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Correspondents are earnestly requested to write on one side only of the paper, giving full name and address, not for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith.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.]

EXCESSIVE PERSPIRATION.

Miss R.E.N. writes.—I am troubled with excessive perspiration. I neither eat meat nor drink tea. I have a cold sponge bath down to my waist every morning, and I change all my clothes when I go to bed. My diet is, roughly, as follows:

Breakfast.—Oatmeal porridge with toast or bread and jam or golden syrup. Hot water.

Lunch.—Peas, beans or lentils, eggs, cheese. Vegetables: potatoes and onions, or carrots, cabbage, cauliflower, turnips. Puddings, fruit or milk wholemeal bread, not much sugar except for sweetening fruits, etc.

Tea meal.—Wholemeal bread and butter, nuts, jam, cake, pastry; hot water.

At bedtime.—Hot water or coffee.

If our correspondent wishes to remedy this excessive perspiration she must get a hot towel-bath daily (all over),[14] wearing porous linen-mesh underclothing next the skin. She should also discontinue the soft sugary and starchy foods, and not mix fruit with other foods (it is best taken by itself, say, for breakfast). She needs more of the cooling salad vegetables. The following diet would be a great improvement:—

On rising.—Half-pint of hot boiled water, sipped slowly.

Breakfast.—Wholemeal bread or biscuits and butter (all made without salt), with salad or grated raw roots. Stop porridge, jam and golden syrup. Avoid drinking at meals.

Lunch.—Two eggs, or 2 oz. of curd cheese. Two vegetables cooked in casserole without salt; wholemeal bread or biscuits and butter; a few figs, prunes, dried bananas, or raisins, washed but not cooked. Avoid milk puddings or stewed fruits as too fermentative and heating.

Supper meal.—1 to 2 oz. flaked nuts, some crisp "P.R." or "Ixion" biscuits with nut butter. Some fresh salad or grated roots. Stop jam, cake and pastry.

At bedtime.—Half-pint of hot boiled water, or clear vegetable soup, sipped slowly.

[14] The Sanum Oxygen Baths are also excellent in a case of this kind.

DIET FOR ULCERATED THROAT.

Mrs L.B. writes.—Do you think it would be wise for a person suffering from ulcers in the throat and on other mucous membranes to adopt a diet devoid of meat, yeast and salt?

It would certainly be wise to discard meat and salt in a case of this kind, but yeast is sometimes useful taken as "unflavoured Marmite." The chief cause of ulcers is the abuse of the soft cereal and sugary foods. In a case of this sort I should advise a diet consisting exclusively of well-dextrinised cereals—e.g. Granose, Melarvi, etc.—with plenty of grated raw roots and finely chopped salads and tomatoes. This can be combined with curd cheese, raw or lightly cooked eggs, flaked nuts or Brusson Jeune bread as the proteid part of the diet.

FARMING AND SCIATICA.

Mrs A.C.B. writes.—For two months my husband, who leads an active open-air life, has had severe pain all down the back of his left leg. It is like neuralgia, and comes on worse when sitting. He has been a farmer all his life, but is anything but strong and constantly taking cold. Are these pains likely to be due to wrong food?

This pain is evidence of sciatica. Chills alone will not produce sciatica, which has its real cause in the system being choked up with acids and toxins of various kinds. In such a case as this, warm water enemas should be taken freely to clear the colon well; sugar, milk and all starchy mushy foods should be strictly avoided; vegetables should be taken either as baked roots or as fresh salads; eggs and cheese should be substituted for meat; and plenty of fresh butter should be taken. Boiled water, between meals, will be good, but nothing should be given to drink with food. Salt, pickles, and greasy or highly flavoured foods should be avoided.

TEMPORARY "BRIGHT'S DISEASE" AND HOW TO DEAL WITH IT.

Miss E. would like to know what kind of diet is suitable for one who has been suffering from Bright's Disease following a serious illness. Why should meat have any bad effect upon the kidneys? She does not take it, although her medical man advises the use of it at once.

It is not an uncommon thing for people who have suffered from an acute septic fever to find albumen temporarily present in the urine. This is due to the irritant action of the toxins and other poisons (which the fever is the means of ejecting) upon the structure of the kidneys. The kidneys are filters and they remove the bulk of the soluble waste of the body.

The practitioner frequently finds albumenuria in cases of scarlet fever, typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc., and the object of his treatment is to prevent this condition of kidney irritation from becoming an established disease (Bright's disease).

Flesh foods, and especially meat extracts and meat soups, are the worst possible wherewith to feed these fever cases, because they throw so much extra work upon the kidneys. Meat is composed mainly of proteids. It also contains the urinary wastes and the toxins (due to fear) which were in the animal's body and on the way to elimination when it was killed.

This sufferer should take one meal per day consisting of fresh fruit only; the rest of the diet should consist of salad vegetables and finely grated raw roots, home-made curd cheese, dextrinised cereals (such as Melarvi biscuits, Shredded Wheat, "P.R." crackers, Granose biscuits, Grape-Nuts, twice-baked standard bread, etc.) and fresh or nut butter.

PHOSPHORUS AND THE NERVES.

W.H.H. writes:—I should be very grateful if Dr Knaggs could help me with any information or hints regarding phosphaturia. I suffer much from this troublesome complaint.

We have to remember that the nervous system is two-fold. The one, or conscious portion, consists of the brain and spinal cord, from which all the nerves or branches travel to all parts of the body and give us dominion over them. The other, or subconscious, called the sympathetic nervous system, lies on either side of the front of the spine as two long chains with centres, or ganglia, at intervals. This second system is not within our control and has to do with the regulation of our vegetative functions, including the bulk of the digestive process.

All nerves, whether they come from the brain or from the sympathetic system, ranging to their smallest terminals, are built alike of cells, and these cells secrete a complex fatty substance, called lecithin, whose dominant element is phosphorus. This phosphorus has to be supplied to the body with food, and as food, and it cannot be properly utilised or assimilated by the body or used by the nerves to build up their lecithin unless it is eaten in the form of organic compounds.

The tissues of the body are continually dying, as a result of work done, and are continually being replaced by fresh young tissues as needed. It is the function of the nerves to manage this work for us as well as to similarly arrange for reproduction.

In order to control the functions of the various organs and tissues and to regulate the rate at which they reproduce themselves, the nerves extend their terminal branches, not only into every tissue, but into every microscopical unit of such tissue, and the part of the cell which represents the nerve terminal is the inner structure called the nucleus.

Now it will be obvious that the more the two nervous systems are worked the greater will be their depletion of lecithin and the more need there will be for fresh supplies of phosphorus in the daily food rations.

The person who works hard, whether it be manual labour or brain work, needs food and rest at intervals in order that the nerves may recuperate and replenish their stocks of lecithin.

A goodly proportion of uncooked foods rich in phosphorus must be supplied to make good the wear and tear, and the digestion must equally be efficient if these food-stuffs are to become assimilated.

Cooking of food to a large extent breaks down the organic phosphorus salts and makes them inorganic. In this state they are of but little use to the body. Poor digestion associated with putrefactive fermentation equally converts the organic salts into inorganic ones. These pass into the blood and are promptly eliminated by the kidneys as waste (phosphaturia) and thus they never reach the nerves at all.

We must remember that phosphorus is usually found in natural foods bound up with the proteid and especially with that proteid which has to do with the reproduction of the species. For this reason man instinctively resorts to the use of egg-yolks, and to the various seeds (such as nuts, wheat, barley, etc.) because of their rich phosphorus content.

These proteid-bound phosphorus salts can only be properly utilised when the hydrochloric acid of the stomach juice is well formed, for it converts them into acid salts which are readily absorbed. Therefore to ensure free absorption we must always remember to give the phosphorus-containing foods with such meals as will cause free secretion of the gastric acid.

When fermentation is active and the stomach juices are weakened the germs of the intestines rapidly break up the phosphorus constituents of the proteids and make them inorganic. Therefore the first thing to do when a person is found to be suffering from phosphaturia is to stop the intestinal fermentation by a right diet, clear the bowels of their accumulated waste poisons and give the nerves plenty of rest. Another consideration to bear in mind is that the nerves need fat wherewith to build up the lecithin. An excessive fermentative sourness of the stomach makes the food so acid when sent into the bowels that the bile, pancreatic and other intestinal juices cannot neutralise them, and so the fats themselves are not emulsified and digested, which fully accounts for the mental depression and debility of which these patients complain.

People who are suffering from "nerves" in any form need plenty of pure fat (fresh dairy butter, cream, nut butter, fruit-oils, etc.) and an abundance of natural fresh vegetable products at once rich in phosphorus and iron and in organic alkaline acid-neutralising earthy salts. These arrest fermentation and so enable the phosphorus and the fat to become duly assimilated.

CANARY VERSUS JAMAICA BANANAS.

R.B., Lincoln, would like to know if there is very much difference, as regards food value, between the Jamaica and Canary banana. "I have heard it said that the Jamaica is only fit for the dust-heap. Well, I cannot very easily think it is so useless, and at the same time I have an idea that the Canary is the better of the two. I should be very pleased to know if you think there is much difference between them."

The difference between Jamaica and Canary bananas is due to the length of time necessary for them to reach us from their place of growth. It takes, I believe, nearly twice as long for a ship to travel from Jamaica as from the Canary Islands. Hence the fruit imported from the latter place can be picked in a much riper condition than would be the case with the Jamaica article. This probably accounts for the better quality and flavour of the Canary banana. Besides this the climate may have some determining influence. To say that the Jamaica bananas should be discarded because they are of a less satisfactory food value or because their flavour is less developed is uncalled for. The disparity in price is also very marked, so that the poor can readily procure the Jamaica banana where they would not be in a position to afford the better class of fruit coming from the Canaries. I have discussed this subject in p.34 of my book, The Truth about Sugar.

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.



CORRESPONDENCE.

LEYTONSTONE

To the Editors.

SIRS,

Enclosed please find P.O. for a copy of The Healthy Life to be sent to Carnegie Public Library, close to Midland Station, Leytonstone, also to The Alexandra Holiday Home, Y.W.C.A., Alexandra Road, Southend-on-Sea. At the latter home there are something like 500 to 600 visitors every year, many of whom are semi-invalids. No doubt the magazine will be scorned by many, yet I am quite certain that there are others amongst the number there who will gladly welcome the truths it teaches, and if only one or two are helped to live a more healthy and therefore more happy life, it will be quite worth while. Please do not mention my name in either case. Yours, etc., X.

There is every reason why The Healthy Life should be known and read in every public library in the United Kingdom. In this we are entirely dependent upon those readers who are ready to follow the excellent example of the above correspondent. A year's subscription—2s.—is a very small price to pay for bringing the message of this magazine before the public in this way. We should like to hear from readers in all parts.—[EDS.]

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



THE

HEALTHY

LIFE

The Independent Health Magazine.

3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.

VOL. V NOVEMBER No. 28. 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.

It was the slave-woman who laid her child under a bush that she might spare herself the pain of seeing it die!

One of the commonest sources of mental and moral confusion is to mistake the egotistic shrinking from the sight of suffering with the altruistic shrinking from causing it and desire to relieve it.

The so-called sensitive person is too often only sensitive to his or her own pain and, therefore, finds it difficult in the presence of another's suffering to do what is needed to relieve it.

The healer, the health-bringer, the truly sympathetic person, does not even hesitate to inflict pain when to do so means to restore health.—[EDS.]



CASTLES IN THE AIR.

Regular readers will recognise in this wonderfully simple and suggestive 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.—[EDS.]

Of all the occupations which imagination gives us, surely none is more popular or more delightful than the planning out of future days. Pleasure and fame and honour, work and rest, comfort and adventure: all things take their turn in our romances.

Not all the castles are for ourselves alone. In childhood it is our school, our club, our town that is to be the centre of great events. The young man's castle is a nest to which he hopes to bring a mate. The mother sees the future coronet or laurel-wreath round the soft hair of her baby's head. And we all build castles for the world sometimes—at least for our own country or our own race. Sometimes we knock them down and rebuild again in rather different shape—Mr Wells has taught us what a fascinating game it is.

Sometimes, especially perhaps in little, unimportant things, our imagination does centre chiefly around our own activities. What we mean to do, what we might do, what we would like to do: there must be something else besides selfishness and waste of time in the constantly recurring thoughts.

Who does not know the charm of looking down the theatre-list of the morning paper? One may be too busy or two poor to go often to the play, but the very suggestion of all the colour and interest is pleasant. Who does not like looking over prospectuses of lectures and classes at the beginning of the winter session? "I should like to go to that course on Greek Art. Oh, it is on Mondays, then that is no good. German, elementary and conversation. How useful that would be! Gymnasium and physical culture; how I wish I had another evening in the week to spare!"

Railway books, again, and guides and travel bills—how delightful they are! It is easy to plan out tours for one's holidays up to the age of 100. "Brittany; oh yes, I must go there one day. And Norway, that must really be my next trip." The Rockies, the cities of the East, coral islands of the Pacific—they all seem to enrich our lives by the very thought of their possibilities.

Again, who does not love a library catalogue? To go through with a pencil, noting down the names of books one wants to read is a form of castle-building by no means to be despised.

Some people get the same pleasure out of house-hunting; they see an empty house and go and get the key in order to see over it. The chances of their ever living there are practically none, but the view gives a stimulus to their inventive activity: they plan out how they would furnish the rooms and fill the empty hearths with dreams.

Is not the same thing the explanation of shop-gazing? The woman who has bought her winter coat and hat does not as a rule refrain from looking any more into shop windows till the spring; instead, she clothes herself in imagination in all the beautiful stuffs she sees displayed, and if some of the things demand ballroom, racecourse, golf links or perhaps the Alps for the background, why, so much the better, the suggestion puts, as it were, a view from the windows of her castle in the air.

A garden—a dozen square yards or reckoned in acres—is full of material for our imagination; indeed, a seedsman's catalogue or a copy of "Amateur Gardening" will often be enough to start us; long lines of greenhouses will build themselves for us, or rockeries, or wild glens with streams in them, and the world will blossom round about us.

Sometimes it is ambition that calls us, personal or professional; we get beforehand the sweet taste of power upon the tongue. It may perhaps be sometimes the rewards of work, riches and honour and so on, but more often, I think, the dreams of youth circle round the work itself. We will be of use in the world, we will find new paths and make them safe for those coming after us to walk in, we will get rid of that evil and set up a ladder towards that good; we will heal, teach, feed, amuse, uplift or cherish the other human beings round about us. We will store only for the sake of distributing; we will climb only to be better able to give a helping hand.

Well, there are some danger signals at cross-roads of our dream-way, some precautions to be observed if we would not let romance obscure and hinder us in our search after reality. But none of these "castles" are bad in themselves. In so far as they quicken our attention power, deepen our thoughtfulness, make our activities more elastic and keep us from carelessness or sloth, they are surely all to the good as episodes in our development.

E.M. COBHAM.



THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF VEGETALISM.

This article, the earlier part of which appeared in the October number, is from the French of Prof. H. Labbe, the head of the laboratoire a la Faculte de Medecine, in Paris. It reflects a characteristic aloofness to a any considerations other than scientific or economic. But it will well repay careful study.—[EDS.]

V

Though the consumption of vegetable foods seems to offer a slight disadvantage from the point of view of albuminoid matters, this is not the case touching hydro-carbonated matters and sugars. The vegetable kingdom constitutes the almost exclusive source of these alimentary principles. One cannot indeed take much account of the consumption of the .5-.6 per cent, of glycogen which exists in the animal muscle partaken of under the shape of butcher's meat. There is hardly enough in this for a large eater of between 200 and 250 grammes of meat, to find in hydrocarbonated matters the 1/300 or the 1/400 of the daily ration. Hydrocarbons are necessarily borrowed from the vegetable foods. This is also the case with sugars which do not exist in the animal kingdom in appreciable quantities. It is the same thing with alcohol which is obtained only from the vegetable kingdom.

VI

As to fatty matters, animal foods, like vegetable products, are abundantly provided with them. Moreover, from the point of view of digestibility and capability of assimilating, one may say that there is a quasi-absolute identity between animal and vegetable fats. The reason which would induce us to prefer either would not seem to be of a physiological nature. The economics, which we shall see further on, take this upon themselves, as the most serious reproach which can be made against the use of animal dishes is doubtless their dearness, and the reason which militates most in favour of the predominance of a vegetable diet is to a certainty its cheapness.

VII

Such are, briefly expounded and refuted, the fundamental objections which can be brought against the vegetarian diet and the "vegetalian" customs. There exists, in fact, no serious physiological or chemical reason for not satisfying our needs solely with foods of vegetable origin. It may be interesting to note that, in reality, the most confirmed flesh eaters support their energy-producing needs mainly with vegetable products. In the mixed diet universally practised meat plays but a small part.

In meat the waste in preparation and consecutive waste at table is considerable. To really introduce 200 grammes of meat into the stomach, nearly 400 grammes must be purchased, and expensively put into use. What do these 200 grammes really bring in nutritive elements?

Meat.

200 gr. (mod. fat.) at 18% albumin = 36 gr. album., about. " " 5% fat = 10 gr. fat, about. ——- 46 gr.

These 46 grs. constitute barely the 8 per cent. of the total weight of a ration, averaged in nutritive elements, calculated as follows:—

Albumin 80 Fatty matters 70 Hydrates of carbon 350

This is a very feeble proportion.

If one turns to the calorific point of view, in order to estimate the share of energy useful to the organism, we arrive at much the same conclusion. The 46 grs. of nutritive animal elements barely provide 230 thermal units which can be utilised, while the total diet which we are considering brings a power of disposal of nearly 2,350 thermal units. It is, even then, barely 10 per cent. of the total energy. The most convinced flesh eaters, those who buy 400 grs. of meat a day for their consumption, must learn, willingly or unwillingly, that the animal element enters only in an infinitesimal part into their real substance and reparation.

VIII

Beyond this very feeble nutritive help is there, then, in meat, anything else which makes the use of this article of food necessary, agreeable or particularly strengthening? It is incontestible that meat contains stimulating substances, which, as Prof. Armand Gautier has said, play the part of nerve tonics, and have perhaps a direct action on the circulation.

These special meat matters are found concentrated in the gravy. Meat gravy, in fact, beside a feeble proportion of albuminoid matters, or solubly derived quantities, polypeptides, etc., in notable proportion of liberated acids, contains a certain quantity of matters, qualified by the generic name of extractives; a notable quantity of these extractive matters being creatine and creatinine, as well as substances of which the fundamental nucleus is the puric grouping. These purins, by the name which E. Fischer attributes to them, derive from a special grouping which it would be supposed exists in a hypothetic body, but which is not known in a state of liberty, purin. This first term gives rise to a series of bodies in lateral groups, of which the most interesting are caffeine and theobromine. Amongst these substances the one which has the maximum of oxidation is no other than uric acid. Caffeine and theobromine enjoy nervine properties and energetic vascular actions. These properties minutely studied are utilised every day for therapeutic purposes. It is probable that the other bodies of the series which are met with in the extract of meat enjoy analogous physiological properties. These substances are ingested without discernment, often in great excess, and daily, by people who consume meat.

Amongst these latter, many would not dare to drug themselves with a centigramme of pharmaceutic caffeine, whereas they absorb each day gr. 5 and more, of its homologous constituents.

Therefore, in the same way as chocolate, tea and coffee, meat has a stimulating effect on the system. He who is accidentally deprived of it finds that he experiences a passing depression. This obviously proves that by the exaggerated use of meat, one drugs and doctors oneself without discernment. However this may be, the judicious part played by meat must apparently be reduced to that of a condiment food destined to produce in a measure the whipping-up which is useful, and sometimes indispensable to the system. We cannot here discuss the expediency of action and the harmlessness of the dose of substances reputed stimulating. But one can ask oneself whether, to attain this object of stimulation, carnivorous feeding is indispensable, and if vegetarianism could not supply the need.

The reply is easy: the vegetable kingdom disposes of a variety of stimulating articles, such as tea, coffee, kola and cocoa. Through their active substances these foods are nerve tonics of the first order, less dangerous in their use than meat, because more easily assimilated, of far more continuous effects, less mixed with other substances, sometimes noxious, and consequently more measurable. Besides, in pulse food, quantities of purins are found as important as in meat. If the part they play has not been systematically studied from the point of view of their effects on the nervous organism, they still give rise to the same terminal products, such as uric acid. One can quite well argue that the pulse purins have physiological effects comparable to those of meat purins. On the other hand, vegetable purins have the considerable advantage of being less easily precipitated in the urine, after the human interorganic metabolism, than those resulting from the metabolism of flesh material.

This explains why a frequent use of a vegetable diet offers appreciable advantages in the amelioration of arthritic diatheses so common amongst us. Certain effects observed in these diatheses arise from the purins, from their localisation in the system, and their vitiated metabolism. The use of a moderate vegetable diet is the best means of treatment in order to relieve, to ameliorate, even to cure, arthritic diathesis.

IX

Such are the certain physiological advantages which the predominant use of vegetable products are capable of offering. If one takes the pure energy-producing point of view, the superiority of the vegetarian diet becomes greater still. From the fine works of A. Chauveau, modern physiology has shown us that muscle, in working, consumes sugary materials. These are provided by ingestions of sugar in a natural state, of dextrine or of starch; for a less important part, the glycogen of the system may also arise from hydrocarbonated cords existing in the molecule of certain albumins. Therefore it is only in an infinitesimal part, due to the fibrine of meat, and to the small proportions of glycogen which it contains, that flesh diet intervenes in the direct production of kinetic energy.

The demonstrations which have been essayed, touching the muscular superiority of vegetarians, appear superfluous to us. Such experiments could only have a positive value if they were made on both series of antagonistic subjects, with alimentary powers of energy-producing equality.

It should be distinctly understood that the vegetarian does not profit by any mysterious forces. The habit of preferring to nourish oneself with vegetable foods, can, at most, or at least, favour the physiological integrity of the subject, shield him against disease and assure his revictualment with foods recognised as active and easily measurable.

One cannot leave alcohol out of the list of advantageous vegetable foods. In fact, provided one keeps to strictly limited doses, it may be included among the alimentary foods, on a footing comparable to that of sugar. If one knew how to use without misusing it, alcohol might become a daily food.

X

Another order of ideas which one cannot pass by in silence at the present time militates in favour of vegetable alimentation. Dietetics cannot neglect economic problems. A flesh diet is very costly. In large towns, like Paris, at a time when everything is increasing in cost, one must be favoured by fortune to be able to indulge in the real luxury of consuming the calories of meat. As we said in 1905, with Prof. Landouzy and M. Labbe, in our inquiry into popular Parisian alimentation, the calorific energy of meat comes, on an average, to between 15 to 20 times dearer than that of bread or pulse foods.

The diet with a vegetable predominance may therefore, by those who adopt it, be considered as much less costly than a mixed one. Does not this fact, then, deserve to be taken into consideration and compared—startlingly illustrative—to the ingenious calculation recently made by Lefevre in his examination of vegetarianism? One acre of land planted for the purpose of breeding cattle produces three times less living strength than an acre planted with wheat!

Is it not criminal, or at any rate ill-judged, for the richness and health of the country to have, by the laws of a draconian protectionism, spurred the French agricultural population along the road to the breeding of cattle, thus turning it away from cultivation? These laws are the cause, on the one hand, of the high price of wheat, owing to the abandonment of its culture and the barriers opposed to its entrance, and on the other, of the dearness of meat, owing to the stock and the land which the cattle require.

Under these facts economists have indeed a direct responsibility, as for more than fifty years economic orthodoxy has presented meat as a necessity, whereas it is the least advantageous particle amongst so many others.

In conclusion, let us hope that future distinctions of "Vegetalists," vegetarians or flesh eaters may be completely abolished. In medio stat virtus. The dietetic regimen, the general adoption of which must henceforth be desired, must reject all preconceived and hereditary ideas, and unite in one harmonious use all foods with a hygienic end in view. The place of each one amongst them and its predominance over the others should be determined only by conforming to reasons at the same time physiological and economic.

H. LABBE.

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.



HEALTH AND JOY IN HAND-WEAVING.

This article gains additional interest from the fact that it has been written by one who works her own loom and teaches others the ancient and healthy art of hand-weaving.—[EDS.]

Hand-weaving is an art, a handicraft, one aspect of which we are apt to forget—namely, that it is a splendid health-giver. Indeed, all who have felt the rhythm of the loom, as they throw the shuttle to and fro, and in blending colours and seeing the material grow thread by thread, can witness to the power of the work to banish both the large and small worries that eat away our health of mind and body. The hand-weaver learns to look upon his (or her) loom as a very good friend.

The possibilities in weaving are immense, and the great difficulty that always confronts the weaver is the impossibility of letting gussets into the day: the end of the week comes all too soon.

One very satisfactory thing about weaving is the fact that from the very first we can use the things woven, even those we learn on.

First, there is plain weaving, with which we can make dress materials and many things for household use. Then come fancy and striped materials, which require more knowledge and ingenuity.

There are endless varieties in bands of different patterns thrown in with the shuttle, or shuttles, sometimes as many as a dozen of which may be in use at a time. These can be used for the purpose of ornamentation. In weaving these no end of play of colour can be made, by using many colours in rotation, either as the groundwork of plain material, under the patterns, or as the pattern itself.

Metal threads can also be used of various kinds, either as an entire texture, or to enrich the fancy bands.

Lastly, there is inlay weaving, by which we can put in by hand, with little separate bobbins, as we go along, any cross-stitch design, lettering, monograms, figures and designs of every description.

Anyone with a knowledge of carpentry can make his own loom, the construction being of a very simple nature. In fact, the Orientals erect a few sticks, dig a hole in the ground to sit in, tie their warp up to a tree, and then produce the most charming work, both in texture and colour.

The warp can also be made as these people often make theirs, by fixing it to sticks stuck into the ground, and walking backwards and forwards with the thread, singing as they go. Yes, singing! I think we English folk might learn from them to put more joy into our work, that fountainhead of life and health. We are apt to take such a serious view of ourselves and of all we do. So often, too, we only feel the dull and quiet colours, instead of using the many brilliant ones that nature loves so well. Once we begin working in, and appreciating, these we realise the exhilarating effect on our spirits. Indeed, I think we are only beginning to realise what a great influence colour has upon us, and all that colour signifies, each colour having various meanings of its own.

Many people are now realising that we are surrounded by a halo of colour woven by our character—the most highly developed people being surrounded by clear, bright colours. It is strictly true that we are all weavers, every day of our lives. By following the laws of nature we make the finest texture composed of all the most glorious colours or qualities in the Universe, so by degrees bringing ourselves, and others, into perfect harmony and peace.

MINNIE BROWN.



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.]

IV

In dealing with this vitally important question, we shall most of us, I take it, agree upon certain points. In the light of recent knowledge upon, and extended experience of the subject, one such point which now appears incontrovertible is that there are thousands die annually—directly or indirectly—through overfeeding where one dies through insufficient nourishment. And it may at once be said that, as regards these thousands, the death certificates are practically valueless as data in relation to erroneous dieting, so that in this way we can never get at a correct estimate as to the actual number of deaths due to overfeeding. Bright's disease, gastric and intestinal affections, growths of various kinds, cancer, etc., are each in their turn certified as the "Cause of Death." Most often, however, the initial cause is the overloading of the system with an amount of food beyond that which is necessary or healthful—and thereby clogging up the tissues, the organs and smaller bloodvessels.

But it may be said: "How can you substantiate such a general and sweeping statement?" In the first place—and this is profoundly significant—other things being equal, it must be acknowledged by all unbiased people that the small and moderate feeders do not contract disease in anything like the proportion that big feeders do, and as a natural consequence live longer lives.

Further, it must surely be quite evident by this time that there is a sufficiently large enough number of people who are thus existing in good health—and steadily regaining it where it has been lost—on the lines of moderate feeding. And the number is accumulating at a rapid pace; more and more are coming into line with those of us who, having thus found health in themselves, their patients and friends, are preaching the practice of two meals a day, and sometimes only one where there is serious organic disease to combat—thus defying the dicta of those eminent physiologists who "settled" the question years ago.

Now I quite admit—it would be impertinence to do otherwise—that "M.D.'s" statements and views must not be ignored, must indeed be respected. And he tells us that he "heard of," in one day, three cases which "went wrong" through underfeeding; well, for those three cases we can point to hundreds who are going right through eating just enough and not too much. I am prepared, on the other hand, to admit the danger of a continued semi-starvation diet; our difficulty is to define in each individual case what exactly would be a semi-starvation, and what a sufficient diet. It is impossible to have a fixed standard for everybody. After all, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating"; often it is a matter of experimenting for some little time, and in this way we could judge largely of the result of our dieting by our state of general health.

On some main points of the question I am now absolutely convinced—viz.:

1. Excessive bulk is always dangerous, often disastrous, causing sudden death in a large number of cases.

2. Starchy foods are best strictly limited as we get along towards middle age and beyond.

3. A life which is largely mental or sedentary will be healthier and longer on a strictly moderate diet.

4. A life largely of physical labour must be dealt with on its own particular conditions.

5. At all times due regard, of course, must be paid to age, weight, etc.

6. On the whole, "eminent physiologists" have erred on the side of excess of proteid being advised.

7. Middle age is the critical time of life in respect to a man's diet in other words, I would say in axiomatic form that as a man feeds at or about middle age, so will he be for the rest of his life.

J. STENSON HOOKER, M.D.

V

As a very interested reader of this discussion I should be very glad to know exactly what "M.D." means by each pound of bone and muscle in the body weight? What proportion (approximately) is it to total body weight? I have been trying to keep up to Dr Haig's 9 grains per lb. of "body weight" and find that it is too much for my digestive powers, which are very weak owing to chronic nervous dyspepsia. If I take 15 per cent. or 20 per cent. less proteid my troubles are so greatly lessened that I feel that to continue to take the lower amount would mean perpetual relief. But there have been so many warnings, including M.D.'s, of the dangers of under-nutrition, that I am in a quandary; and others of your readers too.

If M.D. means grains per lb. of something less than total body weight, a lesser amount of proteid than I try to take may have his sanction, and be safe for me.

JNO. A. COOKSON.

* * * * *

There appears to be a sincere attempt in "M.D.'s" article to prove that a physiologist is the best guide in diet. But, as one can get the degree of M.D. without any scientific knowledge of dietetics, the inference that one would be likely to make from such an alarming article is erroneous. I say "alarming" because vague statements are made as to patients who were rescued just in time to be stimulated by over-feeding into a semblance of health, and we are treated to a list of very alarming symptoms in the last paragraph on p. 443.

"M.D." says, "Suppose that the animal fed for years on unnatural food has become so pathological that it can no longer take or digest its natural food." How grateful to M.D. for this statement will be those who long for an excuse to cling to the spoiled, boiled and unnatural dishes of which the popular diet mainly consists! And how they will continue to overeat themselves, content to avoid the truth regarding food quantities.

Living on a right and natural diet, a man or woman will correct the effects of wrong living. This will bring crises, and unless they know that this is Nature's attempt to rid the body of unwanted and effete matter they may be duped into returning to their high feeding, either by those whom "M.D." calls diet quacks or by qualified quacks.

I do not believe it possible for anyone to die for lack of indication that they were eating too little.

The opposite is what people die of. If we carefully read Dr Rabagliati's article in the same issue we shall rightly ask what would be the results of analyses and measurements in such a case.

About a year ago we had a young woman under our care who had suffered with deafness and other troubles for years. She had tried dietetic treatments, "uric-acid-free" and otherwise, and had at last been told that her deafness was incurable, being due to heredity and deficiency in the organs of hearing. She was extremely thin when she came to us, but we did not measure her, nor analyse unclean excreta, nor weigh her.

She saw an M.D. who was in sympathy with the philosophy of fasting, and she fasted (taking water only) for 28 days. She then had four days of fruit juice, and was so disappointed at having broken her fast prematurely that she continued it for another 12 days, making 44 in all—40 days actual fasting.

[During this period she was living an almost complete out-door life.—EDS.]

During the fast many interesting phenomena were witnessed, chief among which was the discharge from ears and nose—significant indeed to all who study Nature's ways. Result: normal hearing restored. This was nearly twelve months ago; and, having heard of her recently, we find that, though she had had a cold, there has been no recurrence of deafness. I wonder what assistance measurements would have been in this true cure. The patient (an adult) weighed 4st. 8 lbs. at the end of her fast and could then walk short distances.

The way in which "M.D." dismisses "a little gout" in his last paragraph but one almost leads one to think that he is unaware of the failure of the natural defences of the body that must have gone on in a very serious degree before the manifestation of gout became possible.

I respectfully submit this problem to "M.D.":—If a very thin patient can go without food entirely for 40 days, with only benefit accruing, how many centuries will it take for a fairly fat person to die through slightly under-eating?

As Dr Haddon has said, the proteid myth will die hard, but there are physiologists who, with their faces to the light, are finding the truth of man's requirements in food and who know that absolute purity and simplicity are the ideals to be sought and that all food we eat more than is absolutely necessary is a diversion of energy to carnal channels.

ERNEST STARR.



A DOCTOR'S REASONS FOR OPPOSING VACCINATION.

In opposing vaccination I am aware that it is a thankless task to brave the abuse and antagonism which everyone who attempts to move forward in the work of medical progress is sure to encounter.

In order that I may not be regarded as prejudiced against the dogma of vaccination, I will preface my remarks with the confession that I was at one time myself a confiding dupe of the "tradition of the dairymaids." While attending medical college I was told that inoculation with cow pox virus was a certain preventive of small-pox, and like most other medical students I accepted with childlike faith and credulity the dictum of my teachers as so much infallible wisdom. After an experience derived from treating a number of cases of post-vaccinal small-pox in patients who gave evidence of having been recently and successfully vaccinated, I awoke to a realisation of the unpleasant fact that "protective vaccination" was not all that was claimed for it. I thereupon began a study of the vaccination problem in all its bearings. After several years of reading, observation and experience I became fully convinced that "successful" vaccination not only fails to protect its subjects from small-pox, but that, in reality, it renders them more susceptible to this disease by impairing their health and vitality, and by diminishing their power of resistance.

Personally, I have known of recently vaccinated patients dying from small-pox while having the plainest foveated vaccine marks upon their bodies, and I have seen other individuals who had never submitted to vaccine inoculation have variola in its mildest and most benign type.

In view of such experience I refused to ignore the evidence of my own senses, and determined to follow the dictates of reason instead of the dogmas of faith, and have, consequently, for the past fifteen years refused to pollute the blood of a single person with vaccine virus.

I oppose vaccination because I believe that health is always preferable to disease. The principle and practice of vaccination involves the introduction of the contagion of disease at least twice, and, according to numerous authorities, many times, into the human organism. The disease conveyed by vaccination causes an undeniable impairment of health and vitality, it being a distinctly vaccine "lymph," is taken from a lesion on the body of a diseased beast, and inserted by the vaccinator into the circulation of healthy children. The performance of such an insanitary operation, in the very nature of the case, is a violation of the cardinal principles of hygiene and of sanitary science.... Moreover, this operation is in direct controversion of the basic principles of aseptic surgery, the legitimate aim of which is to remove from the organism the products of disease, but never to introduce them.

The prime aim of the modern surgeon is to make every wound aseptic and to keep it so. The careful operator employs every means at his command to clear the field of operations of all bacteria. He utilises every particle of the marvellously minute and intricate technique of asepsis to prevent the entrance through the wounded tissues of any disease elements before, during or after the operation. He fears sepsis equally with death, and yet, under the blighting and blinding influence of an ancient and venerated myth inherited from his ignorant and superstitious forbears of a pre-scientific age, he will deliberately inoculate the virulent infective products of diseased animal tissues into the circulation of a healthy person. And as if to cap the climax of his stupidity and inconsistency, he performs the operation under "aseptic precautions."

The poisonous matter which nature wisely eliminates from the body of a diseased calf in an effort to save its life and restore it to health is seized upon by the vaccinator and implanted into the wholesome body of a helpless child. Think of the unparalleled absurdity of purposely infecting the body of a healthy person in this era of sanitary science with the poison from a diseased beast, under the senseless pretext of protecting the victim of the ingrafted disease from the contagion of another disease! Can inconsistency go further?

I oppose the practice of vaccination because it is not known what vaccine virus is, except that it is a mixed contagion of disease. We hear much these days about "pure" virus and "pure calf lymph." Nothing could be more absurd and meaningless than the flippant talk indulged in by vaccinators and the purveyors of vaccine virus about "pure calf lymph," a hybrid product of diseased animal tissues. "Pure virus" translated into plain English is pure "animal poison." The phrase "pure calf lymph" is applied to an brand of vaccine virus now in use is a misnomer for two reasons. It is not "pure" and it is not "calf lymph."

Calf lymph is the normal nutrient fluid which circulates in the lymphatic vessels of the calf. Lymph is described by physiologists as a "transparent, colourless, nutrient alkaline fluid which circulates in the lymphatic vessels and thoracic ducts of animal bodies." Lymph is a physiological product, while the so-called "pure calf lymph" used by vaccinators is a pathological product, derived from a lesion on a diseased calf. The difference between calf lymph and so-called "pure calf lymph" is as great as is the difference between a food and a poison. The vaccine mixture now most generally used by the medical profession is known under the name of "glycerinized vaccine lymph," but it is not lymph at all. It is made by utilising practically the entire lesion or pock on the heifer when it is in the vesicular stage. Such a lesion is broken open and scraped with a Volkmann spoon until the whole of the tissue is forcibly and roughly curetted away, consisting of pus, morbid serum, epithelium, fibrous tissue of the skin, and any foreign matter on or in it, constituting what is called "pulp." This pulp is then passed between glass rollers for trituration and afterwards mixed with a definite amount of glycerine and distilled water. This complex pathologic product of unknown origin is injected into the wholesome bodies of helpless children under the false but plausible name of "pure calf lymph." ...

I oppose the practice of vaccination because under whatever pretext performed the implantation of disease elements into the healthy human organism is irrational and injurious. It is subversive of the fundamental principles of sanitary science, while the attainment of health as a prophylactic measure is rational and in harmony with the ascertained laws of hygiene and consistent with the canons of common-sense. I am firmly convinced that the absurd and unreasonable dogma which assumes to conserve health by propagating disease should receive the open condemnation of every scientific sanitarian. That this health-blighting delusion conceived in the ignorance of a past generation should find lodgment in the minds of intelligent people enjoying the light of the world's highest civilisation is to my mind inexplicable....

Sanitation and isolation of the infected offer the only rational and effective antidote for these disorders. Away, then, with the abominable and filthy subterfuge! Give us health instead of disease. Health is the great prophylactic.

No man in perfect health can be truly said to be susceptible to the infection of small-pox, nor to that of any other zymotic disease. Vigorous health confers immunity from disease-producing agents as nothing else can. It is usually after the vital functions have become impaired by the effects of vaccination or some other injurious cause that individuals become susceptible to small-pox infection.

J.W. HODGE, M.D.

[The above article can be obtained in pamphlet form from the publisher. Wm. J. Furnival, Stone. Staffs.—EDS.]



THE NEW RACE.

(Specially written for THE HEALTHY LIFE.)

A new race on the ruins of the old Build we: a temple of the human form Fairer than marble, since with life-blood warm, Well crowned with its appointed crown of gold, Russet or ebony; lines clear and bold Beneath—a citadel no ills can storm, Buttressed with health; a type to be the norm In that great age the world shall yet behold.

For now the laws of Health and Heaven are seen In their identity, life's body and soul; Though, like divorce, disease may come between What God hath joined; but at the human goal, Where the New Race rules, splendid and serene, Sit Health and Holiness, made one and whole.

S. GERTRUDE FORD.



THE PLAY SPIRIT.

We all long for reality. Most of the amusements in the world are imitations of the reality for which we long. They promise a satisfaction they are unable to give. Drink, mechanical love-making, all snatched gratification of the senses, religious excitement, revivalist meetings, and so forth, most theatre-going and sports, all simulate the real glory of life. They bring an illusion of well-being. They produce a glow in the nervous system. They cause the outlines of everyday life as we know it to grow suffused. They give us a momentary sense of heightened power and freedom. We float easily in a happy world. A sort of relaxation has been achieved. The less common forms of amusement bring us nearer to the gateway of reality. For some, they have been the rivers leading to the ocean of truth itself.

Art, for instance, the interpretation of life in terms of beauty; the "artist," the man in whom sensuous perception is supreme, offers us a sublime aspect of reality. He dwells in the universe constructed for him by his senses and tells us of its glories. He achieves "freedom." The veil covering reality is woven for him far thinner than for common men. He sees life moving eternally behind the forms he separates and "creates." And to those of us who are akin to him, who are temperamentally artistic, he offers freedom of a kind. The contemplation of a work of art releases the tension of the nerves. To use the language of psychology it "arrests" us, suspends the functions of our everyday surface personality, abolishes for a moment time and space, allows the "free," generally suppressed subconscious self to come up and flood the surface intelligence, allows us for a moment to be ourselves. But, still, this momentary relaxation, this momentary "play," this holiday from the surface "I," remains an affair dependent upon suggestive symbols coming from "without." The supreme artist achieves freedom. We, who in matters of art are the imitative mass, can only have "change," a new heaven and earth, a fresh "culture."

Then there is love. That promises, at the outset, complete escape into freedom and reality. And supreme lovers, both of individuals and of "Humanity," have indeed found freedom and the pathway to reality in love. But ordinary everyday people rushing idolatrously out to find themselves in others find in the end only another I. The religions perhaps work best and longest. But even here average humanity, where the mystical sense is feeble, are thrown back in the end upon ethics—and go somewhat grimly through life doing their duty, living upon the husks of doctrine, the notions and reports of other men.

If the play spirit within us, that longing for the real joy of life, for real relaxation and re-creation, fares so poorly for most of us in the amusements large and small that life offers to our leisure moments, is it any better in the "games" the individual chooses for himself—hobbies, for instance? Can these generally "instructive" and "useful," generally also solitary, occupations be called play? Are they not merely a reversal of life's engine, rather than an unmaking and a remaking. They are merely a variant of life. They are very truly called a "change of occupation." They are led and dominated, commonly, by the intelligence. They contain no element of freedom. The same defect is found in all organised "games."

* * * * *

Real play, like every other reality, comes from what our mechanical and practical intelligences have called "within."

Real play arises when the "I" is in direct contact with the myself, with Life, with God, with the actuality moving beneath all symbolic representations.

It is only when "I," the practical, intelligent, abstract-making, idealising, generalising, clever, separated "I," the "I" which has a past, a present and a future, renounces its usurpation of the steering apparatus, that play can be. "I," to play or to pray or to love, must be born again. "I" must relinquish all. "I" must have neither experience nor knowledge, neither loves nor hates, neither "thought" nor "feeling" nor "will"—nor anything that can arrest the action of the inner life. When this complete relaxation, which has its physical as well as its mental aspect, is achieved, then and then only can "I" rise up and play. Then "I" shall rediscover all the plays in the world in their origin. "I" shall understand the war-dance of the "savage." "I" shall know something about the physical convulsions of primitive "conversion." The arts may begin to be open doors to me. "I" shall have stood "under," understood my universe, in the brief moment when "I" abandoned myself to the inner reality. The words of the great "teachers" will grow full of meaning. My own "experiences" will be re-read. I shall see more clearly with my surface intelligence what I must do. I shall be personal in everything, personal in my play. Surface self-consciousness which holds me back from all spontaneous activity will disappear in proportion as "I" am immersed in the greater "me."

Look at that woman walking primly down the lane to the sea with her bathing-dress. She is a worker on a holiday. But she cannot play. She goes down every day to bathe in the Cornish sea, the sea that on a calm sunny day is like liquid Venetian glass and flings at you, under the least breeze, long, green, foam-crested billows that carry you off our feet if you stand even waist-high. She potters in the shallows and splashes herself to avoid taking cold. Her intelligent "I" is uppermost. Her world of every day never leaves her. She will go back to it as she came, unchanged. Her wistful face betrays the seeker lost amidst unrealities. If the "I" were a little more intelligent, she might try to defy the surrounding ocean, to pit her powers against it, to swim. She would learn a most practical and useful and withal invigorating accomplishment. If her busy, watchful "I" could be arrested she might "see" the billows, the sky and the headlands reared on either side of her bay. She might dance into the water, and see her world dance back. She would fling herself amongst the wavelets where she stands and splashes. She might give herself up and know nothing but the beauty and strength around her. It would not teach her to swim, but she would have taken a step towards the great game of walking upon the waters.

D.M. RICHARDSON.



TRAVELS IN TWO COLOURS.

One is often tempted to suspect that in some schools there is a deep-laid plot to destroy in the bud any love for poetry which children may possess. Otherwise how is it that little boys and girls are made to commit to memory William Blake at his highest reach of mystical fire, as in Tiger, Tiger, burning bright, or William Wordsworth at his lowest ebb of uninspired simplicity, as in We are seven? These are very popular, apparently, as poems for children to recite; yet in the one case it is beyond any teacher's power to show children the unearthly flaming beauty which alone gives the poem its peculiar quality and undefinable power; and in the other the maudlin sentimentalism and almost priggish piety of the verses are positively dangerous to the child's health of mind. Both types of recitation work out in the end to this—that when the child attains adolescence, and the great world of literature dawns on the hungry mind, an evil association of ideas has been established—the association of poetry, the highest of all arts, either with the saying of lines without meaning, or with the learning of "poems" devoid of what wholesome youth really desires or enjoys.

People may wrangle all night as to whether the normal healthy child is at heart a mystic or a realist; whether he likes fairy tales because they show him a magical world where flowers can talk and umbrellas are turned into black geese, or because they tell of strange romantic things happening to a real human boy like himself; but there can be no shadow of doubt that much of the verse intended for children is either too clever in its humour to make them laugh, or too bald in its matter or tone to stir the romance that is never quite asleep in their hearts. There are really surprisingly few versifiers who have altogether avoided these errors. Some of George Macdonald's Poems for Children are almost perfect, both as regards lyrical form, simplicity of language and in the unobtrusiveness of the inner truth they convey. For example,

"The lightning and thunder They go and they come; But the stars and the stillness Are always at home."

But others come perilously near mere versified moralising. Lewis Carroll's nonsense verses in the two famous Alice books are supreme among their kind; but are they not sometimes just a shade too ingenious, or too adult in wit? Probably Stevenson, in those seemingly artless poems in A Child's Book of Verse, comes nearest to a level perfection. Who has ever approached him in his power to understand and express the small child's world, desires and delights, without a trace of the grown-up's condescension or self-consciousness?

Well, these great ones are no longer in the world; yet, with the recognition of their genius, there is the usual danger of bemoaning the lack of worthy successors. Not but what there is some excuse for such lamentation; for this reason that every Christmas there is a veritable flood of children's verse, a great deal of which is either painfully didactic, painfully sentimental, painfully funny or painfully foolish.

What I wish to do at the moment is to call attention to the fact that there is one man alive in England—one of many, I do not doubt: but one at a time!—who is doing "nonsense verses" for children which are guiltless of all the faults I have indicated above.

Jack Goring is known among some of his friends as "The Jolly Rhymster." He writes his verses first for his own children, and then publishes them from time to time for the pleasure of other children. The secret of his success is partly that he knows that even small children like a story to be an adventure; partly that he understands how their own romances, the things they picture or hum to themselves when well-meaning adults are not worrying them, or rather, trying to amuse them, begin—wherever they may end!—with a perfectly tangible object, such as a pillar-box, a rag-doll or a toy locomotive. One of "The Jolly Rhymster's" best things begins—

"Finger-post, finger-post, why do you stand Pointing all day with your silly flat hand?"

—which is exactly the sort of question that a very small child in all probability does really ask itself when it has seen a finger-post day after day at a cross-roads. How the poem continues and where it ends you must find out for yourself. It's all in a book called The Ballad of Lake Laloo.

In the recently published volume[15] that now lies before me, this telling of a tale of wonder which begins with an ordinary thing is again evident. Nip and Flip, aged six and four respectively, are the adventurers; and they make three voyages in this little book. In the first, The Fourpenny-Ha'penny Ship, they circumnavigate the world. Now please note how Mr Goring strikes the right note at the very outset:

"Nip and Flip Took a holiday trip On a beautiful fourpenny-ha'penny ship With a dear little handkerchief sail; And they sang, 'Yo ho! We shall certainly go To the end of the world and back, you know, And capture the great Seakale.'"

[15] Nip and Flip. By Jack Goring. Illustrated by Caterina Patricchio. 1s. net (postage 1+1/2d.). C.W. Daniel, Ltd., 3 Tudor Street, London, E.C.

And there follows a picture (in black and gold) of this strange monster, just to make sure that no one will suppose they were out after a vegetable.

The tale moves along, as such stories should, very rapidly. Thus—

"And when they came to the end of the world, Their dear little handkerchief sail they furled And put on the kettle for tea."

But you have only just time to look at the tea things when—

"But alas! and alack About six o'clock The good ship strack On the Almond Rock And split like a little split pea."

So the story goes on, through divers adventures,

"From Timbuctoo to Timbucthree"

and so at last home again.

The next voyage is to the land of Make-Believe on a Christmas Eve, "in a long, long train of thought." In the course of this tale we are given a little picture of Flip herself, and here it is for you to look at. Only, in the book her shoes and stockings, the inside of her skirt, and the squiggly things on the top of her head are a bright golden colour.



The third voyage is all the fault of a toy monkey—"six three-farthings and cheap at the price"—and takes them among whales, mermaids, sea-serpents and other deep-sea creatures.

Here, then, are delightful little pictures on every page, which even a two-year-old will enjoy. And here are verses which most boys and girls under seven or eight will like to learn. And the best of it is that it doesn't matter a bit if they do "sing-song" them, for they are the kind of verses which only sound right from the lips of quite small children who have never been taught elocution.

EDGAR J. SAXON



PICKLED PEPPERCORNS.

SOUP.—Oxtail from 10 A.M.—From a Restaurant Menu.

What it was in the early morning it would be indiscreet to inquire.

* * * * *

I learn that a serum for mumps is now being made at the Pasteur Institute. "A number of monkeys were inoculated with the serum," says The Times (30th July), "and a mild form of the disease was produced." It is an age of scientific progress, so we may expect news shortly of sera for toothache, hiccough, and the hump. It will not be necessary to inoculate camels for the last.

* * * * *

You will say—with Mr Arnold Bennett, the distinguished playwright and novelist—"the tonic effect of ********* on me is simply wonderful."—From an advt. in Punch.

You may join in the chorus if you like, but you mustn't all expect to be simply wonderful playwrights and testimonialists.

* * * * *

A STRANGE SHAMPOO.... "I make my chemist get the stallax for me," said she. "It comes only in sealed packages, enough to make up twenty-five or thirty individual shampoos, and it smells so good I could almost eat it."—Secrets of Beauty column in The Daily Sketch.

Which only shows how careful one has to be.

* * * * *

In the days to come every army will fight on bloodless food.—Herald of the Golden Age.

When every army fights on bloodless food, we may be just as far from the Golden Age as we are now.

* * * * *

I am told that an obscure practitioner who sent up an account of some interesting discoveries, addressed to

MEDICAL CONGRESS, DIETETICS SECTION, LONDON.

has had his communication returned by the Post Office, marked Not Known.

* * * * *

There is no truth, it is said, in the rumour that a secret meeting was held during the Congress to discuss the proposed raising of the rate of commission payable by surgeons to physicians.

PETER PIPER.



HEALTHY LIFE RECIPES.

SOME "EMPROTE" RECIPES.

Exaggeration is popularly regarded as one of the vices of food reformers; but it is certainly no exaggeration whatever to say that Mr Eustace Miles and the restaurant associated with his name have had a large share in bringing about the more sympathetic attitude towards "food reform" noticeable on all sides to-day.

Mr Miles is no amateur in the gentle art of self-advertisement: he would be the first to admit it. But the advertisements have resulted undoubtedly in a very large number of people taking the first steps towards food reform, people who are repelled by the out-and-out "vegetarian" propaganda.

There are those who view with disfavour the introduction of manufactured or artificial foods into the health movement; they think it hinders simplicity. There is a truth in this; but, on the other hand, it must be recognised that the great majority cannot be reached save by meeting them half-way. This applies to the flavours of foods, the digestibility of foods and the convenience of foods. Few can go straight from beef to nuts. After generations of abuse the human digestive system has to be humoured if the ideal is to be approached. And in this invaluable work of meeting people half-way and of humouring their tastes and digestions, the restaurant in Chandos Street, London, the specially prepared foods made and sold there and the strongly individual, thoroughly sane and pleasantly straightforward advocacy of Mr. Eustace Miles have been a very important factor.

The idea behind "Emprote"—the Eustace Miles Proteid Food—is that, being a blend, in powder form, of various kinds of proteid (the proteids of milk, of wheat, and so forth) it supplies the right kind of substitute for flesh foods not only because it is so easily assimilated, but because it is in a very convenient and easily kept form.

We believe such foods have a very definite and necessary part in the progress of the individual from the customary unhealthy diet to the better ways of feeding. The following recipes illustrate some of the methods of using "Emprote." They are taken from the booklet 45 Quick and Easy Recipes for Healthy, Meatless Meals, to be obtained for 2+1/2d. post free from 40 Chandos Street, London, W.C.—

SAVOURY CHEESE SANDWICHES.

NOTE.—These Savoury Sandwiches can form a complete meal with a little salad (dressed with oil and lemon juice), or celery or lettuce or watercress or other salad material.

3 oz. of cheddar cheese; 1 oz. of "Emprote"; the juice of half a lemon; two tablespoonfuls of fresh tomato pulp or tomato chutney; a pinch of celery salt.

Prepare some slices of not too new bread and butter. Mill the cheese, add to it the "Emprote" and the celery salt, then add the tomato pulp or chutney and the lemon juice. Mix all well together into a smooth stiff paste, and spread upon the slices, and form sandwiches, which may be eaten with watercress or lettuce or cucumber. If the material is too moist, mix in a little more "Emprote," or else "Procrums."

MACARONI CHEESE.

One teacupful of macaroni; two tablespoonfuls of milled cheese one tablespoonful of butter; one dessertspoonful of flour; one tablespoonful of "Emprote"; one large cupful of milk.

Boil the macaroni for half-an-hour in a little water. Strain the macaroni and put it in the bottom of a buttered dish. (Put the liquid in the stock-pot, to thicken a soup.) Mill the cheese, and put half of it over the macaroni. In the small saucepan make a sauce of the butter, flour, milk and "Emprote." Pour this over the macaroni and cheese, sprinkle the rest of the cheese on the top, put in the pan to brown, then serve.

STUFFED VEGETABLE MARROW.

Mince two large onions very fine, and fry in 1 oz. of butter; add 3 oz. of "Proto-Savoury," one dessertspoonful of Nutril, 1 oz. of breadcrumbs (or "Procrums"), and one egg. Scoop the seeds from one large vegetable marrow, fill with the mixture, and bake for one hour. Serve with Apple Sauce.

NOTE.—"Proto-Savoury," "Nutril," and "Procrums" are special "E.M." products and are readily obtainable from health Food Stores, etc.

A NOURISHING GRAVY READY IN A MINUTE.

When cutlets or croquettes are heated up, or when macaroni or vegetables or a vegetable stew (none of which are really adequate substitutes for meat) are to be made nourishing, mix some of the E.M. Savoury (or Mulligatawny, or Blended) Gravy Powder, with hot water, to the thickness of gravy, and add to the dish.

* * * * *

NEW METHOD OF PREPARING FRUIT FOR THE DINNER-TABLE.

In cold weather fruit is often cold, and if heated in an oven may be injured partially or wholly. Here is, perhaps, a new way of warming fruit which has been tried and proves satisfactory. Wash the apples, pears, oranges, bananas and wipe them and place on a dish on the dinner-table. Also place a jug of boiling water and a bowl upon the table. Then when the fruit is required pour the hot water into the bowl and place the fruit in it and cover with a plate until warm enough to eat comfortably. Bananas should be peeled before placing in hot water.

"A.R."



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.]

ECZEMA AS A SIGN OF RETURNING HEALTH.

Mrs M.K. writes:—Until the last few years I have been subject to sciatica and a certain amount of dry eczema. About a year ago my health greatly improved, with the exception of the eczema, which has much increased the last year, coming out in large angry spots which irritate. I am 69, small, spare and white, have never been strong until a year ago, have led a sedentary life, being an artist. Three years ago I left off eating meat. My diet at present is:

On rising.—Cup of hot rain-water.

Breakfast (8 A.M.)—Unfired Bread with butter and pine nuts; cup of weak tea, no sugar.

At 11.—One raw apple.

Dinner (1 P.M.)—One lightly boiled egg or an omelette, with "Artox" home-made bread, and butter conservatively cooked celery or broccoli; stiff milk pudding with eggs in it, or "Artox" pastry.

Tea (5 P.M.).—Weak China tea "Artox" bread, and butter, and home-made plain cake.

Supper (8.30).—Slice of bread and butter; tumblerful of hot rain-water sipped at bedtime.

I have not been able to digest uncooked vegetables, excepting lettuce; nor do I eat other fruit than apples; any sweet things cause acidity. I do not suffer with constipation.

In this case it will be noted that the skin disease occurred simultaneously with a marked improvement in health. This shows that Nature was adopting her usual plan of forcing the impurities outwards to the surface and that the change of diet made this possible. With her body less encumbered with waste a return of health became possible.

The plan now to adopt is not to check this skin trouble but to cure it along safe lines by amending the diet and purifying the skin itself by means of warm alkaline baths.

These baths, which should be taken twice a week at first, are made by adding a 1/4lb. of bicarbonate of soda and a 1/4lb. of "Robin" starch to an ordinary hot bath at a temperature of 105 degrees, which can be gradually increased to 110 degrees as the correspondent can bear it. In this the bather stays for from ten to twenty minutes to well soak out the acids and the oily greasy waste from the surface. The starch is added because it moderates the action of the alkali and leaves a comfortable gloss on the skin after the bath is finished. The bath gradually clears the poisons from the skin and encourages the free action of perspiration, thus promoting the further elimination of waste acid poisons and at the same time clearing the skin and making it healthy.

The next thing to do is to amend the diet so that as little waste as possible shall be formed. Rice is the cereal that contains the least amount of waste of any kind and this should therefore be the cereal selected. The wholemeal, although good for most people, is not suited to this case. A strict salt-free diet is also necessary, as it is often the retention of salt in the system that leads to the presence of eczema. The following amended diet should suit the case, and it should be continued until the skin has quite cleared itself:—

On rising.—Cup of filtered boiled rain-water.

Breakfast.—Cottage cheese, 2 oz.; rice, boiled or steamed without salt (large plateful), with Granose biscuits or toasted "Maltweat" bread.

At 11 A.M.—More rain-water (not fruit).

Lunch.—The same as breakfast.

Tea.—Hot rain-water only.

Supper, 6.30.—The same as breakfast.

When the skin is quite clear the correspondent can return to the wholemeal bread (but biscuits made with "Artox" would be better than the yeastless bread), and also to a more varied diet generally, as at present.

DEAFNESS.

J.G. writes:—My hearing got bad about twenty years ago, caused I think by a cold in the head. When in bed I can hear the tick of a watch with the left ear but the other is almost stone deaf. I am not much at a loss in ordinary conversation, but in trying to hear people speak I lose much of what is said. Although I have no real pain, my head is rarely clear, feeling full and congested. I have now and again a slight sensation of giddiness or reeling. The right ear runs some offensive matter, and there is always a hissing sound. I live what is, I think, a simple life, but I must confess to a little smoking. My general health is good. I am a working farmer and fairly active for one of my age (69). My diet is generally as follows:

On rising.—One or two cups of warm water, sometimes with lemon juice.

Breakfast.—An apple or orange, oatcake and dairy butter. Baker's bread and one cup of tea.

Lunch.—Nil, or perhaps I should say that I eat an apple or orange before each meal or a bit of turnip or even cabbage.

Supper.—Potatoes with fish, and milk pudding. On some days it may be broth with meat cooked in it.

Before retiring.—Nothing but water, or at other times oatcake and one cup of milk.

There does not seem to be much prospect of this correspondent recovering the hearing of his right ear, as the conditions have lasted so long. He might, however, certainly try by diet and hygiene to get rid of the unpleasant discharge and the noises. To effect this he should carefully syringe the ear once or twice a day with a weak solution (1 grain to the ounce) of permanganate of potash, using an all-rubber ear-syringe.

Then he should get someone to well stretch the upper bones of the spine and to massage well the muscles at the back of the neck to induce, thereby, a better circulation in the nerves and blood-vessels which proceed from that part of the spine into the ears. In this way he will be able to ensure a removal of the clogging poisons which are lurking in the bad ear and thus promote less noises and a better health state of the ears generally. The diet should be amended as follows:—

On rising.—One or two cups of warm water, with lemon juice added.

At 8. Breakfast.—Apples, oranges or other fruit only. Take plenty of fruit at this meal and eat it at no other time.

At 12. Lunch.—One boiled egg or some cream cheese: Oatcakes and butter or good wholemeal biscuits ("P.R." or "Ixion" kinds) and butter, and a plateful of finely grated raw roots (carrots, turnip, etc.).

Tea meal.—One cupful of Hygiama, using water in place of milk.

Dinner.—Cheddar cheese or cottage cheese (the latter is best); potatoes and a green vegetable, cooked by baking or steaming, without salt. No broth or meat. (Meat and especially meat broths are very undesirable in this case.)

Before retiring.—Hot water only.

ANOTHER CASE OF DEAFNESS.

J.A.B. writes:—I have been a reader of The Healthy Life for the last six months, and am suffering from a complaint since I was three years old. When three years old I was attacked by scarlet fever and on getting better I had a discharge from my right ear. This continued for several years, then it would disappear and reappear at short intervals of say a few weeks. This last few years the discharge has disappeared for six months, only to reappear again for a week with severe pains in back over right shoulder and right side of neck. I always feel weak and tired when discharge reappears and sometimes experience pains in the head and cannot remember anything for a few minutes.

This correspondent needs a suitable diet in order to purify his blood stream and to promote elimination of bodily poisons which are evidently affecting his ears. He also needs suitable massage and stretching movements applied to the upper part of the spine, which is functioning badly. Then he can supplement this by taking Turkish baths or wet sheet packs to promote a free action of the skin and thus clear away poisonous waste from the system. The same diet as recommended to the previous correspondent should be tried.

CONCERNING COTTAGE CHEESE.

Mrs C.E.J. writes:—I have been making cottage cheese curdling the milk with lemon juice, as recommended in The Healthy Life. Suppose the milk contains disease germs, would not this cheese be injurious, as the milk is not sterilised by being brought to boiling point? I have also been drinking the whey from the same, as it as given in The Healthy Life Beverage Book. I notice in a reply given in this month's issue that Dr Knaggs states that the whey of the milk is the dangerous element. Since reading this answer I have been somewhat in doubt as to drinking the whey. I should like to know if it can be taken without harmful effects.

Ordinary unboiled milk, free from preservatives, is far less dangerous to health than boiled milk, because Nature inserts in the raw milk certain germs known as the lactic-acid-producing bacilli, which protect us from the injurious germs. These lactic germs cause the milk to go sour and produce in this way the much-extolled soured or curdled milk. They convert the sugar of the whey into lactic acid by a process of fermentation. If milk is boiled it cannot go sour because the germs natural to it have been destroyed by the heat and it becomes necessary to introduce fresh lactic germs into the boiled milk as is done in the artificial production of curdled milk. Failing this, milk will undergo, not lactic fermentation, but putrefaction, and thereby develop highly dangerous qualities.

When a person takes soured milk its lactic acid acts as a powerful germ destroyer and in a certain concentration it actually kills the lactic germs as well. It also keeps down the disease-producing germs of putrefaction which work in an alkaline medium (opposite to acid) by depriving them of the sugar of the whey.

Boiled milk, if set on one side, in warm weather, speedily becomes alkaline and putrid or putrefactive. It is in this condition that, when babies take it, they are made dreadfully ill with diarrhoea and inflammation of the stomach and bowels. Hence it is the chief cause of the appalling mortality among infants in hot weather.

Mrs F.K.J. need have no fear of any harm coming to her as a result of eating cottage cheese, but she should not take the whey unless she has decided to undergo a whey cure and take nothing but whey; in this latter case, there being no other foods taken, there will be no germs to act harmfully upon it. If there is much flatulence and stomach or bowel trouble sweet milk or whey will simply feed the germs which are the cause of the digestive trouble, or self-poisoning, and are thus far better discarded.

DIET FOR OBSTINATE COUGH.

Miss N.S. writes:—For the last three weeks I have been troubled with a very bad cough It started in the first place with a cold in the head and then it got on my chest, and do what will I cannot get rid of it. I have been having honey and lemon juice, and also each morning have taken olive oil and lemon juice beaten up together, but without (apparently) any effect. I have bad coughing fits in the night and the next morning I do not feel up to much.

I may say that I have not taken meat for about six years, and I try to follow the kind of diet advocated in The Healthy Life.

I am 23 years of age and a typist in an office, which is about 4 miles from my home. I try to get out in the fresh air as much as possible to counteract any bad effects which may arise from my work. My people at home are very much opposed to my food reform sympathies and efforts.

This correspondent should consult a sensible doctor about this cough and thus be on the safe side. It is unwise to allow a cough to become chronic without ascertaining the cause of it. Coughs are often due to stomach and liver trouble, as distinguished from lung trouble. In either case a salt-free diet will greatly help. Thus

Breakfast.—All fresh fruit, nothing else but fruit. Apples best. (Not stewed fruit).

Lunch.—Boiled or steamed rice, done without salt; about 2 oz. cottage cheese or a poached egg; a little raw carrot, turnip or artichoke, finely grated, with dressing of fruit-oil beaten up with a raw egg. The grated roots must be well chewed; as a change they may be cut up and cooked in a casserole with very little water.

Dinner.—Potato baked in skin, with fresh butter, a little cheese, or flaked nuts, and a few plain rusks, or a saucer of P.R. Breakfast Food, dry, with cream. The honey and lemon juice should be disgarded in favour of liquorice (little bits being sucked at intervals) or of linseed tea. I have often found an obstinate cough yield to a diet which contains lactic acid buttermilk, combined with the use of the new oxygen baths. The lactic acid buttermilk can be obtained from any good dairy and should be taken in the morning fasting and at bedtime.

WATER GRAPES.

W.G.B. writes:—Referring to article in January number entitled "Grape juice for all," I think perhaps it would interest others besides myself if Dr Knaggs would give us his opinion on the value of what are commonly termed "Water Grapes," as compared with more expensive kinds.

On the Continent the grape cure is a popular method of treatment. It is especially good for those who are anaemic and underfed as well as for those who suffer in the opposite way from over-feeding. It depends upon which condition is present as to the kind of grapes selected for the cure.

Fully ripe grapes with but little acidity (water grapes) are best suited for persons suffering from anaemia and malnutrition. The unripe or sour grapes answer best for cases of over-eating associated with constipation, gout and allied disorders of nutrition. The excess of acid and cellulose helps the bowels and promotes elimination of the gouty poisons.

Our correspondent will note that for thin people who are pale and deficient in vitality the water grapes will be found most salutary. They are best taken alone at breakfast without the addition of any other form of food.

CEREAL FOOD IN THE TREATMENT OF NEURITIS.

E.J.H. writes:—A friend of mine who is suffering from an attack of neuritis (not badly) is desirous of trying the diet of twice-baked standard bread as recommended by Dr Knaggs in an answer to a query in The Healthy Life some months since. She has asked me if Dr Knaggs would limit the quantity of this bread taken in the course of the day. If Dr Knaggs will very kindly tell me this I shall be greatly obliged.

Neuritis is a form of rheumatism or gout which involves the nerves. Its usual starting centre is the spine itself, from which all the nerves of the body spring. The diet needs to be greatly restricted so that the poisons can be eliminated. The most important foods to cut down are the cereals because they are very slow to digest and are apt to cause constipation with its attendant self-poisoning of the system with uric and other acids. Horses and animals suffer from neuritis from over-feeding with cereals and beans, and the stockbreeder or horse expert usually restricts these foods and gives plenty of grass, hay, chaff and green clover, which corrects the trouble.

The same thing applies equally to man. He should take his cereals in the form they are the most easily assimilated—namely, twice-baked or dextrinised. Thus "pulled" or twice-baked bread, Granose or Melarvi biscuits, or rusks, or toasted "Maltweat" bread are the best form of cereal for people suffering from neuritis. Other treatment besides diet restriction is, of course, needed to cure neuritis, because we have to clear the clogged tissues of the poisons which are interfering with right nerve action. Thus we can resort hot alkaline baths, Turkish baths, massage and Osteopathic stretching movements to help in this respect.

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.

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



THE

HEALTHY

LIFE

The Independent Health Magazine.

3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.

VOL. V DECEMBER No. 29. 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.

There are some statements, the very simplicity and truth of which create a shock—for some people. For instance, there are certain seekers after health who ignore and are shocked by the very obvious truth that "brain is flesh." A brain poisoned by impure blood is no fit instrument for the spirit to manifest through, and "mental suggestion" must inevitably prove of no avail as a cure if the origin of the impure blood be purely material.

It is just as futile, on the other hand, to treat the chronic indigestion that arises from persistent worry, or indulgence in passion, by one change after another in the dietary. The founder of homoeopathy insisted that there was no such thing as a physical "symptom" without corresponding mental and moral symptoms. "Not soul helps flesh more than flesh helps soul." Thus the Scientist and the Poet come to the same truth, albeit by different ways.—[EDS.]



PLAIN WORDS AND COLOURED PICTURES.

While most of us would at first sight find fault with Mr G.K. Chesterton's sweeping advice—

"And don't believe in anything That can't be told in coloured pictures,"

many would probably end by endorsing it. But we should do so only because we were able to give a very wide and varied meaning to "coloured pictures."

No one ever made a coloured picture of the "wild west wind"; but there are plenty of coloured pictures in which there is no mistaking its presence. We all believe in wireless telegraphy (now that it is an accomplished fact) which is, in itself, untranslatable into colour or line; but its mechanism can be photographed, and its results in the world of men and ships are in all the illustrated papers. Music, which is pure sound, is to some the surest path to the Reality behind this outward show things; yet to some at least of such music is indeed form and colour, even though the colours be beyond the rainbow. For in truth, everything worth believing in, all those things, those ideas, which renew the springs of our life, have form and they have colour. Even to the colour-blind one word differeth from another in glory.

This is no idle fancy, no mere subject for academic debate: it is the most practical subject in the world. For even as the body is fed not by food alone but by the living air, so is the spirit nourished not alone by right action but by inspiring ideas. Ideas are pictures; and the best ideas are coloured pictures.

Hence the great value of words. It is idle to speak of "words, idle words," as though they were the transient froth on the permanent ocean of thought. They are the vehicle, the body of thought. If the thought be shallow or silly, the words will indeed be "idle." But if the idea be inspiring the words will be the channel of that inspiration.

The greater part of this power in words is lost to us to-day. Everything tempts us to hurry over words. We talk too quickly to be able to pay that respect to words which they deserve; and we read the newspaper, the magazine, the novel, the play, the poem, with the same disastrous haste. We devour the words but lose their essence. Hence there is a grave danger that through this neglect we shut out one of the main streams by which our life must be fed if it is not to shrink into mere fretful existence.

There is a curious idea in some minds that fine language consists of long words difficult to understand. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Most of the great words—the words of power, as the old Kabalists called them—are short words, words in common use. And how common is the sound of them in the mouth of the preacher! Not long ago I heard an intelligent and cultured man reading one of the many beautiful passages from the English Bible:—

"Ye dragons, and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and vapour; Stormy wind fulfilling his word; Mountains and all hills; Fruitful trees and all cedars, ..."

and he read it as though it were a draper's sale bill. And yet it needs but a very little imagination for such a passage to become a series of vivid pictures. Fire, hail, snow, vapour, hills, mountains, cedars, dragons and deeps—every word is "a word of power" if only there is no hurry, if only each word as it comes is given time to call up the picture of the real thing before the inward eye.

And you may hear children of fourteen and fifteen who have passed examinations in "English" recite line after line of, say, Matthew Arnold's The Forsaken Merman with a glib self-assured colourlessness due solely to the fact that no teacher has ever taught them respect for simple words. And what simpler words could there be than these, for example—

"Where great whales come sailing by, Sail and sail, with unshut eye, Round the world, for ever and aye"?

Simple, common words; yet if there is that leisurely attention to each one as it comes what an exhilarating picture arises of the great sea-beasts, and of "the round ocean and the living air."

I am not pleading for the stylist's concentration on words which exalts them above the things they body forth. The most vivid and beautiful description of dawn in the English language—

"Night's candles are burned out, and jocund morn Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops"

though spoken by the most sensitively vibrant voice in the world, can never come near the real dawn breaking across real mountains. But the point is that those two lines composed of simple English words have power, if we pay them respect, to create the dawn within the mind, and to supply the spirit with that beauty which is its very breath.