And really, I am coming to see that there are a great many health-culture enthusiasts (not to mention food reformers) who see no rainbow in the sky and hear no music in the wind; and even if they did, ten to one they would see no connection between the two. I verily believe there are some poor souls who have studied food questions so closely that they cannot see the sun for proteid nor the sea for salts. In all meekness, and knowing the frailty of the human mind (I have written dozens of articles on diet!), I would prescribe for them a course of artistic wall-paper advertisements, combined with the letters of Robert Louis Stevenson. He, poor fellow, had to battle against disease all his short life; but he managed to end one of his letters something like this (I quote from memory): "Sursum Corda! Heave ahead! Art and blue heaven! April and God's larks! A stately music.... Enter God."

A somewhat ecstatic utterance. A trifle too exclamatory. Perhaps. You and I don't end our letters like that. (Or do you?) More likely we say something about the weather down here being miserably cold (or damp, or dull, or changeable, or hot) and brave out the lie with "yours truly." But O for one little spark from the fire that shone in the soul of R.L.S. Better to die young with a broken heart, if it were a heart as brave and gay as his, than beat Methuselah by means of a mincing, calculating, cold-blooded attention to irritating self-made little rules.

Oh yes, I know well the value of little rules. And I know also that Nature offers us only two alternatives—obedience or death (either sudden or slow). But then Nature is something more than Mistress and Lawgiver. She is Beauty. And in that aspect, as in all other aspects, Nature is unescapable. We turn our backs on her only to find her awaiting us at the next turn in the road. Looking at the matter all round, I don't think we can come to any other conclusion than that Nature (or whatever you like to call It, Her or Him) is aiming at beauty all the time. So that we who are literally, if not figuratively, the children of Nature, had best do likewise.

Some mystic or other has said that man's search for God is God's search for man. If he was right—and I think he was—it follows that man's quest for beauty is Beauty invading life; and that the only healthy life worth the having is that which begins with "Lift up your hearts!" and issues in "a stately music. Enter God."

EDGAR J. SAXON.

* * * * *



SEMPER FIDELIS.

Do two things worth doing, every day. Be scrupulously polite and kind, rather than witty or entertaining. Cherish cleanliness, sobriety, frugality and contentment. Cultivate sweetness of disposition and tranquillity of mind. Think before speaking, and so reduce your causes of regret. Seek peace and be peaceable for lis litem generat. Begin at home, let home always find you faithfully on duty. Care carefully for those whom Providence has entrusted to your care. And the reward of the faithful will abundantly yours, And your heaven will go with you wherever you go.

"A.R."



MORE HOLIDAY APHORISMS.

Two's company, three's fun.

* * * * *

Levity is the bane of wit.

* * * * *

Braggers mustn't be losers.

* * * * *

Never put on to-day what you can't put on to-morrow.

* * * * *

It's an ill mind that finds no one any good.

* * * * *

It's no use crying over spilt milk: you're better without it.

* * * * *

Look before you sleep.

* * * * *

Never put an excursion ticket in the mouth.

* * * * *

Long hair never made true poets.

* * * * *

Obesity always carries weight.

* * * * *

Look after your manners and your friends will look after themselves.

* * * * *

Cranks of a feather fight together.

* * * * *

All is not toil that blisters.

* * * * *

To Sea Anglers:

A live catch is no better than a dead fish.

* * * * *

Better a place in the sun than a plaice on a hook.

PETER PIPER.



HEALTHY HOMEMAKING.

XXI. HIRED HELP (continued).

What is the homemaker of limited means, who must have some help, to do under present conditions? Well, meantime, there is only the young "general" for her, either the "daily girl" or one who "lives in." Of the two I prefer the "daily girl," when she can be obtained. And the younger she can be obtained, other things equal, the better. She will have fewer bad habits to overcome. Some housewives object to the daily girl on the score that she may bring dirt or infection from her home, and also because she can seldom arrive early enough to help get breakfast. But a little management overnight can reduce the labour of breakfast getting to a minimum, and if the "outings" of the girl who lives in are as frequent as they ought to be the risk of her carrying infection, etc., will always apply.

The "daily girl" has definitely fixed hours of work and the same chance of enjoying a measure of home life, of keeping her friends and individual interests, as the typist or factory worker whose lot the domestic servant so often envies; while her employers are not faced with the alternatives of condemning a young fellow-creature to a solitary existence or forcing an unreal companionship which is equally irksome on both sides. It is true that the wages of the "daily girl" do not equal, in actual money, those of the factory worker, neither does she obtain the Saturday half-holiday or the whole of Sunday free. But to set against this she receives her entire board and, with a kindly mistress, is not tied down to staying her full time on days when she is "forward" with her work.

The life of the young "daily girl," if her employer is a conscientious woman, need not be hard nor unpleasant; very little harder and no more unpleasant than the lot of the young "lady" who is paying from L60 to L80 per annum to learn cookery, laundry and housework at a school of domestic economy. Properly conducted, the relations between employer and employee, "mistress" and "servant," are those of mutual aid. Such relations may be, and too often are, those of an inefficient little drudge for a "mistress" almost equally ignorant and inefficient. But when the employer is an intelligent woman with a sense of justice (I prefer a sense of justice to sentimental theories about sisterhood—people do not always treat their sisters justly) the weekly money payment and food will be but a small part of the girl's wage. In addition she will receive a training that will equip her for the "higher" branches of domestic service, or for homemaking on her own account. Not every girl has the sense to appreciate this when she gets it, nor the intelligence to profit by it; while it is certainly rather trying to the employer when the girl is "all agog" to "better herself" as soon as she has gained a bare smattering of how to do certain things properly. But all this is "the fortune of war." Some girls never cease to be grateful to their first teachers and leave them reluctantly, while other girls never realise that they have anything to be grateful for. When gratitude and affection come they are pleasant to receive. But the motive power of the really conscientious woman is not the expectation of gratitude or affection.

A word to the unconventional homemaker. The young "general" is a bird of passage. Age and experience bring with them the necessity of earning more, and if her first employer cannot periodically raise the girl's wages the latter must in time seek better paid employment, probably with a mistress who is not unconventional. It is unkind, therefore, to refrain from teaching the girl how she will be expected to do things in the ordinary conventional house. I do not mean that the employer ought to slavishly run her home on conventional lines for the instruction of her "help." But it is kinder, for instance, to help a girl regard a cap and apron with good-humoured indifference, or as on a par with a nurse's uniform, rather than as "a badge of servitude." It is kinder, too, to show her that it is not only "servants" who are expected to address their employers as "Sir" and "Ma'am," but that well-mannered young people in all conditions of life can be found who use this form of address to persons older than themselves. I do not suggest for one moment that any attempt should be made to delude a girl into the belief that she will not be expected, in conventional households, to behave with equal deference to persons younger than herself. Such deception would be unpardonable. But it is anything but kind to allow a young girl to drift into careless and familiar habits of speech bound to lead to dismissal for "impudence" in her next "place." There is a type of person, for example, who seems to believe that, in order to show that he is "as good as anybody else," it is necessary to be rude and familiar. But good manners are not necessarily associated with servility. And it is no kindness to help to unfit a girl for getting her living in the world as it is.

It may seem that, in this article, I am more concerned for the "hired help" than the homemaker for whom I am ostensibly writing. But the points I have touched on are just those about which I know many thoughtful women are puzzled. I cannot solve their individual problems for them, of course, I can only just barely indicate some of the thoughts that have come to me on a subject that is so intimately bound up with the whole of our present unsatisfactory social and economic conditions that it cannot be adequately discussed in a little tract upon domestic economy.

FLORENCE DANIEL.

THE CARE OF CUPBOARDS.

There are three methods in general use of caring for cupboards. Some housewives prefer their cupboard shelves of bare wood, to be well scrubbed with soap and water at the periodical "turn-out." Others cover all shelves with white American cloth, which only needs wiping over with a wet house-flannel; while still others prefer to dispense with the necessity for wetting the shelves and line them with white kitchen paper, or even clean newspaper, which is periodically renewed.

Of the three methods I prefer the last, with the addition of a good scrubbing at the spring clean. The weekly or fortnightly scrubbing is apt to result in permanently damp cupboards, unless they can be left empty to dry for a longer time than is usually convenient. The use of American cloth is perhaps the easiest, most labour-saving method, but the cloth soon gets superficially marked and worn long before its real usefulness is impaired, so that the cupboard shelves never look quite so neat as after scrubbing or relining with white paper.

The larder should be thoroughly "turned out" once a week. Once a fortnight is enough for the store-cupboard and for china cupboards in daily use. While cupboards in which superfluous china and other non-perishable goods are stored, and that are seldom opened, need not be touched oftener than once or twice a year.

In very small houses one cupboard often must house both china and groceries, thus combining the offices of storeroom and china cupboard. The larder, strictly speaking, is for the food consumed daily. But when larder and store-cupboard have to be combined, the groceries may be packed away on the upper shelves, which can be tidied once a fortnight; but the shelves doing duty for the larder proper should never be left for longer than a week.

Nothing betrays the careless housewife like an ill-smelling larder. All food should be examined daily and kept well covered. Hot food should be allowed to cool before storing in the larder. In the summer time special precautions must be taken against flies, all receptacles for food which are minus well-fitting lids being covered with wire-gauze covers or clean butter muslin. If the shelves are lined with paper, care should be taken at the weekly change to examine the wood for stains caused by spilt food that has penetrated through the paper. These should not be just left and covered over, but well washed off. With ordinary carefulness, however, they need not occur.

F.D.



BOOK REVIEWS.

The New Suggestion Treatment. By J. Stenson Hooker, M.D. Cloth 1s. net (postage 1+1/2d.) C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, E.C.

This book is a striking example of the new synthetic movement in the medical profession. It is an exposition for the general reader of certain basic principles of mental treatment and of the author's methods of applying these; it is also, in reality, an appeal to doctors generally to put aside prejudice and examine the immense potentialities of rational "suggestion" healing methods.

After examining the main features and disadvantages of mere hypnotic treatment and passing under review present-day "mental science," the author explains wherein his method of mental treatment both avoids the dangers of hypnotism and reinforces ordinary self-suggestion. Throughout there is the frank recognition that few forms of dis-ease are curable by one means alone; on the other hand, it is contended that most disorders, both mental and physical, are remarkably amenable to a rightly directed course of the new suggestion treatment, supplemented by other natural means.

The narrowness of view that too often characterises the specialist is entirely absent from this book. It is throughout thoroughly broad, refreshingly sensible and profoundly convincing.

The Cottage Farm Month by Month (illustrated with original photographs). By F.E. Green. Cloth, 1s. net (postage 2d.). C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.

Here is a book of immediate social interest, of great practical value, and of uncommon literary quality.

In the course of twelve chapters, bearing the titles of the months of the year, it reveals a welding together of two things which in many minds have unfortunately become divorced: the practical problems and arduous labour which no tiller of the soil can escape and—the keen delight of a poetical temperament in the ever-changing, yet annually renewed, beauties of earth and sky and running water.

It escapes the dry technicalities of the agricultural text-book, while at the same time conveying innumerable valuable hints on practically every branch of "small farming"—advice which springs from the author's thorough knowledge based on long and often hard experience.

On the other hand, while entirely free from that all too common defect of "nature-books"—hot-house enthusiasm—it will delight the most incurable townsman (providing his sense of beauty is not withered) by its joyous yet restrained pictures of open-air things.

Simple Rules of Health. By Philip Oyler, M.A. (2nd ed.). 3d. net. Post free from the author, Morshin School, Headley, Hants.

An admirable epitome of what might be called "advanced health culture without crankiness." The author is an ardent advocate of simplicity in all things and—practises what he preaches. Moreover, he is one of those who sees health from all points of view: he is as much concerned with what the English Bible calls "a right spirit" as with a fit body and a responsive mind. It is a little book deserving of a wide circulation.



CORRESPONDENCE.

A REMEDY FOR SLEEPLESSNESS.

To the Editors

SIRS,

Would you care to publish the following experience of a cure for sleeplessness:—

I had no difficulty in going to sleep, but usually awoke again at about two A.M. with palpitation, and it often took me two or three hours to go to sleep again.

I cured myself in the following way: I left off supper and reduced my tea meal by half, and the result was continuous sleep; the symptoms, however, began to come back again after a time, so I gradually cut the tea meal right away, and half of the midday meal as well. The cure was then permanent and after a time I found that I could resume the tea meal again. At the present time I am having a tea meal of fruit only.

In addition I should advise those who suffer from this complaint to keep cheerful, and to avoid excessive physical or mental fatigue and worry. Yours faithfully,

"A SIX MONTHS' READER."

IS PURE LIME JUICE OBTAINABLE?

The Editors have received the following letter from Messrs Rowntree & Co., Ltd.:—

"We note in your issue of July 1913 under the heading of 'Lemon or Orange Squash' a note to the effect that bottled lemon squashes and lime cordials 'are not pure in the strict sense of the term, since they are bound to contain 10 per cent. alcoholic pure spirit by Government regulations.' We should be glad to know what is your authority for this statement. Possibly it is a misprint, because obviously the Government does not require anything of the kind. Our own lemon squash and lime juice cordial are entirely free from any form of preservative, including alcohol. They are made up from pure lemon juice and lime juice respectively, with sugar, and contain no foreign ingredient."

The statement complained of was based on an article entitled "Fortified Lime Juice" which appeared in The Chemist and Druggist, 13th May 1911 (page 51). On again referring to this article we find that the Government regulation applies only to exported Lime Juice.

We regret having made this error, and are genuinely glad to have Messrs Rowntree's assurance that their own "Lime Juice Cordial" and "Lemon Squash" are "entirely free from any form of preservative, including alcohol."

Nevertheless, we think our suspicions regarding the presence of preservatives in such articles are justifiable in view of the following authoritative statements made by The Chemist and Druggist in the article referred to:—

"The British Revenue authorities have drawn the line a little tighter in the discharge of their responsibility respecting the soundness of lime-juice intended for exportation or for use on board ship. The new rule henceforth is to grant a 'pass' certificate for unfortified lime-juice to last for fourteen days only, at the end of which time another certificate must be obtained. As this new regulation affects lime-juice in its natural condition before rum or any other spirit is added to it, only lime-juice manufacturers or importers are concerned in the matter.... With such rapidly deteriorating liquid as lime or lemon juice the addition of the preservative spirit is a necessity, hence the sooner it is fortified the better. The Revenue authorities permit duty-free spirit to be used for this purpose, but in order that lime-juice manufacturers shall have this advantage of not paying duty on the spirit used the Revenue authorities insist on approval of the juice and its subsequent fortification in bond under supervision of the Crown.... In reference to the proportion of spirit used, previously the regulation was expressed in a permissive sense, but now the emphatic "must" is used. In the last Government Laboratory report it was stated that 396 samples were examined, most of which were lime-juice, representing nearly 50,000 gallons. Even the fortified article is re-tested if more than three months old in cask or two years old in bottle, and this re-testing resulted last year in a condemnation of several hundred gallons owing to deterioration during storage. This juice is principally for use in the Mercantile Marine to combat scurvy."

From which it would appear that the use of some kind of preservative is essential with such a rapidly deteriorating liquid as lime or lemon juice; and if not alcohol, there are innumerable chemical preservatives available. We wish we could rely on receiving assurances from other "Lime Juice" importers and manufacturers similar to that we have received from Messrs Rowntree.

* * * * *

To People with Strong Convictions:

A holiday is the best of all opportunities for appreciating the opposite point of view to our own: this is why everyone needs a day's holiday once a week.



HEALTH QUERIES.

Under this heading our contributor, Dr Valentine Knaggs, deals briefly month by month, and according as space permits, with questions of general interest to health seekers and others.

In all Queries relating to health difficulties it is essential that full details of the correspondent's customary diet should be clearly given.

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.]

FAULTY FOOD COMBINATIONS.

H.E.H. writes.—I should like your opinion of the statement of the late Mr A. Broadbent, that fruit when taken with starchy food by dyspeptics delays digestion, and that the digestion of starchy foods and vegetables occupied only one-third of the time needed for the digestion of starch with fruit. I have lived on a strict vegetarian diet and observed the laws of hygiene for two and a half years, to rid myself of dyspepsia, with great success, having increased my weight by thirty-six pounds; for the last nine months of this time I have lived on a largely "unfired" diet, but am still troubled with acid risings and flatulence and cannot account for it. Will you kindly enlighten me on the subject?

I am a carpenter by trade and get eight hours in the open air every day. I take a tumbler of distilled water hot with the juice of one orange at 6 A.M., breakfast at 7.30 A.M., dinner at 12 noon and tea at 6 P.M., all consisting of Wallace unfermented bread and biscuits, various fruits (mostly apples, bananas and tomatoes) and nuts, about 1/2oz. at a meal; also a little cheese, about 1 oz. at a meal.

The late Mr A. Broadbent was quite right, in my opinion, when he asserted that fruit taken with starchy foods delayed digestion.

To reap the true benefit from fruit it must be taken alone.

The dominant element in fruit is oxygen and the feature of oxygen is its power to start the process of oxidation in decomposing and disintegrating substances. It follows that when the stomach is filled with fermenting food-stuffs, or the tissues are clogged with the products derived from such, the oxidising action of fruit will be correspondingly intense.

The Naturist who applies the Schroth Cure for the purpose of curing chronic diseases uses fruit as his chief eliminating agent. The reader will remember that the peasant healer, Schroth, made his patients take dry stale rolls alone for three whole days, with nothing whatever to drink, and on the fourth day, he gave them a full bottle of white wine, which then caused intense oxidation, with marked elimination of poisons. His methods, if successful, were drastic and weakening, and so the latter-day exponents of Schrothism have modified this and give their patients zweiback or twice-baked bread instead of rolls, and on the third or fourth day make the patient partake freely of fresh fruit. This process of alternate dry days and fluid days is continued for some weeks until the cure is complete.

I have merely referred to this matter to show the part played by fruit in the body. To a healthy person fruit is in truth a splendid regenerating food, but it should, whenever possible, be eaten alone. To a dyspeptic, fruit is often equally good, if taken by itself.

The case of vegetables is different, and I hold with Broadbent that salad or properly cooked vegetables do go well with cereals, because they contain, not oxygen and oxygen acids, but mineral elements like soda, lime and magnesia, which neutralise the acids and toxins which form in the body as a result of its work. The vegetable is just as active as the fruit as an eliminant, but it works on different lines. Cereal foods, if eaten slowly in a dry condition are made alkaline by the saliva, so that the vegetables, which are also naturally alkaline, would harmonise well with cereals if eaten with them.

Our correspondent should modify his diet as follows, and then, I anticipate, he will cease to be troubled with his acid dyspepsia and flatulence. He should take his fruit alone, and take any of the crisp unsweetened Wallace "P.R." Biscuits in preference to the unfermented bread, which latter is often difficult to digest:—

On rising.—A tumblerful of hot distilled water.

Breakfast (at 7.30).—Fresh fruit only.

Lunch (at 12).—1 to 2 oz. of cheese, preferably home-made curd cheese; salad of green leaf vegetables; "P.R." or Ixion biscuits with fresh butter, or nut butter.

Dinner (at 6).—1 to 2 oz. of flaked pine kernels, finely grated raw roots or tomatoes, with pure olive oil; Granose biscuits, or Shredded Wheat biscuits, and fresh butter.

At bedtime.—Cupful of dandelion coffee or hot distilled water.

NEURITIS.

E.M.A. writes.—At the age of five years I had an attack of rheumatic fever through taking a severe cold, and have been troubled more or less with pains since that time, which I feel sure are caused through rheumatism of the nerves. I am now fifty-eight years of age and have been a vegetarian for six years.

My diet is:—8 A.M., cup of Sanum Tonic Tea; 9 A.M., Cup of dried milk; 10 A.M., half of an apple and a little crust of wholemeal bread; 1 P.M. conservatively cooked vegetable, using "Emprote" for sauce; 4 P.M., cup of dried milk; 6 P.M., a little green salad with St Ivel lactic cheese (size of one large walnut); 9 P.M., cup of dried milk. Do you think dried milk is harmful to me? I should miss it very much were I to leave it off. I must mention how great a help The Healthy Life magazine is to me in many ways.

Neuritis is a painful and wearying form of nerve trouble which mostly affects the arms and legs. It can, however, originate in any other part of the body through the spinal nerve centres. It may sometimes be due to injury, but the usual cause is some form of thickening or misplacement of the spinal structures, which induces pressure upon the nerves as they emerge through the apertures between the spinal bones. A careful examination of the back will show the site, and often the nature, of the thickening or encumbrance which is present.

In our correspondent's case the thickening process doubtless occurred as an after effect of the attack of rheumatic fever.

The best remedy is suitable osteopathic treatment for the spine, supplemented by either very hot or quite cold spinal sitz baths, by acetic acid skin treatment, or by any other means which will have the effect of disencumbering the spine. By means of our treatment we free the painful nerves from harmful pressure and promote an increased blood circulation in the parts affected. In this way the cause of the disorder is removed.

A diet along the following lines would be better than the present one:—

8 A.M.—Tumblerful of hot distilled water.

9.30.—One raw egg beaten up with cream and vegetable juice or clear vegetable soup made without salt. Wholemeal bread with plenty of butter and some celery or watercress.

1.30 P.M.—Two conservatively cooked vegetables done without salt, with grated cheese as sauce and a Granose biscuit with butter.

4.—Tumblerful of hot distilled water only.

6.30.—2 oz. of cottage cheese or cream cheese, salad and Granose biscuits, or "P.R." crackers, with butter.

9.30.—A raw egg beaten up with cream and vegetable juice or soup.

I think dried milk preparations are inadvisable in such cases as these (especially when taken as beverages, as the "milk sugars" present are very prone to ferment and to hinder the cleansing of the digestive tract), and that the required proteid is best obtained from eggs and curd cheese. Fat is very necessary in nervous troubles; hence plenty of cream, fresh butter and cream cheese should be taken; also pure oil with the salad.

MALT EXTRACT.

L.F.H. writes.—Is malt extract a good thing to take daily with an ordinary non-flesh diet, two teaspoonfuls or so at breakfast? And is the desiccated or dry malt extract to be preferred to the ordinary sticky article?

Malt extract of good quality, containing an active form of diastase, is a good form of relish to take with meals. The diastase promotes starch digestion and makes a good addition to foods of the cereal order. The thick sticky form is the best because the diastase is then in an active condition. Dried malt usually will have this diastase destroyed, hence, although much more convenient to handle, it is not so good dietetically as the sticky original extract.

ABOUT SUGAR.

C.T. writes.—I have read the article on sugar with considerable interest. I have noted nervous disorders, etc., manifest in cases of excessive consumption of manufactured sugar. I have been an abstainer from cane sugar (all commercial sugars, though I do not know of any objection to milk, sugar) for many years, regarding it as an unnatural excitant and stimulant as well as being inimical to digestion. As a physiologist I have taken immense interest in longevity, feeling that an active life past the age of ninety-five or a hundred, and upwards, carries with it, in evidence of right living, the force of demonstration, and more conclusively, in direct ratio to the advance of years. I firmly believe that all anomalies will ultimately admit of resolution. In this connection I could mention a number of strange and paradoxical cases for which, as yet, I have obtained no solution. I know of centenarians who began using "sugar" freely late in life. In one case, when past eighty, a new set of teeth (not odd "supernumeraries") appeared all round! How is it, again, that the natives of the West Indies, when living on sugar (in its crude state, I suppose) have excellent teeth and perfect health? Is not raw sugar better the less manufactured it is? On the other side, Captain Diamond, at 114, attributes his health in great measure to abstinence from sugar.

Most of these queries are answered in the completed book[10] published this year. The point about "milk sugar" not being injurious he will find answered on page 72.

[10] The Truth about Sugar, 1s. net. (C.W. Daniel, Ltd.)

"Milk sugars" taken to excess with a mixed diet, or in the form of milk as a beverage, break down into lactic, butyric and other destructive acids under the influence of intestinal germs and thus do harm to the body.

The natives of the West Indies (page 39) take the sugar cane in its natural state as a living vegetable food—a very different thing from the isolated and chemicalised sugar on our tables at home. Moreover, the chewing required helps digestion. This is very different to the drinking rapidly of sugared beverages, which do not receive this necessary mouth preparation.

One is quite prepared to admit that paradoxical cases do occur where sugar seems to agree well even with octogenarians, but they are, in my opinion, the exceptions, and I am constantly coming across cases where the free consumption of table sugars has proved very harmful to both old and young.

ULCERATION OF THE STOMACH.

A.L.M. writes.—Our domestic servant, a girl aged twenty-four, is suffering from ulceration of the stomach and has had periodical attacks for the past six years. She has apparently, until she came to us, eaten and drunk very unwisely. She has been with us seven months and has been fed on a non-flesh diet since she came. For the last four weeks tea, coffee and cocoa have been forbidden, and as little sugar is consumed as possible. She had a very bad attack in August and we had to call in a doctor is we did not like the responsibility. He strongly recommended the hospital and an operation, which would ensure that there would be no repetition of the complaint. She decided to go and was there six weeks. After much experimenting there, inoculating and wondering whether it was tuberculosis, they operated and in due course she came back. We went to the sea for three weeks and shortly after our return the vomiting of blood and pains recommenced. After four days in bed she returned to light dishes, and a fortnight after another slighter attack came on, which in twenty-four hours. She takes hot boiled water five times a day. She suffers also from a horny skin on the palms of her hands, with deep cracks where the natural lines are. These periodically bleed. This skin exists also on her heels and the soles of her feet. Before and after, an attack this skin seems to be worse than ever.

I mentioned the fact of the recurring attacks since the operation to the doctor and he seemed surprised and said the matter must be constitutional and there was no hope for her.

My own opinion is that pure food will put her right eventually, and that these attacks will recur in diminishing force until the poisons are eliminated front the system.

Her diet is at present as follows:—

On rising.—Half-pint of boiled water (hot).

Breakfast.—Either Shredded Wheat softened in hot milk or breakfast flakes and cold milk: followed by either bananas or apples. Half-pint boiled water (hot).

Lunch.—Ordinary vegetarian cooked dishes, vegetables conservatively cooked, some fruit. Half-pint boiled water (hot).

Tea meal.—Wholemeal bread (Artox flour), usually non-yeast, nut butter. Lettuces and radishes when obtainable. Half-pint boiled water (hot).

Before retiring.—Half-pint of boiled water (hot).

It has been shown by Brandl and other investigators that ulceration of the stomach can always be produced in animals by feeding them with an excess of sugar foods. The same thing applies to human beings, who, if fed with an excess of sweetmeats, sugar, milk or soft mushy cereals, will first contract catarrh of the stomach, which will ultimately deepen into a condition of ulceration.

The rationale of the process is this: Fermentation and putrefaction of the foods eaten to excess produce in the stomach various acids and toxins. These become absorbed and pass into the liver. Then the liver becomes clogged, its flow of blood is obstructed and this naturally retards the flow of food from the stomach. That organ becomes congested and inflamed and, when the lower end, or pylorus, is obstructed, this congested state may easily deepen into ulceration. We also nearly always find a tender spine, showing that the nervous system has equally participated in the conditions produced, and this nervous factor intensifies the trouble by retarding the due working of the digestive functions.

What we have to do to cure a case of ulcerated stomach is to withhold the foods which create fermentation. Then the liver will be allowed time to work off the poisons which are clogging its substance and when this has come about the stomach will slowly return to its normal condition.

The diet which our correspondent cites is badly arranged. It is a mistake to give fluid with the meals, and the mushy food at breakfast and the soft food at dinner should be changed to drier and crisper forms of nutriment.

The following diet would be a distinct improvement:—

On rising.—Half-pint of boiled hot water, sipped slowly; or quarter-pint Sanum Tonic Tea, taken hot.

Breakfast.—A Shredded Wheat biscuit eaten dry and well buttered; a lightly boiled egg and some finely grated raw roots, especially carrots and turnips.

In a case of this sort it is best not to mix cereals with fruits.

An alternative breakfast would consist of fruit alone such as two apples, finely grated at first, or two bananas mashed and mixed with pure olive oil and sprinkled with flaked nuts but care must be taken that the pulped banana is well chewed.

Lunch.—Grated cheese, or cream cheese, with some finely chopped salad, or grated raw roots, or conservatively cooked vegetables (preferably roots or onions baked fairly dry by the casserole method) can be taken at this repast. Follow with a slice or two of cold ordinary toast or rusks with butter.

Tea meal.—Half-pint of hot boiled water with a little lemon or orange juice added to it for flavouring.

Supper (about 6.30).—Stale standard bread with butter and curd cheese or an egg. The non-yeast bread should be avoided as in the weak state of the stomach it will not be properly digested; besides, the bran may irritate the lining in the present condition of the stomach. As soon as the stomach has regained its power of digesting food, and the ulcers have healed, then fine wholemeal biscuits of the Wallace or Ixion kind can be taken, but the unfermented bread had better be avoided.

At bedtime.—A half-pint of hot water.

GOING TO EXTREMES IN THE UNFIRED DIET.

W.O.C. writes.—As a bachelor who (not believing in, and therefore doing without domestic help) is anxious to reduce time spent on cooking to a minimum, I shall be glad if Dr Knaggs will tell me whether the use of the oven, pan and kettle are necessary to healthy diet. For instance (1) would a diet of bread and butter, biscuits, cheese, fruit (fresh and dried), ordinary cold water and cold milk, be as healthy as a diet of hot vegetables, puddings, cocoashell, etc.? (2) Are cooked lentils, butter-beans, macaroni, etc., more beneficial taken hot than after they have cooled? (3) Could uncooked vegetables of sufficient nutriment be substituted for these? I shall be glad if it is quite safe to live entirely on raw foods, whether fresh or "prepared."

The use of the oven, pan and kettle is not essential to a healthy diet, but few people in this changeable, and often cold, depressing climate are willing to forgo their occasional use. One cannot get hot water for a drink without a kettle or a small saucepan and a gas ring, and hot water is often a very comforting and useful drink, especially where an effort is being made to break off the tea and coffee habit.

A diet of bread and butter, biscuits, cheese, fresh and dried fruits is excellent, provided our correspondent also includes grated raw roots and salads as the medicinal part of the regimen, and keeps the fresh fruit to itself as one meal of the day. Cold water or cold milk could also be taken in the place of hot water or hot milk, although I deprecate the use of milk as a beverage unless a person is willing to live entirely on milk like a baby does. The hot vegetables are uncalled for, provided the raw vegetables are substituted for them. The puddings can well be discarded. Cocoashell beverages are useful in very many cases.

Beans or lentils can be eaten sparingly in a raw state if first soaked, then flaked in a Dana machine, and afterwards flavoured with herbs or parsley. I certainly think that, if they are to be cooked, the taste is better if eaten hot; but there is no reason why cold cooked lentils should not be eaten any more than is the case with an other form of cooked food. Uncooked vegetables will not take the place of lentils, because they are of a different order of food-stuff. The uncooked vegetable would go well with the lentils as neutralising agents of the acids into which all nitrogenous foods break down in the body. Most people will find that nuts, cheese and eggs are better sources of proteid than lentils or other "pulse foods."

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.



THE

HEALTHY

LIFE

The Independent Health Magazine.

3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.

VOL. V OCTOBER No. 27. 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.

Just as there is a pride that apes humility, so there is an egotism that apes selfishness, a cowardice that apes stoicism and an indolence that apes effort. This is especially apparent in matters pertaining to health.

How often, on the plea of not causing worry or expense to others, does a man or woman not put off taking necessary rest, or consulting a doctor, until a slight ailment that once would have yielded to treatment becomes an irreparable injury.

Such conduct is often admired as unselfish, but for unselfishness and stoicism a psychologist would read fear, indolence and egotism. Fear of being thought hypochondriacal and fear of facing facts; shrinking from the exertion involved in the effort to become healthy and from the pain involved in witnessing the possible distress and anxiety of friends should the complaint prove serious—regardless of the fact that its neglect and resultant incurability would cause infinitely more distress; above all, that mental egotism which breeds in its victim an unreadiness to acknowledge that he does not know what may be wrong and to take prompt steps to remedy his ignorance.

It is not fair, of course, to attach too much blame to the patient. Such faults as those cited above are in themselves symptoms of nervous disease. Body and mind act and react upon one another. Nevertheless, the practice of the virtues loses its meaning when there is no pull in the opposite direction.—[EDS.]



IMAGINATION IN INSURANCE.

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.

It is an unpleasant subject, but have you ever faced the fact that your widow might be left in poverty?

We all know the phrases that come so glibly from the lips of the insurance agent. Perhaps the very fact that it pays companies to spend thousands a year on the salaries of agents, and other thousands on broadcast eye-catching advertisements, shows that there are many things which our imagination only accepts "against the grain." Fire, storm, loss by theft or burglary, sickness, disablement and death we do not, by choice, dwell on these things in thought.

Now some people are inclined to pet this impulse of turning away. "Do not think dark thoughts," they tell us, "the best insurance is unconsciousness, insouciance, denial. Misfortune will pass you by if you do not look for it."

Perhaps there is something to be said for this method when it comes with absolute spontaneity from the innermost nature. But if for the radiant apprehension of beauty and health we substitute an effort to cling to the picture of good when our very bodies and nerves are warning us with suggestions of evil, we run grave risks. By adopting someone else's sense of freedom from danger and repressing our own conviction that for us a certain danger, more or less remote, exists, we are putting great pressure upon ourselves. At times of ill-health or accidental worry, a sleepless night may bring us an agonising succession of imaginative pictures, those very pictures which we have attempted to banish from our daily life. If we have still greater power of repression these grim images, forbidden throughout every moment of waking life, may reappear in dreams.

(Of the still more serious dangers of repression and of its relation to various forms of insanity, this is hardly the place to speak.[11] It ought not to be necessary to appeal to alarming instances in order to make us attend to a suggested warning.)

[11] See Bernard Hart's illuminating treatment of the whole subject in The Psychology of Insanity, Cambridge Manuals of Science.

Now if we decide to regard all fear as a suggestion of precaution, the emotional part of it to be laid aside as soon as it has fulfilled its function of arousing interest and directing action, it is easy to see the psychological justification for insurance.

Of course pecuniary insurance is but one instance of such sequences of action, though it happens to be a rather obvious one. In a different field, most of us know the delightful feeling of relief experienced after consulting a doctor about some symptom that has perhaps been troubling us for a long time. "May I safely do this? Ought I to refrain from that?" and such perpetually recurring irritations to the attention are replaced by the knowledge that it is now the doctor's business to decide whether this or that is "serious," and that as long as we carry out his orders we may lay aside all worry about the matter.

So in the case of fire insurance, what we are really buying with our annual premium is freedom from haunting questions as to the loss that would ensue if our house or shop or office were burnt down or damaged. Whenever the thought comes, it may, as far as the money loss is concerned, be dismissed.

We see then that instead of keeping the suggestion of such misfortunes before us, as some people might allege, the act of insurance substitutes for vague and recurrent fears a formal and periodical recognition of possibilities, a recognition, too, that contains within itself a precaution against some of the results of the misfortune should it ever occur. What we buy, at the cost of a fixed number of pounds or shillings of money and a few minutes of time once a year, is the right to put the dangers out of our consciousness altogether and yet leave no residuum of repressed fear to split up our personality or give us indigestion.

If we choose, for some reason or other, to let our imagination dwell on the objective side of the possibility we have insured against, we shall find a pleasure in thinking of what can be done by many people working together. If we need help to meet some misfortune, it is ours as a right, not doled out to us through others' pity. And every year that we have made no claim we have the delight of knowing that we are helping those who need.

The art of working together is yet in its infancy. But if even the present standard of method devised for money insurance were to be adopted in the deeper matters which we so often allow to trouble us, what an advance in mental development we should have made and what new possibilities of safe action would be opened up!

E.M. COBHAM.

* * * * *

Every youth should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with his hands.—Ruskin.



THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF VEGETALISM.

This article has been translated from the French of Prof. H. Labbe, the head of the laboratoire a la Faculte de Medecine, in Paris. It reflects a rather characteristic aloofness to any considerations other than scientific or economic. But it will well repay careful study.—[EDS.]

I

Vegetarianism has been the object of many attacks, and has also been warmly defended. Most of its adepts have sought to give the value of a dogma to its practice.

For quite a number of people "vegetarianism" is a kind of religion, requiring of its votaries a sort of baptism, and the sacrifice of many pleasures. It is this which justifies the infatuation of some, and the systematic disparagement of others.

"Vegetalism"[12] cannot pretend to play a similar part, or to lend itself to ambiguity. To be a "vegetalist" is to choose in the vegetable kingdom, with a justified preference, foods susceptible of filling the energy-producing needs, and the needs of the reparation of the human system.

"Vegetalism" is a chapter of dietetic physiology which must utilise the precise methods and recent discoveries of the science of nutrition.

[12] The word "Vegetarianism" implies a judgment of the qualities which such a diet entails. This word is derived, in fact, from the Latin adjective "Vegetus" (strong). The word "Vegetalism," which we oppose to the preceding one, admits only the establishing of a fact, that of the choice—exclusive or preferred—of the nutritious matters in the vegetable kingdom.

II

Before putting "vegetalism" into practice the first point is to know whether the foods of "vegetal" origin contain, and are susceptible of producing regularly, the divers nutritive principles indispensable to the organisation of an alimentary diet. The principles are the following:—Proteid or albuminoid substances; hydrocarbonated and sweet substances fatty substances; mineral matters, alkalis, lime, magnesia, phosphates and chlorides, etc. In most compound foods, no matter of what origin, mineral materials almost always exist in sufficient quantities. The most important amongst them, at all events, are found combined in liberal, even superabundant, portions in dishes of vegetal origin. The analysis of the ashes of our most common table vegetables fixes us immediately to this subject: Leguminous plants supply from about three to six per cent. of ashes, rich in alkalis, lime and phosphates. Potatoes, green vegetables and fruit as a whole absorbing considerable quantities of mineral elements. These are the elements of a nature to allow a precise reply to this question which we propose to expound briefly.

III

In order to examine a food thoroughly, for the purpose of ascertaining if it can be advantageously introduced for consumption, whether albumins, fats, hydrate of carbon, or sugar, etc., or again an association of these principles in a composite article of food are in question, divers researches must be carried out before giving a final judgment.

If a more or less complex article of food is in question, before considering it as a good nutriment, its centesimal composition, or its immediate composition, should be established; its theoretic calorific power should be known, and it should be measured if this has not yet been done.

Besides the calorific yield thus estimated in vitro, the real utilisation in the human organism of articles of food alone or mixed with other foods should be determined, taking simultaneously into account their effects, whether tonic, stimulating or depressing.

From a different point of view it is no longer allowable to neglect before judging whether such and such a nutritive substance is advantageous, the valuation of what we have called, with Prof. Landouzy, the economic yield—that is to say, the price of the energy, provided by the unity of weight of the article of food.

It is only in reviewing "vegetal" substances, taking these divers titles into consideration, that we shall be justified in attributing to the practice of "vegetalism," integral or mitigated, its definite value.

IV

Only a few years ago, when Schutzenberger, emulator and forerunner of Fischer, Armand Gautier, Kossel, first disjointed the albuminoid molecule, to examine one by one its divers parts, the composition of the various albumins was very little known. Whether, therefore, albumins of the blood, or those of meat or eggs, were in question, these bodies were hardly ever separated, except through physical circumstances, amongst others by constant quantities of different coagulation. As to the centesimal formula and the intimate structure of the different protoid substances, they could be considered as closely brought together.

From this fact, the physiological problem of the utilisation of albumin was simpler. No matter which article of food contained this albumin, its nutritive power by unity of weight remained the same. At the present time the number of albumins is no longer limited. It is not now physical characteristics founded difficult separations which arbitrarily distinguish those bodies from each other. The individuality of each of the albumins results from its formula of deterioration, under the influence of digestive ferments, or of chemical bodies acting in a similar way, as do mineral acids and alkalis. For want of constituary formula this methodical deterioration makes known the number of molecules (acids or other bodies) which are responsible for the structure of each albumin. These deleterious formula of proteid matter are not less suggestive than composition ones. They reveal notable differences between "vegetal" and animal albumins.

To be sure, animal albumins (beef, veal, mutton, pork, etc.) which we are offered in an alimentary flesh diet, resemble more nearly the structure of our own bodily albumins than do the gluten of bread or the albumin of vegetables. This fact seems actually the best support of the theory which affirms the superiority of the flesh over the vegetable diet. Such a remark is therefore well worth discussing by showing that the consequences which can be deduced from it are paradoxical, and rest upon hypothesis which, not very acceptable in theory, are hardly verified in practice.

Admitting that albumin plays in alimentary diet only the plastic part of reconstruction of used-up corporal matter, it might be advantageous to ingest but one albumin the composition of which is very similar to our own. By virtue of the law of least effort such a one in equal weights ought to be of more service than a foreign albumin, as it requires less organic work. For man, albumin of animal origin ought to be more profitable in equal weight than vegetable albumin. In the organism, indeed, albumin passes through a double labour. After the intestinal deterioration, followed by a passage through the digestive mucus membrane, a re-welding of the liberated acids takes place, with a formation of new albumin.

If, therefore, alimentary albumin's mission is, not to be definitely burnt up in the organism, but to help in the plastication of the individual, the more its initial formula approaches the definite one to which it must attain, the more profitable it becomes, giving out less useless fragments and waste. Animal albumin approaching more nearly to human albumin, is also the one whose introduction into the daily alimentary diet is most rational. This statement seems to be the defeat of vegetal albumin. But let there be no mistake. It consecrates at the same time the triumph of anthropophagy, for there could not be for man a more profitable albumin than his own, or that of his fellow-man! This should make us pause and reflect, before allowing this deduction to be accepted.

Besides, these arguments ad hominem do not appear to us necessary for repelling such an interpretation of facts. Modern works have shown us that the greater proportion of ingested albumin played, in fact, a calorific, and not a plastic, part. Under these conditions one is justified in doubting whether there takes place with regard to the total albumins ingested a work of reconstruction thus complicated in the organism, after their first deterioration. Evidently one may come to believe that this complicated labour applies only to the more or less feeble portion of albumin really integrated.

Practically speaking, the best criterion for judging the utilisation of an ingested albumin lies in the persistence of the corporal weight, allied to the ascertained fact of a stable equilibrium in the total azotized balance-sheet which is provided by the comparison of the "Ingesta" with the "Excreta." From this point of view there exists the closest similitude between the albumins of animal and those of vegetable origin; both, in fact, are capable of assuring good health and corporal and cellular equilibrium.

However, the digestibility of vegetable albumins seems to remain slightly inferior to that of animal albumins. 97 per cent. of the animal fibrine given in a meal are digested, where 88 to 90 per cent. only of vegetable albumins are absorbed and utilised. It is a small difference, but not one to be overlooked. We must say, however, that the method one employs in determining these digestibilities takes from them a part of their value, and renders difficult the comparison of results obtained. Sensibly pure albumins are too often compared in an artificial diet. One deviates thus from the conditions of practical physiology. In fact, in ordinary meals, all varieties of foods are mixed together, acting and reacting upon each other, reciprocally modifying their digestibility. If one conforms to this way of acting towards alimentary albumins, the results change sensibly. In the presence of an excess of starch, under the shape of bread, for example, vegetable albumin seems to be absorbed in about the same proportions as animal albumin.

If, in a flesh diet, animal albumins are always consumed nearly pure (lean meat containing hardly anything but albumin, besides a little fat, and an inferior quantity of glycogen) vegetable albumin is always, on the contrary, mixed with a number of other substances. This is doubtless one of the reasons which causes the digestibility of vegetable albumins to vary, the foreign nutritive matters being able to bring about, under certain circumstances, and in cases of superabundant ingestions, a real albuminous "saving" in the newest sense of the word.

Besides, a prejudicial question makes the debate almost vain. When it was admitted by such physiologists as Voit, Rubner and their school that from 140 to 150 grammes of albumin in the minimum were daily necessaries in the human diet, a variation of a few units in the digestive power presented some importance. Nowadays the real utility of albumins is differently appreciated. The need of them seems to have been singularly exaggerated; first lowered to about 75 gr. by A. Gautier, it has dropped successively with Lapicque, Chittenden, Landergreen, Morchoisne and Labbe, by virtue of considerations both ethnological and physiological, to 50 grs., 30 grs. and even to 25 or 20 grammes. The "nutritive relation"—that is to say, the yield from albuminoid matters to the total nutritive matters of diet—is thus brought down from 1/3 its primitive value to 1/15 or 1/20 at most. It follows that the slight inferiority found in the digestive powers of vegetable albumin appears unimportant. It is sufficient to add 2 or 3 more grammes of albumin to a ration already superabundant of from 40 to 50 grammes of vegetable proteins to bring back a complete equilibrium in the use of vegetable and animal varieties. The theoretical inferiority of vegetable albumin thus almost completely disappears.

H. LABBE.

(To be continued.)

* * * * *

If your system has become clogged, go slow—and fast.



ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill Wild Spirit which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean know Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision,—I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need. Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud! I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed! A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee—tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own? The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one! Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.



WHAT MAKES A HOLIDAY?

What is it makes a holiday? Some people want Paris, some Monte Carlo, one man cannot be satisfied without big game to hunt, another must have a grouse moor. The student has his sailing boat, the young wage-earner his bicycle, three girl friends look forward to their week in a Hastings boarding-house. Almost anything may be "a change"; most things, to someone or other, are "a holiday." What does it all mean?

The sands of West Sussex are wide and free, firm and smooth for walking with bare feet, lovely with little shells and sea-worm curves and ripple marks and the pits of razor-shells. Above them are the slopes of shingle, gleaming with all colours in the September sun. Farther up again, the low, brown crumbling cliffs crowned with green wreaths of tamarisk. The sea comes creeping up, or else the wind raises great white breakers; if the waves are quiet, old breakwaters, long ago broken themselves, smashed fragments here and there of concrete protections put by man, gaps in the cliff and changes in the coast-line, remind us of the vast force behind the gentle and persistent lap of water. The beach itself reminds us of it; there a flint and here a rounded pebble made out of brick or glass, worn down from man's rubbish to sea's proof of power.

Over it all are the children, brown-legged and bare-headed. (Is it something in the weather this year that has given us the particular red-brown, suggestive of shrimp and lobster, that is the colour-vintage of 1913?) Babies with oilskin waders, bathers, girls in vividly coloured coats walking along the sands; all make up the picture and give us once again the thrill of holiday.

Inland, the Sussex lanes are green and the trees are broad and shady. Thatched cottages are everywhere, and barns with heavy brows; yesterday I saw some pots put for shelter from the sun under the far-projecting thatch of a farmhouse. The gardens are full of sun-flowers and hollyhocks, fuchsia and golden rod; the walls are covered with jasmine and passion-flowers. Old, old churches make us feel like day-flies. The yew in the churchyard five minutes' walk from here is said to be 900 years old; the church itself is thirteenth century, but into its walls were built fragments of a former church, far older, on the same site. It carries us more than half-way back to the foundation of Christianity. Dim tales of heathen earls and Norman kings hang around the villages, and the very floor of the sea beyond the land is richly laden with stores of half-forgotten memories.

Which of all these things makes these days my holiday?

All of them, perhaps. Present moving life, and long-past history, the mighty movement of nature and the changes of geologic time: sheer beauty too and the gaiety of amusements and excursions; do not all have their place in unwinding us from the tight coils we make for our working days?

Freedom to take from the world whatever is there of beauty and of interest—it really hardly matters what or where; freedom enhanced by sympathy, perhaps, for we seem to need some comrade in our play; so many days and nights following each other—no matter exactly how many—for letting ourselves go, and letting the world and all its power and wonder flow into us; that, whatever be place, time and conditions, is the making of a holiday.

C

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.



HEALTHY LIFE ABROAD.

"HYGIE."

A New Definition of Neurasthenia.

We cull the following definition of neurasthenia from our French contemporary: Neurasthenia is discouragement of the soul. Being in a state of discouragement the soul ceases to take care of the body and allows it to become encumbered with waste products. The body in its turn becomes so defective that the soul is incapable of repairing the enfeebled organs and throws the body away into the water or leaves it somewhere to be crushed or abandons it by some other means. Neurasthenia may be compared to an indolent mechanic. He neglects to oil his engine. It runs off the rails and is smashed.

Fresh Departures.

The Vegetarian Society of France has introduced three new sections into its organisation. The first is documentary, and aims at the collection, centralisation and classification of all information bearing on food reform. The second deals with domestic economy and hygiene. A number of ladies willing to devote themselves to the popularisation of the leading ideas of vegetarianism have joined this section. They offer advice and instruction to all who wish to familiarise themselves with food reform principles. The third section is concerned with physical training and outdoor games, with special reference to the relationship between these things and a non-flesh regimen.

"VEGETARISCHE WARTE."

Nietzsche as Fruitarian.

"A simple life," wrote Nietzsche in 1879, "is very difficult at the present time," and went on to explain its difficulties and to suggest that even the most determined would be obliged to leave the discovery of the way to a wiser generation. He himself, however, took some steps upon the way during his stay in Genoa, when he lived on bread and fruit and spent but a few shillings a week. Eggs were occasionally included, and artichokes—and the little cookery he needed was done by himself over a spirit lamp. His winter in Genoa, he declares, was the happiest in his life and saw the production of his "Twilight of the Gods."

Food Reform in Russia.

The movement goes ahead rapidly in Russia. Hardly a town of any size but has now its vegetarian restaurant. This year the first Russian Vegetarian Congress has been held. It seems to have been a very successful gathering. "Seldom," writes one who was present, "have I experienced such a strong impression as was made upon me by this first vegetarian congress in Moscow." Unity seems to have been the prevailing note. Papers were read on the general significance and the various aspects of vegetarianism, followed by discussions. Amongst the various excursions undertaken was a pilgrimage to Yasnaya Polyana, including a visit to Tolstoy's grave.

A Vegetarian Exhibition has also been held in Moscow. It included a fine show of fruits and vegetables, exhibits of various substitutes for leather, soaps made of vegetable oils, an abundance of Russian and foreign vegetarian literature of all sorts, from the noblest reaches of theory to the most invaluable details of practice. The next Congress is arranged for Easter 1914, at Kiev.

A Hopeful Sign.

Fifteen years ago the Berlin municipal authorities stoutly refused Professor Baron's offer to found an orphanage which should be conducted on vegetarian principles. At the present moment it is being arranged that all school children shall be taught the value of vegetables and leguminous preparations and the wholesomeness of a diet that is relatively non-stimulating and practically meatless.

D.M. RICHARDSON.



THE CURTAINED DOORWAYS.

In George Macdonald's Phantastes: a Faery Romance for Men and Women it is told how a man found himself in the midst of a great circular hall built entirely of black marble. On every side and at regular intervals there were archways, all heavily curtained. Hearing a faint sound of music proceeding from one of these hidden doorways he went towards it and, drawing aside the hangings, found a large room crowded with statuary, but no sign of an living creature. Yet he was certain the music had proceeded from that particular archway. Greatly puzzled, he let the curtain fall and stepped back a few paces. At once the music continued. Stepping stealthily and quickly to the curtain, he again lifted it, and received a vivid impression of a crowd of dancing forms suddenly arrested: something told him beyond dispute that at the moment he had drawn the hangings aside what were now lovely but motionless statues had sprung each to its pedestal out of the mazes of an intricate dance. Sound and movement had been frozen, in a flash of time, into a crowd of beautiful forms—in stone. No statue but seemed to tremble into immobility as the intruder's gaze turned this way and that no marble face but seemed to be aglow with the music that had died with his entry; no white limb but seemed to be tremulous with the rhythm of the dance that had ceased so suddenly.

If the subtlety and imaginative truth of this story should lead you to read the whole book, I shall have had the privilege of introducing you to what is surely one of the finest and most delicately wrought fantasies in the English language, a fantasy so permeated with beauty and truth that you will neither wish nor need to look for the "moral".

But whether you read Phantastes or not, I may be allowed to suggest that the incident I have attempted to describe conveys one of the secrets of healthy living.

It is a trite saying, that health is harmony. But I plead for a much wider and fuller interpretation of harmony than is customary. Mens sana in corpore sano—a sane mind in a healthy body—does not fill all the requirements of a healthy life. It is but an excellent theme, wanting orchestration.

It is good to aim at a harmonious working of one's internal arrangements if one has had the misfortune or the folly to break that harmony. The physical basis of life must be attended to if we would be well. Only, you cannot stop there without imperilling the whole scheme.

Again, it is good to train the body by means of exercise, play, singing and handicraft; all these things react both upwards and downwards, outwards and inwards. For example, one of the special virtues of tennis, if it be played at all keenly, is the necessity for making one's feet (those neglected members!) quick and responsive to the messages of eye and brain. In an increasingly sedentary age the rapidly growing popularity of tennis is, for this one reason alone, a good omen. But if you play tennis, or any other healthy outdoor sport, or learn how to sing, or how to breathe, or if you do Muller's exercises daily, for the sole purpose of benefiting your liver or developing your muscles, or of "keeping fit," you will miss the real prize.

It is good, also, to train the mind to be logical, critical and balanced: it is good to cultivate a retentive memory and to store up useful facts. But if while you are aiming at intellectual fitness and alertness you allow these good things to obscure other and better things, if, in short, you let means become ends, you will never be healthy, because you will miss half the joys of living.

There are many very skilful performers on musical instruments. They have set themselves, or their parents have set them, to gain certain prizes, distinctions or qualifications. No music is now too difficult for them to execute. But that is exactly what they do—they execute it: destroy its head and heart by sheer mechanical perfection. They have mastered the piano, or the organ, or the violin, or their own voice; but music eludes them.

You see why I began with that tale of the curtained doors, the mysterious music, and the quivering statuary. There is an elusive, haunting quality about life and all living things which, if we look for it and listen to it, imparts a glamour, a rhythm, a beauty to everything that is worth doing. The great danger is that in the pressure of work, the hurry of play, the pursuit of health, or the training of the mind we miss the very thing which can give meaning and value to all these things. The severely matter-of-fact people don't go near the curtained doors, and if they did, would discover only a lot of cold, lifeless statues. Whoever heard of statues dancing? Whoever heard of music without instruments? And yet this very sense of a lyrical movement imperfectly seen, and of a temporarily frozen music, is not only the very secret of all art: it is a slender guiding clue to the centre of everything....

And in the house of every man, and of every woman, are the curtained doorways.

EDGAR J. SAXON.



HOW MUCH SHOULD WE EAT?

This discussion arose out of the article with above title, by "M.D.," which was published in our July number.—[EDS.]

III

I lift my hat to M.D. and trust that, as I don't know him, the somewhat jarring difference that I have with his views will not be put down to personal feeling. A.A. Voysey has put my first objection quite well from the layman's point of view. He says "there is no agreement between those who have been taught physiology." This is true. Playfair's full diet is different from Voit's. Voit's is different from Atwater's. Atwater's is different from Chittenden's.

The custom of reducing the diets to calories, inasmuch as it introduces a false theory, has had a disastrous effect on progress, and has been a great hindrance to the attainment of knowledge. If the coal in the fireplace were the cause of the heat of the fire (but is it?), there is no analogy between the elevation of the heat by hundreds and even thousands of degrees when the fire is lighted, and the elevation of half-a-degree or a degree which occurs when food is taken into the body, especially when we remember that a similar elevation of temperature occurs when work is performed by means of the body without eating or drinking at all.

It is quite evident to every clear seer, or it ought to be, that the force of animal life or zoo-dynamic is the cause of the heat of the body, just as the electric force is the cause of the liberation of heat through the battery, and the chemic force is the cause of the heat of the fire, and that zoo-dynamic and electro-dynamic and chemico-dynamic are forms or species or varieties of the one omnipotent and eternal energy by which all things in this universe consist. The aggregate of all the particular forces makes up the eternal energy which is one. They are all species of the one, but it is convenient and even necessary for our limited intellects to consider them separately, for the indefinite number of the facts and also their intricacy and complexity stagger and overwhelm us unless we do; and indeed they stagger us even when we try to treat them and take them up separately for consideration and examination. But now for the proof of A.A. Voysey's statement.

Ranke found he required 100 grammes proteid; fat 100 grammes; carbo-hydrate 240 grammes to keep him going. These he could have got from 9 oz. of lean meat or 250 grammes, 18 oz. of bread or 500 grammes, 12 oz. or 55 grammes of butter and 1 oz of fat (I do not, of course, suggest that it would have been wise for him to get them so). Moleschott's demands are: proteid 120 grammes, fat 90 grammes, carbo-hydrate 333 grammes. Voit demands for hard work: proteid 145 grammes, fat 100 grammes, carbo-hydrate 450 grammes. Atwater demands for hard work the following:—proteid 177 grammes, fat 250 grammes, carbo-hydrate 650 grammes. Horace Fletcher, we are told by Professor Chittenden, took for a time, when everything was accurately measured and weighed: proteid 44.9 grammes, fat 38 grammes, carbo-hydrate 253 grammes. Cornaro lived on 12 oz. of solid food and 14 oz. of red wine a day for a period of something like 60 years, from 38 years of age to about 97, and had vigorous health during the time except when he transgressed his rule. Of course, he was not a hard physical worker—i.e. he did not do the work of a navvy. But how, in view of these differences, can M.D. say: "These quantities were settled by physiologists many years ago, and no good reasons have since been adduced for altering them"? It is amazing to me to read such a statement. It reminds me of a statement by a distinguished physician in London during last year to the effect that we could not give a growing schoolboy too much food—we could not over-feed him. My opinion, on the other hand, after a long experience, during which time my eyes have not been shut, is that the large majority of the diseases of humanity are due to mal-nutrition and that the form of that mal-nutrition is over-feeding—not under-feeding. This opinion should be taken for what it is worth. But to test it we should ask ourselves: What is the reason for the necessity to take food into the body? Is it to give strength and heat to the body? Or is it to restore the waste of the body sustained by the action on it of the force of life or zoo-dynamic which inhabits it? The demands for food will vary and vary much according to the way in which we answer this question. As you allowed me to discuss this question in Healthy Life in July and August of last year I must not take up your space by discussing it again. But the answer we give determines the amounts of food that we require to take, since, obviously, if the strength and heat of the body depend upon the food, the more food we take the more strength and heat shall we have; while, if the function of food in the adult or grown body is only to restore the waste of the body, the question is how much is the waste. There are various ways in which this question can be answered and I cannot go into them now; but I say, in my opinion, the waste is very much less than is commonly supposed. The body, I take it, is made by zoo-dynamic or the life-force to be a fit habitation for itself. The body must waste when the life-force acts through it, and that waste must be restored by food and sleep, or the body will die; since things (the body) cannot act as the medium of conveying forces (zoo-dynamic or the life-force) without wasting under their action. But so beautifully has the body been made by zoo-dynamic that it wastes very little, much less than is commonly supposed, by the action of zoo-dynamic through it. Not seeing this, we ingest into the body far more than is required to restore its waste, and so we fall ill, for, obviously, if we ingest more than the quantity necessary for this purpose we choke the body up and render it inefficient for its purpose as an instrument for work.

Now this is precisely what seems to me to happen in life. As we are all under the double delusion that the strength of the body and its heat come from the food, we all with one accord put far too much food into the body, and when we find that we die, all of us, generation after generation, at from 50 to 70 years of age, we make up little proverbs to justify our unphysiological conduct and say that three score years and ten are the measure of the duration of life. M.D. says that "some twenty years ago most people lived fairly close to the old physiological quantities" (but what are these? for we have seen how they vary), "now they have been cut adrift from these and are floundering out of their depth." May I remind M.D. that people are now living longer than they did twenty years ago. How does he account for that? No doubt some of the increase in the length of life is due to the diminution of the birth rate, but still I suppose M.D. would admit that there is an increase in the duration of life over and above what can be accounted for in this way. If so, how does he account for it?

M.D. says, further: "For the public it will now probably suffice if they insist on raising (or considering, A.R.) the question of quantity" (of food, A.R.) "wherever they suffer in any way." I agree with all my heart. But M.D. implies, if I read him aright, that the public should increase the quantity of their food when they suffer in any way. I, on the other hand, and rather unhappily for myself, am convinced that the raising of this question implies that it should be answered in the exact opposite way to that of M.D. and that we should diminish our food if we "suffer in any way." And I can point to Nature's own plan as a corroboration of the truth of my view, for her plan when we suffer in any way is to fling us into bed and take away our appetite, or at least to diminish our appetite if we are not so ill as to require to remain in bed.

The whole question of medical practice depends on the answer we give to this question, and therefore one might go on indefinitely with its discussion. Neither the Editors' space and patience nor my time allow of this; but I should like to ask M.D., with all respect, if he remembers what Dr King Chambers said of the starvation that comes of over-repletion? Dr King Chambers occupied one of the most prominent places as a consultant in London (very probably, I suppose) when M.D. was a very young man. My late lamented friend, Dr Dewey of Meadville, Pennsylvania, used the phrase "starvation from over-feeding," not knowing that Dr King Chambers had used practically the same expression before him. That I made the same discovery myself, and independently, is not, I take it, a sign of acuteness of intellect or of observation. The amazing thing is that every practitioner is not compelled to make the same discovery. But if it is a true discovery, then it follows that all the signs of lowered vitality referred to by M.D., while they may be caused by under-feeding, may also be caused by over-feeding and may therefore require for proper treatment, not increase of the diet, but diminution of it. A low temperature, therefore, a slow pulse, languor, pallor, inanition, fatigue, good-for-nothingness, inefficiency, anorexia, anaemia, neurasthenia, etc., etc., may all be due to blocking of the body with too much food as well as to supplying it with too little. Fires may be put out by heaping up too much coal on them. To make them burn briskly we ought to push the poker in and gently lift the coal so as to admit of the entrance of air. Then in a while our fire will become brisk and bright. And so it may be in the body. Nay, my opinion is that almost always these marks of depression are caused by blocking up of the body and that therefore the proper treatment is, as a rule, not increase but diminution of the diet. The place in the body in which the blocking first occurs is the connective tissues or the tissues that connect every part with every other. It is here that the lymph is secreted, and as the lymph joins the thoracic duct which conveys the products of digestion to the blood, it is obvious that lymph-secretion is a complementary digestive process and it is also obvious how blocking up of the connective tissues, which is the immediate cause of anorexia and inanition, usually comes to exist in the body.

M.D. talks of "natural food." He seems to be a vegetarian? Good. But is not the question of how much food we ought to eat equally urgent whether we are vegetarian or omnivorous? I think it is. I do not think that the chief cause of our illnesses to-day is taking wrong or unsuitable food. In my opinion we are ill mainly because we take suitable food too often and because we take too much of it. My answer to the question, therefore—"How Much Should We Eat?—A Warning"—turns on the previous question: What is the Function performed by Food in the Body? As I think that this function in the grown body is only to restore the waste, the warning in my mind is far rather that we should take less than that we should (as M.D. advises us) take more. I agree with him in the view that "chronic starvation is insidious." But, as I believe that "chronic starvation" is usually a form of Dr King Chambers's "starvation from over-repletion" and of Dr Dewey's "starvation from over-feeding," I am bound to be of the consequent opinion that it is to be met, not by increase, but by diminution of the diet. This is one of my reasons for thinking that none of us ought ever to eat oftener than twice a day, under fifty years of age, and that after that we would do well to eat once a day only. I feel sure that if we altered our habits in these ways, we should add very much both to the duration and to the efficiency of life. This is not a question of dietetics only. The issue is of the most practical character. What an addition of five or ten or fifteen or twenty or twenty-five years to the average duration of life might mean to this people and still more to the people of the whole globe is unpredictable by mortal man. But it is evident that it would be of the very greatest import to humanity. This is the great issue of the discussion of this subject. It seems to me that illness might be enormously diminished and health and efficiency and happiness immensely increased. But I think that these boons might be obtained, not by indulging the body and its appetites, but only by the exercise of a wise restraint and government over it. It is at least very much to be desired that more agreement might be manifested in the opinions and practice of qualified physiologists so that the public might have clear guidance, and not as at present, be advised in ways so conflicting that they do not know what or whom to believe.

A. RABAGLIATI, M.D.

* * * * *

To Tourists:

Every little village has a little shop where you can buy nasty little sweets.



PICKLED PEPPERCORNS.

He was a native of Liverpool, but had liver for many years in the Isle of Wight—Edmonton (Canada) Journal.

Funny he didn't go to Poole and leave his liver behind him.

* * * * *

REAL FLESH FOOD FOUND AT LAST. —From an advt. in daily papers.

Evidently we have all been vegetarians and knew it not.

* * * * *

Nothing can replace salt.—From an advt. in Punch.

Many food reformers advantageously replace salt with nothing.

* * * * *

The golf craze has been greater this autumn than in any previous year. Nobody is quite safe from the fever. It seizes those who mocked at it, and pays no respect to sex or age.—British Weekly.

By the time the next Medical Congress comes round it is expected that at least three distinguished bacteriologists will have discovered the golf-fever microbe. They will probably agree to call it Mashilococcus Caddes.

* * * * *

Between lunch and dinner take another tumbler of water cold. Take a glass of cold water half-an-hour after lunch, half-an-hour after tea, half-an-hour after dinner, and before going to bed at night. Never drink between meals.—Woman's Life.

All other methods failing, try putting your watch half-an-hour on after each meal.

* * * * *

I once got a circular from a man who grew potatoes containing his photograph, and, I think, an autobiography.—Musical Standard.

Not nearly so convenient as one of those automatic egg-stamping hens.

* * * * *

Stop-Press News.

A "pocket clipper" has been invented (according to a certain catalogue) which can be used for the beard or hair at back of neck.

But surely people who can do anything so clever as grow a beard on the back of the neck ought not to be tempted to clip it off.

PETER PIPER.



HEALTHY LIFE RECIPES.

MORE EGG DISHES.

In our issue of May 1912 we published a number of special recipes for eggs. These were much appreciated. And even now this and other back numbers are asked for. We now give some further recipes.

It should be remembered that eggs are a simple form of animal food and much purer than meat. They are also easily digested by most people. They therefore form a very useful substitute for flesh-foods, especially where the latter have only recently been discarded.

The normal progress towards a more or less ideal diet involves, of course, the elimination of eggs as well as of other dairy products. But wise food reform proceeds always by steps.

SAVOURY BAKED EGGS.

Melt a little butter, or vegetable fat, in an open earthenware baking dish; break into this as many eggs as required. Cover thinly with grated cheese; add a knob of butter and bake till set. The dish can be placed direct on the table.

EGG ON TOMATO.[13]

One egg, two medium-sized tomatoes, butter.

Skin the tomatoes; cut in halves and put them, with a small piece of butter, into a small stewpan. Close lightly, and cook slowly until reduced to a pulp. Break the egg into a cup, and slide it gently on to the tomato. Replace the pan lid and the egg will poach in the steam rising from the tomato.

[13] This recipe is from The Healthy Life Cook Book, a new and revised edition of which is in contemplation.

SAVOURY EGG FRITTERS.

Six eggs, two large tomatoes, half-teaspoon mixed dried herbs, about three tablespoons ground biscuits ("Ixion" or any of the unsweetened "P.R." kinds).

Hard boil three of the eggs and chop them finely. Skin the tomatoes, mash them and add to the chopped eggs with the remaining eggs (well beaten), herbs and biscuit powder. Should the mixture be too moist to mould add more biscuit powder; if too dry add a little water. Cut and shape into finger shapes and either fry in olive oil or bake on buttered tin or open earthenware baking dish. (The last-mentioned is the best method, as the baking dish can be brought to the table as it is, and there is only one dish instead of two to wash up afterwards.)

SAVOURY EGG PATTIES.

The above Egg Fritter mixture made rather moist may be used as a filling for savoury patties.

Make for these a short crust with 1/2 lb. of Artox meal, 3 oz. of Nutter and water. Slightly bake the shells of pastry (made thin) before adding the filling, and finish to a golden brown.

Serve these and the fritters with either brown gravy or white sauce.

SWEET EGG SOUFFLE.

Five eggs, 3/4 lb. soft cane sugar, 1 oz. ground rice, 2 oz. of butter, rind of half a lemon.

Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs. Beat up the yolks and sift in the ground rice, sugar and grated rind of the lemon. To this batter add the well-whisked whites. Well heat the butter in a frying pan, turn in the batter and fry over gentle heat till set. Fold over the edges and place on well-greased flat dish and bake for barely a quarter of an hour. Sift over some soft cane sugar and serve very hot.

SNOW EGGS.

Three eggs, one and a quarter pints of milk, a teaspoon of soft cane sugar, vanilla flavouring.

Separate the yolks and whites of the eggs and whisk the whites to a very stiff froth with the sugar. Put the milk into a saucepan and when it boils drop in whites of eggs in small pieces shaped between two dessert spoons. Only a little should be cooked at a time in this way, and each should be allowed to poach for two minutes, and when done should be taken out with a slice and put on a sieve to drain. When all the whites are used in this way, strain the milk and add it to the well-beaten yolks. Pour into a double saucepan and stir over the fire till the custard thickens; flavour with vanilla to taste.

When cold pour into a dish and lay the snow eggs on top.

(Kindly supplied by Mrs Edith Wilkinson.)

EGG-RAISED CHERRY CAKE.

9 oz. good "standard" flour, 5 oz. Nutter (or other nut fat), 5 oz. cane castor sugar, 2 oz. preserved cherries (glace), 2 oz. well-washed sultanas, 2 oz. ground almonds, four eggs, outer rind of lemon (grated).

Beat Nutter and sugar to a cream; add eggs one by one, beating all the time; have ready the flour, with the fruit, grated lemon rind and ground almonds mixed in, and add gradually to the above mixture, beating all the time, and until of even consistency throughout. Line a cake tin with double thickness of buttered paper, pour in the mixture and bake in moderate oven about one and a half hours.

Any housewife who doubts the possibility of making light and dainty cakes without the now customary baking powder and baking soda, etc., should try the above recipe. No one could wish for a more excellent cake.

NOTE ON CASSEROLES.

Now that casserole cookery (i.e. cooking in earthenware dishes, both open and covered) is becoming more widely known and practised, readers will be glad to know that many housewives believe in boiling new earthenware before using it, as this effectually toughens and hardens it. This is particularly efficacious in the case of ordinary brown kitchenware, the articles being placed in a large pan of cold water which is then brought slowly to the boil. After being allowed to boil for ten minutes remove the pan and allow the water to cool before taking out the ware.



HEALTH QUERIES.

Under this heading our contributor, Dr Valentine Knaggs, deals briefly month by month, and according as space permits, with questions of general interest to health seekers and others.