to boil vegetables in it, it quickly sucks out all the life-force from them, and if persisted in reduces them to the state of minerals from which they were originally constructed.

FOOD AND THE SOURCE OF BODILY ENERGY.

Dr Rabagliati and Professor Atwater are, I believe, both right, but the former does not always explain himself clearly to the lay mind. The life-force or animal magnetism is the real source of bodily energy, and it manifests itself only when it has something that resists or regulates its flow.

It does this just as certain forms of wire, or other materials, which possess indifferent conducting power, resist the flow of electricity through them.

Electricity cannot manifest as light in the usual electric lights used in our houses, as heat in the electric culinary appliances or stoves, or even as power in the motors which run our trams and trains, unless it be given the requisite apparatus to bring about the manifestation required.

In exactly the same way life cannot manifest itself as consciousness, with its flow of thoughts, emotions and bodily activities, without the food which is daily supplied to the body.

It consequently depends considerably upon how we select our daily rations as to how this vital force will manifest within us.

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.



HOLIDAY APHORISMS.

A Sun Bath needs no Soap.

* * * * *

Man was made for the Weather, not the Weather for man.

* * * * *

A long drink often makes a short walk.

* * * * *

You may bring a man to the Sea, but you cannot make him think.

* * * * *

A tanned face doesn't make a healthy body.

* * * * *

Dew paddling should be done in the dark.

* * * * *

The only things that bathing machines make are cowards.

* * * * *

It is better to board yourself than let others be bored by you.

* * * * *

"A bore is one who thinks his opinions of greater importance than your own."

* * * * *

People who throw pebbles into the sea shouldn't dive near shore.

* * * * *

A toothbrush is what many forget but few should need.

* * * * *

Scotland Yard is not in the Grampians.

* * * * *

Cheap food is often dearly bought.

* * * * *

Lyons have no depots in Skye.

* * * * *

Orange-trees never yet sprang from scattered peel.

* * * * *

A pear in the hand is worth two in the can.

PETER PIPER.



THE

HEALTHY

LIFE

The Independent Health Magazine.

3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.

VOL. V SEPTEMBER No. 26. 1913

There will come a day when physiologists, poets, and philosophers will all speak the same language and understand one another.—CLAUDE BERNARD.



AN INDICATION.

Food reformers sometimes forget that "man does not live by bread alone," not even when supplemented by an ample supply of fresh air and physical exercise.

It has been pointed out by psychologists that the more highly organised and highly developed the creature, the less it depends on nervous energy obtained via the stomach and the more it depends on energy generated by the brain. True, the brain must be healthy for this, and one poisoned by impure blood, due to wrong feeding, cannot be healthy. But something more than clean blood is necessary. For, as change of physical posture is necessary to avoid cramped limbs, so periodic reversal of mental attitude (consideration from other than the one view-point) is necessary to the brain's health.

Again, change of air is often prescribed when the patient's real need is a change of the personalities surrounding him. While for the lonely country dweller a bath in the magnetism of a city crowd may be a far more efficacious remedy than the medicinal baths prescribed by his physician.

For man lives by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.—[EDS.]



FEAR AND IMAGINATION.

Regular readers will recognise in this article a continuation of the series previously entitled "Healthy Brains." The author of "The Children All Day Long," is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as on physical fitness. We regret that in the previous article, "Imagination in Play," the following misprints occurred:—P. 475, line 4 from top, "movement" should be "moment"; p. 475, line 5 from bottom, "admiration" should be "imagination."—[EDS.]

Some people are given to excusing their own uncharitable thoughts by saying, "I suppose I ought not to have minded her rudeness; I am afraid I am too sensitive." In the same way, people say, "Oh, I couldn't sleep in the house alone" (or let a child go on a water-picnic, or nurse a case of delirium or do some other thing that suggested itself), "I have too much imagination." In both cases the claim, though put in deprecating form, is made complacently enough. The correlative is: "You are so sensible, dear; I know you won't mind," which is a formula under cover of which many kindnesses may be shirked and many unpleasant duties passed on.

The sensible, practical people who listen to these sayings sometimes attach importance to them, so that a habit has grown up of describing morbidly neurotic people as "over-sensitive" and cowardly ones as "too quick of imagination." Ultimately, this leads to the thought that both sensitiveness and imagination are mental luxuries too costly for ordinary folk to grow, and that it is safest to check, crush or uproot them when we discover them springing up in others or in ourselves.

Is not this attitude of mind due to a misunderstanding? Imagination is an organ of activity; it can be kept in the highest possible condition of health by having plenty of exercise; it should be working continually against resistance. A rabbit's gnawing tooth, if the opposing tooth be broken, may grow inwards and cause the creature's death, but the same activity of growth, if working under suitable conditions, enables him to go on living and gnawing at his food year after year without wearing his tools away.

The problem, then, in economy of effort is: How shall we use whatever force of sensitiveness and imagination we have, so as to get its maximum efficiency of usefulness and its minimum pain and inconvenience?

For many ages man has been dominated by fear. His way to freedom, now, is to step out through his cobweb chains and go right forward with courage and in faith. So we are told with relentless and almost tiresome reiteration. It is the fashion, one might almost say, to have cast off fear, and the one thing an honest "modern thinker" is afraid of is being afraid. (To less honest ones it is the thought of being thought afraid that is a very real and present fear.)

But, if this standpoint is right, is not fear at least a vestigial organ, a survival of a mental activity which served its purpose in times gone by? Is it not even truer to go further still and say, as each particular fear serves its purpose it may safely be discarded, but that, as far as our present knowledge goes, other grades of sensitiveness, finer shades of imagination of the type we have called fear, must take its place, to be discarded in their turn for yet other apprehensions?

For if we lost the kind of perception that we associate with fear, if our imagination closed itself automatically to the suggestion of all sorts of ugly possibilities, should we not find ourselves soon in the midst of difficulties akin to those of the hero of the German tale of the man who felt no pain? We accept the evidence of pain as a guide to action; when we have decided on action we proceed to get rid of the pain as expeditiously, safely and permanently as we can.

The same thing seems true of fear. Over and over again we laugh at ourselves for fearing something that either never happened at all or happened in such a way as to be softened out of all likeness to the monstrous terror we had created. On the other hand, when misfortune falls heavily because of our lack of imagination in not foreseeing possible consequences of particular actions or events, we lament and complain: "If I could only have guessed! If I had only known!"

Fear pure and simple—the imagination of possible trouble—is a stage we can hardly yet afford to do without. But when it has roused our attention to a danger, its work is done. Let us practise turning it into action; taking due precautions against accident, guarding against hurting a neighbour's feelings, watching some possibility of evil tendency in ourselves. Then, and not till then, may we let it drop. It may pass; it has done its work. It is no longer our responsibility to foresee, it is our privilege to lay down the fear and live happily and at peace.

Even the dread perceptions of eternal laws come under the same method. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," the beginning: the end is faith and love.

E.M. COBHAM.

To Our Readers. Readers who appreciate the independence and all-round nature of The Healthy Life can materially assist the extension of its circulation by tactfully urging their local newsagent to have the magazine regularly displayed for sale. An attractive monthly poster can always be had free from the Publishers, 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.



HOW MUCH SHOULD WE EAT?

The article (signed "M.D.") with the above title which we published in the July number has, as we anticipated, aroused considerable discussion. One interesting criticism appeared in the August number. We now publish two further contributions, to be followed, in our next issue, by two further articles by Dr Rabagliati and Mr Ernest Starr.—[EDS.]

I

As one who has tried the low proteid diet, and came to grief on it, I desire to set my experience against that of Mr Voysey,[9] and to assert that, if it is true for him, it certainly is not true for me. Mr Voysey indulges in many loose and generalised statements which do not help the average man or woman in the least. I imagine it is these that "M.D." has in mind when he advises a certain standard of diet, below which it is not safe to go. If Mr Voysey can, as Horace Fletcher can, exist on a very low proteid diet, that does not prove that all men and women can do the same and be healthily active; it only shows that he and Fletcher are exceptions to the average person, and that it may be dangerous to follow their example. For most men, "M.D.'s" proteid standard is not so nauseating as he finds it. Here is a specimen dietary for a day, for a man of ten stone, following, as most of us do, a sedentary occupation:—

3 oz. cheese. 9 oz. bread. 8 oz. vegetables and salad. 8 oz. fruit. 1+1/2 pints milk.

Will any average person say that that quantity, divided into three meals, would be nauseating to him? And is that diet so very expensive that it would be beyond the means of an agricultural labourer in any country? It is certainly no mockery. The cost to such a labourer would probably not exceed 3d. or 4d. Of course the diet can be made as expensive as one chooses, and widely varied.

[9] See August number.

Who amongst ordinary men and women has a reliable natural taste that would be an infallible guide in all matters of food? And what a misleading statement that is which asserts "that all the hardest work of the world has always been done by those who get the least food." Put it to the test on the average person and see where it leads to.

My contention is that the average person, throwing over his or her accustomed meat diet, requires some definite guidance as to the quantity of proteid, such as Dr Haig's wide experience and much patient research have proved needful, or at least advisable, for the continuance of a healthy and vigorous life; and I will say that it does not help this average person in the least to put before him the misty statement that "the quantity depends on the development that is in progress, and is only discoverable by the natural guides of appetite and taste, ruled by reason and love of others." All very noble and very well in another place, but hardly meeting the case of the ordinary person who is seeking a healthy diet. Nor can you "make the body a more harmonious instrument for the true life of man" by habitually underfeeding it. I thought that was a mediaeval notion that had been knocked on the head long ago.

Is there any man, lay or scientific, Mr Voysey notwithstanding, who can claim to have as wide an experience of diet in its relation to health and disease as "M.D.," to say nothing of the trained mind and long years of patient thought that have been exerted in dealing with the facts of this wide experience. For myself, I have come to see that, if "M.D." does not hold in his grasp the absolute truth in the matter of diet, he is nearer to it, and is a safer guide, than all your low proteid advisers, lay or otherwise, where they come much below "M.D.'s" standard.

So, using Mr Voysey's phrases, I would urge laymen like myself to shun that weak-kneed manikin, the low proteid diet, and unite with me in a long strong pull to get him and others like him out of the rut in which that sorry weakling holds him.

HY. BARTHOLOMEW.

II

The Editors were quite right in saying that the article under this heading in the July issue would arouse discussion. My wife and I, having discussed "M.D." and many others with the title, feel constrained to put forth a warning against blind faith in anything which the faculty have to say on dietetics.

There are of course brilliant exceptions, such as Dr Rabagliati, Dr Knaggs, Dr Haig, the late Dr Keith and others, who give chapter and verse for every statement made; but when we consider the excellent work of laymen such as Albert Broadbent, Joseph Wallace, Horace Fletcher, Alice Braithwaite, Eustace Miles, Hereward Carrington, Edgar J. Saxon, Bernarr MacFadden, Arnold Eiloart, ordinary folks like ourselves may be excused if we venture to give our experience as against that of "qualified" men.

With your permission, then, we reply to "M.D.'s" five suggestions in the order he gives them:—

1. Food qualities are not of extreme importance.

2. Quantity tables may have been "settled" by physiologists to their own satisfaction many years ago; but very good reasons have since been given for altering, or even ignoring, them.

3. The particular number of grains of proteid to be consumed per day is not of serious moment.

4. That departure from the quantity specified has not led to disaster is proved by the fact that the human race still persists, in spite of the very varying eating customs found in different nations. The great majority being poor or ignorant, or both, know neither "tables" nor the need for them.

5. There can be no reply to such a general statement as: "The nature of this disaster may appear to be very various, and its real cause is thus frequently overlooked."

In such matters an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of cut-and-dried theory. We—my wife and I—have been reared in an atmosphere suspicious of doctors, both sets of grandparents having relied rather on herbs, water treatment, goodness of heart and faith in God; and their children have had too many evidences of medical ignorance to accept any dogmas. We are anti-vaccinators, nearly vegetarian, and, to come to the point, we have four children who will persist in thriving on a basis of always too little rather than too much of food. The respective ages are girl 13, boy 10, girl 6, boy 2.

All have been brought up on these lines: never pressed to eat, but continually asked to chew thoroughly. Foods "rich in proteid" put sparingly before them. Milk has been well watered; and eggs, bacon and other tempting and rich foods only on rare occasions given to them.

We would ask readers who can to make the following experiment: Let your children have a good drink to start the day, and then run and play; don't offer food till asked for. You will almost to a certainty find, if you start this plan immediately after weaning, that day by day and year after year it is twelve to one o'clock before they inquire for "something to eat." We have done this for twelve years, with children of entirely different temperament and of both sexes. They go to school, poor things! breakfastless. During these twelve years light breakfast for father has been on the table—he goes without lunch—and not once in fifty do they ask to join him. Nor, if invited, will they after three or four years of age.

The have never had a fever which lasted more than a day or two, and they are all above average height and weight.

They get fruit in season just as asked for, and as much to drink as they like, but not at meal-times.

Our experience is over a period of twelve years, and we have come to the conclusion that the infectious diseases so prevalent and death-dealing amongst children of all classes, rich or poor, are, in the main, the result of over-feeding. We find it wise to keep highly nutritious foods (like eggs, cheese, meat, etc.) away from children—that is, for regular consumption; a little occasionally may do no harm.

You will have it borne in on our minds year by year, as your children grow up under such a plan, that Dr Rabagliati, Hereward Carrington and others are quite right. We do not get our strength, nor heat, from food. Let the force of animal life (zoo-dynamic, I believe Dr Rabagliati calls it) have free play, and your children can't help growing up well and strong.

In to-day's London Daily Chronicle I see a special article by Dr Saleeby, under this heading: WORLD'S DOCTORS VERSUS DISEASE. 5000 MEDICAL MEN MEET TO-DAY. THE TRIUMPHS OF THREE DECADES. We know how much this wonderful faculty knew thirty years ago about, e.g., fresh air for consumptives. There is not a word said in this article (which is a sort of programme of the weighty matters for discussion) on the relation of food to the body. That question probably 4950 of them believe was settled by the eminent physiologists who compiled those "food-tables" years ago—and in so doing went far to pave the way for the modern frightful increase of cancer, Bright's disease, etc., as well as for "scientific" horrors like anti-toxin, tuberculin—not to mention compulsory eugenics!

J. METHUEN.



HEALTH THROUGH READING.

Do many people consider reading from the point of view of health of mind and body—of refreshment in times of struggle—of recuperation after knock-down blows of sorrow, disappointment or misfortune?

Let us begin by saying that some of the greatest books are not to be read by everybody at all seasons. When one's heart or ankles are weak, one does not start to climb mountains, or one may end as a corpse or a cripple. So with one's soul under shock or stress. Personally, I can imagine nothing more cruel than the action of two women, one a story-teller of great repute among the "goody," who, to a specially stricken and lonely young widow, tendered as "bed-side books," Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and Browning's poignant The Ring and the Book. If they had wished to make her realise to the bitterest depths the awfulness of the world wherein she was left alone, and the blackest depravity of the human nature around her, they could not have done differently. Les Miserables she read till she reached the dreadful scene where a vicious cad hurls snowballs at the helpless Fantine. Then the strong instinct of self-preservation made her put the book aside—not to touch it again for nearly thirty years. With The Ring and the Book her mind was too wrung and too weary to wrestle—all it could receive was a picture of wronged innocence, and especially of the rampant forces of evil with which she was left to contend. With the same want of tact and judgment, if with unconscious cruelty, the gloomy, fateful Bride of Lammermoor was selected out of all Scott's novels for the reading of a very homesick youth, solitary in a strange country!

Yet we must always remember that, as in affairs of the body so of the spirit, "what is one man's meat may be another man's poison." Some of the wisest and most successful nurses or doctors will occasionally permit an invalid to indulge in a longed-for diet which would certainly never be prescribed. They know that idiosyncrasy follows no exactly known rule. So we could tell of one who, amid the dry agnosticism of the later half of last century, had felt her faith, not indeed extinguished, but obscured and darkened. From the perusal of certain writers she had shrunk, perhaps with cowardice. They were put on such a pinnacle that she feared she would find no arguments fit to oppose to theirs. Weakly, she locked the skeleton cupboard. Then she was attacked by a malady which, while leaving her mind free and strong, she knew might be very speedily fatal. Straightway she said to her husband: "In two or three days I shall probably 'know'—or cease from all knowing. There will not be long to wait. Therefore bring me three books," which she named, works of authors of extreme agnostic views. Rather reluctantly he complied with her wish. She went steadily through the joyless pages, turned the last with the significant remark: "If this is all they can say, well!—" The skeleton cupboard, once opened, was speedily swept out. She quickly recovered, but never forgot her experience. Yet it must be remembered that this was the patient's own prescription, and was permitted by one who thoroughly understood her temperament. Therefore, though one would never wish to overrule a strong personal desire, that is quite different from offering counsel and furtherance—or proving experiments upon oneself.

A celebrated woman writer of the middle of last century was of opinion that young people of both sexes should not indulge in reading "minor poetry." "Let them keep to the great poets, made of granite," was her graphic phrase. A woman of singularly self-controlled nature has confessed that the only time in her whole life that she experienced an unwholesome moral and emotional disturbance, after reading a book, was when, at about twenty-two years of age, she read Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. She dared not finish it: and when, some time later, a copy was presented to her, she caused it to be exchanged for another book, not wishing it even to be in the house with her. Years afterwards, she read it again, quite unmoved. It may be added that her first reading was made in the course of a systematic study of English literature, which had already led her through the works of Chaucer and Fielding. She has herself asked: "Is it possible that the strong and unpleasant effect was produced because the book was the production of another young woman, perhaps of somewhat 'sympathetic' temperament?"

Taken as a whole, probably most fiction and all highly emotional work of any sort should be indulged in sparingly by those in the danger-zone of life, or by any under special mental or moral stress. History, philosophy (with sustained chains of reasoning) and biographies (best, autobiographies) of active and strenuous lives, should be resorted to by those temporarily doomed to spells of suspense and involuntary inaction. Invalids should be encouraged to read Plutarch's Lives rather than the Memorials of other sufferers, however saintly!

It may be broadly stated that, during the tragic episodes which seem to occur in all lives, the most wholesome reading is to be found in the books of the great World-Religions—the Bible, and the teachings of Buddha, Confucius and Mahomet. The Bible is of course a library in itself, and many of its books are suited to very widely different circumstances and temperaments. The Psalms, the Gospels, the Epistle of St James, and parts of those great poems known as the "prophetical books" and the more personal and less doctrinal portions of Paul's epistles are perhaps of widest application. From the words of Buddha, Confucius and Mahomet there are many admirable selections—and one remembers a wonderful compilation of more than thirty years ago, called The Sacred Anthology, and wonders if it be out of print. It does not follow that these works should not be studied at other times than "tragic episodes." If this were more often the case, perhaps there would be fewer "tragic episodes"!

Next to these come such wonderful books of spiritual experience as A Kempis's Imitation of Christ, the Pilgrim's Progress, the Devout Life of Francis of Sales and others which will occur to the memory.

Allusion to the Pilgrim's Progress brings us to the remark that no books are more truly wholesome than some that can be enjoyed by those of all ages, and of very varied types of "culture": in which the children can delight, and which refresh the aged and weary. Like Nature herself, they have hedgerows where the little ones can gather flowers, little witting of the farther horizons of earth and sky lifted up for the eyes of the elders. Let the children read the Pilgrim's Progress simply as "a story," its eternal verities will sink into their souls to reappear when they too are in Vanity Fair or in bitter conflict with Apollyon.

For the same reason, the Book of Proverbs should be commended to youthful study. Under wise supervision—or rather, in mutual study—it becomes at once a series of vivid pictures of primitive Eastern life—for all allusions should be explained, where possible, pictorially—while at the same time the memory will be insensibly stored with shrewd common sense and knowledge of the world, to be turned to, and drawn upon, as needed.

And then, while the children revel in the fun and the fancy of Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales, let the sorrowful or sore or wounded heart turn to them for solace, soothing or healing. Hans Andersen enjoys a very special "popularity" and yet some, who have learned to love and value him, doubt whether justice has yet been done to his work. Because it is matchless for the young, it may be easily forgotten that it can be so, only by some quality which makes it matchless for all others. Perhaps some of his most popular stories are not his most wonderful, but have simply caught the popular fancy, because of some artist's illustration, or some personal application to the writer's own history, as in the case of his Ugly Duckling. How many—or rather, how few!—can readily recall the pathos and wit of his Portuguese Duck or the deep philosophy of his Girl Who Trod on a Loaf?

It is told of Hans Andersen, a gentle soul in a homely exterior, which attracted the snubs and neglect which "patient merit of the unworthy takes," on some such occasion was once heard to murmur: "And yet I am the greatest man now in the world!" It was very naive of him to say so, even in a whisper, probably wrung from him only in self-defence, but perhaps he might have thought it, in solemn silence—and—not been so very wrong! It may have been part of the very transparency of his inspired genius that he could not keep the secret to himself!

There is at least one reader who declares that she finds the seeds of all vital philosophy—ancient or modern—in his stories. How much he derived from those who went before him, it is not for us to say, but this disciple, herself a devoted student and admirer of the world's latest teacher, Leo Tolstoy, yet puts Hans Andersen above him, as having attained in practically all his work what Tolstoy attained only occasionally—i.e. Tolstoy's own ideal of what Art should be and do.

In such a paper as this little can be done beyond indicating on the broadest lines the kind of reading which tends to preserve or to restore mental health. Away with your "problem" novels and "realistic" poems stated in the filthy material of moral gutters! Hans Andersen will take some birds, some flowers, some toys, and will state the same problems, and get the same eternal solutions, without making the inquirer run any risk of meanwhile catching moral malaria. Isaiah will help us to build "castles" for the human race and for our own future, but he will take care that we shall remember that righteousness and unceasing vigilance and unflagging repair must go into the laying of foundations and the upholding of walls. David, even in his "cursing psalms," will exemplify for you the power of hate and vengeance in your own heart, and as he holds it up before you, you will see how small a thing it is, how mean, how ludicrous!

As a man eats and drinks, so is his body: if he is a gross feeder, his body will be gross and sensual; if his food lacks nourishment, he will pine and fade. So it is with our minds and our morals. With whatever original "spiritual body" we may start, it needs spiritual sustenance, spiritual discipline, spiritual sufficiency and spiritual abstinence. Too often we ill-use it, as bodies are ill-used, goading its weakness with fiery excitement, or gorging its greed with sickly sentiment, or emasculating it by empty frivolity.

All who desire spiritual health must find out what books best promote it in themselves: and sometimes they are found, like wholesome herbs, in very lowly places. One good rule is never to recommend what we have not seen proved in ourselves, or on others.

ISABELLA FYVIE MAYO.



THE SWAN-SONG OF SEPTEMBER.

This fine sonnet is from Lyric Leaves, poems by S. Gertrude Ford. 2s. 6d. net (postage 2d.). (C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.)

Sing out thy swan-song with full throat, September, From a full heart, with golden notes and clear! No rose will wreathe thee; yet the harebell's here, And still thy crown of heath the hills remember. Bright burns thy fire, e'en to its latest ember, The sunset fire that lights thee to thy bier, Flaming and failing not, albeit so near Dun-robed October waits, and grey November. And though, at sight of thee, a chill change passes Through wood and wold, on leaves and flowers and grasses, Thy beauty wanes not; thou hast ne'er grown old; Death-crowned as Cleopatra, lovely lying Even to the end; magnificently dying In pomp of purple and in glare of gold.

S. GERTRUDE FORD.



THE QUEST FOR BEAUTY.

If you have travelled at all frequently on certain of the London "tube" railways you may occasionally have noticed, facing you in the carriage, a small framed poster which for beauty and imaginative power has, I should think, never been surpassed in advertising art. If the first sight of it did not make you catch your breath you will not, I am afraid, be interested in this article.

The poster represents a rich landscape, in which noble tree-forms show sombre against a tumultuous sky—the latter an architectural mass of pale cloud, spanned by a vivid rainbow. Across the lower part of the picture is a scroll, on which are written, in musical notation, two bars from Chopin's Twentieth Prelude. At the top are the words, Studies in Harmony: it is an advertisement of Somebody & Co.'s wall-papers.

In both colour and design this poster is very beautiful. It would be scarcely less so without the rainbow; but "the dazzling prism of the sky" not only intensifies the subtle harmony of colour throughout the picture: it turns the poster into a symbol. And the artist might well have stopped there; only, you see, he had an inspiration. When he wrote across the picture those eight descending chords from the immortal Largo he made of the poster—a poem.

I do not know anything about the artist who conceived this advertisement of wall-papers. I do not even know his name. But I believe him to be the herald of an invasion.

The invasion of life by beauty.

Do you think it a degradation of art that it should be enlisted by the makers of wall-papers? Are there not too many ugly and discordant posters? Do you consider trade and manufacture so sordid that they are beneath the ministrations of beauty? It doesn't matter a new penny whether you answer such questions with a nod or a no: the invasion has begun. It is irresistible. Beauty is stooping—stooping to conquer.

Your ardent social reformer is too often obsessed with one idea. Across his mental firmament he sees only one blazing word: INJUSTICE. And, fine fellow though he often is, he is inclined to be impatient with any talk of art or beauty. "How can beauty grow in these vile cities?" he cries. "What is the use of your music, your statuary, your fine pictures, your poetry, to the starving and the oppressed?" And he does not see that his passionate desire for justice is at root the quest for beauty, for fullness and harmony of life. His stormy sky shows no rainbow: yet it is there. And so is the stately music, the transmutation of colour into sound. And if his eyes could be opened to one and his ears to the other, there would be more power to his elbow. For beauty is inspiration and courage—

"My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky...."

And there is more than that in it. The cultivation of a sense of beauty, of harmony, makes reformers less harsh in their judgments, broadens their sympathies and helps to save them from becoming mere doctrinaires. If you have any love for the beautiful you simply cannot be happy about most Utopias, though they be Justice itself in civic form; and, when our "scientific" Fabian has demonstrated to you how to organise the national life in all its parts into one vast smoothly working State mechanism you will shudder, and then laugh. And then, without any rudeness, you will say: "Hang mechanism and a minimum wage! Live men and women want living crafts, liberty and a maximum beauty!"