Chapter IV: The Five-Foot Sausage (2)

HEALTHY LIFE RECIPES.

SALADS AND SALAD DRESSINGS.

For salads it is not necessary to depend entirely upon the usual salad vegetables such as lettuce, watercress, mustard and cress.

The very finely shredded hearts of raw brussel sprouts are excellent, and even the heart of a savoy cabbage. Then the finely chopped inside sticks of a tender head of celery are very good; also young spinach leaves, dandelion leaves, endive, sorrel and young nasturtium leaves.

Then there are the onion family (for those who can take them), the tender kinds, such as spring onion, chive and shallot being very good when chopped finely and used as a minor ingredient in any salad.

The root vegetables should also be added in their season, raw carrot, turnip, beet, artichoke and leek, all finely grated.

A taste for all the above-mentioned vegetables, eaten raw, is not acquired all at once. It is best to begin by making the salad of the ingredients usually preferred and mixing in a small quantity of one or two of the new ingredients.

For those who find salads very difficult to digest, it is best to begin with French or cabbage lettuce and skinned tomatoes only, or, as an alternative, a saucerful of watercress chopped very finely, as one chops parsley.

Any salad, however made up, should be served in as dainty and pleasing a fashion as possible. It is, perhaps, usually best to serve it ready chopped and shredded, and to allow each person at the table to take his or her own helping of "dressing."

English people seldom serve salad in the French fashion--that is, quite dry, save that the dressing is well mixed in an hour before the meal. Readers who have been to France may have seen French peasant women whirling a wire salad-basket round their heads in order to dry the materials after the cleansing has been done. When dry, the green-stuff is torn with the hands, the dressing (and the French know all about salad dressings) is added and the whole allowed to stand some little time, so that by the time the meal is served there is a complete blending of all flavours.

Not everyone likes this method; but it is certainly better than the customary method here, which too often leaves a little puddle of water at the bottom of the bowl.

There are many ways of preparing good salad dressing without resort to vinegar, salt and pepper. The two prime necessities are (1) really good oil and (2) some kind of fresh fruit juice. Most people prefer lemon juice or the juice of fresh West Indian limes, well mixed into either olive oil, nut oil or a blended oil such as the "Protoid Fruit Oil" or Mapleton's Salad Oil. The ordinary "salad oils" obtainable at grocers are seldom to be recommended; they almost invariably contain chemical preservatives and other adulterants. It is better to have the best oil and use it sparingly if need be, than take any faked product just because it is cheap.

With most people the addition of pure oil assists the digestion of the salad, as well as serving other purposes in the body.

Many excellent salad recipes and suggestions for novel yet simple "dressings" will be found in _Unfired Food in Practice_, by Stanley Gibbon.[2]

[2] 1s. net; 1s. 1+1/2d. post paid, from the office of _The Healthy Life_, 3 Amen Corner, London, E.C.

PICKLED PEPPERCORNS.

_This, which is a regular feature of THE HEALTHY LIFE, is not intended as a household guide or home-notes column, but rather as an inconsequent commentary on current thought._--[EDS.]

An interesting booklet by Raymond Blathwayt with samples of Bath
Mustard will be sent free on application to J. & J. Colman, Ltd.
(Dept. 49) Norwich.--Advt. in _Punch_.

Rumours are also afloat that G.K. Chesterton has written a brilliant booklet on Eiffel Tower Lemonade, and that the Attorney General has been commissioned to write a highly interesting brochure on American macaroni.

* * * * *

"I enclose you a photo of my baby, Willie, aged fifteen months.
He was given up by two doctors, and then I consulted another, who
advised me to try ----'s Food, which I did, and he is still
having it. You can see what a fine healthy boy he is now, and his
flesh is as hard as iron."--From an advt. in _Lady's Companion_.

Evidently a case of advanced arterio-sclerosis.

* * * * *

HEALTH BISCUITS. Nice and Tasty, handled by our 55 salesmen
daily.--Advt. in _Montreal Daily Star_.

One reason, perhaps, why both the public and the sales have declined.

* * * * *

WHAT WOULD YOU GIVE FOR A PERFECT SKIN?
Is 3d. too much?
Many perfect skins to-day are traced to a single sample.
--Advt. in _Lady's Companion_.

The price is reasonable; but I think I would rather see a sample first, wouldn't you?

* * * * *

OUR SPECIAL FILLING FAST--Headline in _Daily News_.

The correct antidote for the well-known "starvation of over-repletion."

* * * * *

Cold Anniversary Raised Pie and New Potato Salad.--From the
_Seventh Anniversary Menu of The Eustace Miles Restaurant_.

I am told that one old gentleman, misled by the chef's quite innocent use of adjectives, protested to a waitress that the day was really very warm; also that a youthful wag obliterated the initial C from his menu with a pen-knife and then inquired which was the better vintage, '06 or '09.

* * * * *

But to contend that there is no difference between a good yellow
man and a good white man is like saying that a vegetarian chop of
minced peas is like a chop of the chump variety.--_New Witness_.

Chop-chop--as the good yellow man might be tempted to say if he came upon this specimen of white wisdom.

* * * * *

Canvassers can make a very good profit by selling a patent
ladies' folding handbag, also wristlet watches.--Advt. in _Daily
Mail_.

Nevertheless, the only place for a patent lady is a registry office.

* * * * *

CAKEOMA PUDDING? You cannot know how delicious they are until you
have tasted them.--Advt. in _Lady's Companion_.

One of the things that would never have occurred to you if you hadn't seen it expressed so clearly.

* * * * *

SAXON.--How cruel of you. Although I have not the honour of cap
and gown, I do possess a Classical Dictionary. If I can help
further, write again. Regarding the recipe, it depends upon its
nature. Perhaps VERA is the lady to whom you should address your
question--_Lady's Companion_.

My colleague, Mr Edgar J. Saxon, denies all knowledge of this affair. But I do wish he would be a little more careful in future.

PETER PIPER.

HEALTH QUERIES.

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

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

CAN MALARIA BE PREVENTED?

A. de L. (Lisbon) writes:--For five months I have been a strict
"fruitarian," and as I am obliged now to go to Mozambique
(Portuguese East Africa) to remain there five rears, I should be
much obliged to you if you kindly let me know what I must do to
prevent the African fever and biliousness which seem to afflict
all Europeans in that part of the world. Any hints you could give
me as to maintaining health in such a climate would be most
gratefully acknowledged.

I do not think that it is possible for any European, whether he adopts fruitarian or ordinary diet, to entirely escape malaria, since it is caused by a minute parasite which is forced into the blood by a certain form of biting mosquito.

The parasite will, however, surely gain less hold on one whose blood is clean and pure and whose vital force is strong, than on one who dissipates his strength by partaking of meat, alcohol, tea, coffee and other stimulants, or who otherwise gets his blood into a bad state by faulty diet generally.

Therefore, the thing this correspondent should do is to live as much as possible upon the simple frugal fare of the natives. He can take raw coker-nut freely and eat the fresh fruits which grow in this part of Africa. If he can obtain pineapple or papaw he will find these excellent to help him to retain his health and strength in this country.

UNFIRED DIET FOR A CHILD: IS IT SUITABLE?

Mrs L.B.F. writes:--My husband and I are much interested in _The
Healthy Life_, deriving much benefit and good advice from its
pages. It is the only magazine, we find, which answers questions
that we have long been puzzling over. Reading a work of the
"Montessori Method" of training children last night I was
disturbed to find I had, according to that book, been feeding my
little boy, aged three years, all wrong. It says: "Raw vegetables
should not be given to a child and not many cooked ones. Nuts,
dates, figs and all dried fruits should be withheld. Soups made
with bread, oil, bread and butter, milk, eggs, etc., are the
principal foods Dr Montessori recommends. She also advocates the
use of sugar."

Our boy has nuts, ground and whole, all the fresh fruits and
dried ones, salads, brown bread and nut butter, sometimes dairy
butter, no milk, his food mostly uncooked, as we ourselves
believe in. If Dr Valentine Knaggs would give us his opinion on
this I should be very grateful. The boy is healthy, but I notice
a slight puffiness below the eyes of late in the morning. Also
his temper does not improve as he gets older. Will he be having
too much proteid (nuts) for one of his years, or is the temper
natural as a result of bad discipline. His father is away all
day, and mothers are, as a rule, soft marks, are they not?

It is difficult to answer fully a question of this sort, as so much depends on the child's temperament and environment. A frail, delicate child with the promise of high mental development requires a finer and softer grade of nutriment than one of a coarse animal nature with strong, well-developed digestive organs.

All healthy children, especially boys (as Mr Saxon will attest!), are full of mischief and restlessness, which it is the duty of a mother or a nurse to divert into right channels.[3] The display of temper is probably an indication of this not being done, though it _may_ be due in part to the raw diet not suiting the child.

[3] This correspondent, and all mothers of difficult children, should study the works of Mary Everest Boole, published by C.W. Daniel, Ltd.; also _The Children All Day Long_, by E.M. Cobham.--[EDS.]

The advice I would give would be to alter the diet and make it lighter.

From my point of view, Dr Montessori has not given sufficient attention to the other side of the diet question, preferring to remain more on the side of orthodoxy. Moreover, her own work has been done in Italy, where a climate prevails which does not call for so free a use of vegetables and salads as is the case in our own cooler and bleaker clime.

I suggest, as a beginning, the following diet might be tried, but it is necessarily impossible to guarantee good results unless the cause of the puffy eyes and temper have been definitely located by personal examination:--

_On rising._--A raw ripe apple, finely grated, or simply scraped out with a silver spoon.

_Breakfast at 8._--A scrambled egg on a Granose biscuit with a little finely chopped salad or finely grated; raw roots appetisingly served with a dressing of oil, lemon juice and a little honey. This to be followed by an "Ixion" or "P.R." biscuit, with fresh butter.

_Dinner at 2._--Home-made cottage cheese, or cream cheese, or a nut meat (served cold out of the tin, or, better still, home-made). Two casserole-cooked vegetables, done with a little fruit juice and lemon to retain colour. This to be followed by a baked apple with cream and a little home-made, unfired pudding made of dried fruits.

_Supper at 5._--A slice of "Maltweat" bread, and butter, and a cupful of clear vegetable soup, or some hot water with some lemon juice added, and slightly sweetened with a little honey.

GIDDINESS AND HEAD TROUBLE.

Mrs L.B.F. also writes:--I sometimes think I must make dietetic
mistakes. My husband thinks I am perfectly healthy, so I do not
say anything of the giddiness in the morning and after eating, a
drowsiness and slight pain at the back of the head and underneath
one of my ears. Also under my eyes is on some mornings quite
swollen and puffed up. It is not so marked, but I am quite
conscious of it. Our diet consists mostly of a salad, with bread
or baked potato and cheese or ground nuts or cooked brussels
sprouts and a nut meat pie, apple pie and cream, with brown bread
and butter, or a raw fruit meal, nuts, apples, grapes, figs,
dates and no bread.

Two meals a day, first in the morning at eight o'clock, second at
two or three in the afternoon. A glass of hot water with lemon at
nine P.M., and the same in the morning. I do some exercises night
and morning and am out in the fresh air often through the day. We
live in the country and I have every chance of keeping myself
healthy. Perhaps I should say I do not eat many nuts, finding
them rather difficult to digest. Should I use an enema when I
feel like this, or wait for natural results?

The symptoms of which L.B.F. complains are in all probability due to flatulence and to general disturbances of the digestive process.

Perhaps it would be a good plan to make the diet lighter. The nuts could be omitted and cheese or eggs substituted. An evening meal would be helpful.

As to the bowels, some senna and camomile tea at bedtime would help to clear them. Unless there is distinct evidence of faecal retention in the colon it is better not to use the enema as a regular thing.

_On rising._--A tumblerful of Sanum Tonic Tea made with hot, preferably distilled, water.

_Breakfast._--An all-fruit meal consisting of nothing but apples, bananas, grapes, or orange, or any fresh ripe fruit that is in season.

_Dinner at 12.30._--A cooked meal consisting of two casserole-cooked vegetables, with grated cheese as a sauce dressing, with some twice-baked or well toasted bakers' bread, followed by a baked apple and cream. (Omit nut meat pie and apple pie.)

_Tea meal at 5._--2 oz. of cottage cheese or cream cheese, wholemeal bread and butter, small plateful of finely grated raw roots with an appetising dressing containing some "Protoid Fruit-Oil."

_Bedtime._--Tumblerful of hot water (preferably distilled) to which senna leaves and German camomile flowers (very little) have been steeped to infuse; or a cupful of dandelion coffee could be taken if the bowels are regularly acting.

LONG-STANDING GASTRIC TROUBLE.

W.T. writes:--Having tried a diet, recommended in _The Healthy
Life_, for a month I find the nuts and cheese are far too heavy
for the apparent weak condition of my stomach, also that the
salads and casserole-baked vegetables are too irritating to the
membrane of the stomach. I have no desire to return to flesh food
and ordinary feeding, which I feel would not be good for me. From
eggs I cannot obtain any good results. The continuance of loss of
weight is worrying me, being down to eight stone from eleven
stone in twelve months. I feel satisfied it is only a question of
diet, if I could only strike the correct one. I am naturally most
anxious to regain some of my lost strength and weight. I am at
present taking bread and butter, cooked fruit, and occasionally
an egg, boiled rice, vegetables and a little dried fruit. No
matter how light I make my diet I still suffer after every meal
with dilated stomach and irregular working of the heart. Blood
circulation is still bad and constipation is gradually getting
worse. As before stated, I am anxious to succeed with the
reformed diet, but I am really at a loss to know which way to
proceed to make any progress. As I was in South Africa twenty
years, and only returned to England just before this catarrh set
in, is the climate here against my progress, do you think? I am
so sorry to take up so much of your time, but shall be grateful
for any help you can give me which will be greatly appreciated.

It is difficult to advise how best to proceed in this case as our correspondent really ought to seek medical advice. Only in this way can he obtain really satisfactory guidance. For without knowing the state of his blood and the organs generally it is impossible to advise correctly. Speaking generally, until salads and casserole-cooked vegetables can be taken freely there can be no possible permanent cure.

In many such cases the best way to train the digestive organs into a healthy state is to keep to a diet consisting chiefly of dextrinised cereals, which must be eaten dry, with some vegetables and as little fresh fruit as possible. This to be continued until little by little the raw salad vegetables are found to agree; then the rest is easy.

A diet on the following lines would probably be a good temporary measure:--

_Breakfast._--One egg lightly boiled, poached or baked, with two Granose biscuits and fresh butter, eaten dry.

_Dinner._--Brusson Jeune bread (one or two rolls) with butter, and small helping of vegetables, cooked at _first_ in the orthodox way.

_Supper._--Plateful of boiled rice (cooked dry in the Indian fashion[4]) with a tablespoonful of good malt extract.

No sugar, honey, stewed fruit, or dried fruit should be taken until improvement has set in. As little fluid as possible should be taken until the stomach has regained more tone and become more normal in size.

[4] See _The Healthy Life Cook Book_. 1s. net (post free, 1s. 1+1/2d.).

SEVERE DIGESTIVE CATARRH.

Miss S.L.P. writes:--I should like a little help as to diet. I
have just had an attack of epidemic influenza with throat
trouble, so that I feel very much run down and unfit for a diet
too depleting in character. For over four years I have adopted a
non-flesh diet on account of a tendency to chronic catarrh of the
whole alimentary tract, due to rheumatic tendencies which affect
me internally rather than externally. The continuous damp weather
has produced much gastric irritation, and frequent acidity.

I cannot discover a diet that is convenient and at the same time
sufficiently nourishing. I lose flesh on what I take, and I have
none to spare, though at one time I was inclined to be stout. My
age is forty-eight.

I take three meals a day. A light breakfast either of "Maltweat"
bread or "P.R." Cracker biscuits and butter, with tomato or fresh
fruit or occasionally an egg. For midday meal an egg or milled
cheese, or nuts or cream cheese, with a baked potato and a
conservatively cooked vegetable. Occasionally I have a little
salad and grated carrot, but unless I am better than usual I
cannot digest these. The evening meal consists of "Maltweat"
bread or "P.R." Cracker biscuits or Granose flakes, with cream
cheese. As a child I suffered constantly from colds in the head,
but now my troubles are oftener internal.

The action of the bowels is irregular. I depend chiefly upon an
enema of warm water when constipation is present.

I never drink tea, only hot water, or Emprote and water, or
occasionally vegetable juices or fruit juices. I find I am better
without much fluid.

So far as it is possible to judge from this letter, this correspondent is suffering not only from stomach and bowel catarrh, but her condition as a whole is unsatisfactory. The vital force is depleted and the nervous system is not doing efficient work.

She needs suitable treatment to remove the acid and toxins with which the system is evidently clogged. This is not an easy task, for as soon as elimination begins trouble arises in the form of influenza or other similar derangements. These are probably little else but attempts on the part of nature to rouse the vital force of the body into action with a view to clearing out the clogging poisons.

Waste clearing should be done gradually. The skin should be made to act better by means of home Turkish baths, or by wet-sheet packs. Then mustard poultices can be applied _along the course of the spine_ and massage with suitable manipulations can be applied to the muscles and bones which make up the spine. The daily practising of the excellent and simple breathing and bending exercises described in Muller's _My System for Ladies_[5] will be very helpful. By means such as these the body will be gradually cleared of its poisons, and so the nervous system will be made to do better work.

The diet specified can be continued.

H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.

[5] 2s. 8d. post free from the office of _The Healthy Life_, 3 Amen Corner, London, E.C.

* * * * *

_May we ask the co-operation of all our readers during the holiday season in the following way. On holidays you are bound to meet fresh people, and make new acquaintances, and even friends. We suggest you purchase a few extra copies of _THE HEALTHY LIFE_ before you start and hand them on to any likely to be interested. People tell us the magazine is its own recommendation. This does not mean that you need not add your own. The circulation grows steadily, but it is far short of what it might easily be if every reader were to gain one fresh reader every month._--[EDS.]

MORE APPRECIATIONS.

I want to say how very interesting and helpful I find _The Healthy Life_, and it is always a pleasure to buy an extra copy to give to friends, for I always feel it will do them good to read it, and perhaps make regular subscribers of them.

H. BARTHOLOMEW, Knebworth.

THE

HEALTHY

LIFE

The Independent
Health Magazine.

3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.

VOL. V AUGUST
No. 25. 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.

The pursuit of health, considered from the negative standpoint, is the flight from pain.

And pain is the great mystery of life.

James Hinton, himself a well-known physician of his time, attempted to solve the mystery of pain by showing that it is the accompaniment of imperfection. That what is now experienced as pain might be exquisite pleasure given a higher stage of human development.

But this, after all, only shifts the mystery one step farther. Instead of the mystery of pain we have the mystery of imperfection. Yet to image perfection is always to image something incapable of growth or further development.

Take, for example, a perfect circle. So long as it remains unbroken, flawless, the line (or infinite number of lines) composing it cannot be continued or extended. But given a break in the line and it may be continued round and round, up and up (or down and down) into an infinitely ascending spiral. This possibility of extension depends on a break, on an imperfection.

It does not follow, of course, that every flaw in human nature is always the starting-point of new growth, every failure a stepping-stone to greater knowledge, but the possibility is there. It is for men to see that they do not neglect their opportunities.--[EDS.]

IMAGINATION IN PLAY.

_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.]

The fruit of imagination ripens into deeds actually done in the service of man: its flower brightens the whole of life and makes it fragrant, from the budding-time of children's play and laughter to the developed blossoms of the creative imagination which we call painting or poetry or music.

Play and art have this in common, that they are activities pursued for the sake of the activity itself, not as a means to any other object, not aiming at any material usefulness. Actually, of course, there is nothing more useful, on every scale of usefulness, than the development of the individual in art or play, but these would never be really themselves while an ulterior purpose formed a background to them in consciousness.

Physical exercises devised for the sake of health are a more or less pleasant form of work; they do not take the place of play. Our ordinary work is usually more or less one-sided and unbalanced in the demands it makes upon us; we therefore try to find what other set of movements will undo this unbalancement and give us back unbiased bodies. When that is done, and not till then, we get freedom, and it is at that moment that real "play" begins--the use of the freed muscles according to our own will and pleasure.

The same thing is perhaps true in connection with our minds. We all see the fallacy of the old-fashioned hustlers' cry, "Make your work your hobby; think of nothing else; let every moment be subordinated to the dominating idea of your career; put aside all sentimentalism, all laziness and self-will, all enthusiasm about things not in your own line of work."

We have come to see that this kind of effort leads often to nervous breakdown and early death; always to a certain narrowing of sympathy and hardening of method even in the career itself. So we conscientiously "take up" a hobby or a sport and set aside some hour or day for indulgence in it. We make it a duty to lay aside for the time being all idea of duties; part of our work is to learn to rest.

So far so good. But does all this go far enough?

Work imposed by any set of outer needs puts the whole being under a certain strain. The aim of remedial exercises, prescribed rest-times and legal holidays is to undo this strain, to unwind us from our coil by twisting us the other way.

When this has been satisfactorily done, too often the person responsible thinks that this is enough. But it is really and truly at this moment that one is beginning one's real life.

When the body is freed from strain and weariness is the time to leap and dance and sing and wrestle.

When the mind is free from prejudice and weariness is the time for its original activity to begin; new thoughts spring up unbidden and the creative imagination lives and grows.

(In the sphere of will, many great sages have said that an analogous sequence holds good. When the whole emotional and moral nature has thrown itself in a particular direction, and then an unwinding has taken place, the moment of completed renunciation has been said to be the dawn of some great new spiritual light.)

Who does not know the peaceful activity of a Sunday evening, the fruitful quiet of a long railway journey or sea-voyage _at the end_ of a holiday? Two friends walk slowly home together after an exciting expedition or debate; two girls give each other their confidence while brushing their hair after a dance.

Why is this so? Nowadays people are very ready to answer the question by refusing the fact. It is waste of time not to be _doing_ something strenuously. Rest is almost as strenuous as everything else; it is to be thorough while it is the duty on hand and is to fit exactly on to the work time, without overlapping but without interspace.

In this way too often the imagination, the really individual part of the mind, is starved and atrophied. Especially in childhood there ought to be a space left between useful work and ordered play for the individually invented games, the pursuits that are not for any definite end, for dreams and lived-out tales, when the child may make what he likes, do what he likes, and in imagination be what he likes. If we scrupulously respected this growing-time we should soon have a race of sturdier mettle altogether. Just now this particular want is probably most nearly supplied among elementary school children than among those who have more "educational advantages"; they "go out to play" in the streets for hours every day, and one cannot help thinking that it is the vitality thus evolved that keeps most of them healthy and happy in spite of many hardships.

In later life, if we really want to make something of our lives, we shall do well to insist an keeping such a margin of free time to ourselves. It need not be long. Five minutes, if one really sails away in the ship of imagination, will take us to fairyland and back again. But the five minutes (or the day in the country, or the week of quiet, or whatever we take or can get) must really and truly be free; we must have the courage to seek for what we really want, and we shall have the inestimable reward of finding what we really are.

E.M. COBHAM.

HOW MUCH SHOULD WE EAT?[6]

[6] See July number.

For some years I lived according to the advice given by "M.D." with regard to the quantity of proteid that should be taken. But experience led me to believe that it was wrong. In recent years my diet has consisted of the following quantities per annum:--

Three to four bushels of wheat.
Seventy pounds of oats.
One bushel of nuts (measured in the shells).

And with these foods rich in proteid, I have taken plenty of raw vegetables and fruit, and three to four gallons of olive oil.

I do not mention this as an ideal, in order to suggest another and better standard than that of "M.D." I do not think any such thing as a standard really exists or can exist. But I mention it to show how far I have travelled away from where I was.

I take it that all food reformers will agree that the main reason for food reform is to make the body a more harmonious instrument for the true life of man, and that carries with it the belief that there is some correspondence, if we cannot yet see absolute unity, between the physical and the spiritual. Now the law of life, according to Christ, is one of continual progress towards perfection and I do not see how this will harmonise with the teaching of a fixed law for the body. All my experience and observation point to a progressive law for the body, and I do not know of a single fact contrary to it.

My first point, then, is that there is no such thing as a standard of proteid needed by the body. All that can be said is this, that if you take a man who has been fed on a certain quantity for such and such a time and then feed him on a certain other quantity, alterations in the physical condition will appear. But who can say whether these changes are attributable merely to a deficiency or to a previous excess? If "M.D." and his patients take excessive food they naturally get trouble from stored poisons when they reduce the quantity. But why put all the trouble down to present deficiency instead of to previous excess? To this I can find no satisfactory answer.

If we have got our bodies into so hopeless a condition that we cannot use our God-given instincts, tastes and feelings in the first place, the wisdom of troubling much about the continuance of bodily life would be doubtful; and, in the second place, one would need most overwhelming signs of knowledge to substitute for them. But where are they? There is no agreement between those who have been taught physiology. On the one hand, "M.D." gives a proteid standard, now impossible to myself, and I believe to many others, for it would involve eating a nauseating quantity; and, on the other hand, another doctor, presumably acquainted with the same physiology, tells me I cannot eat too little, so long as I do not persistently violate true hunger and taste. Then another doctor gives quite a different standard, and a much lower one. If we discard our natural guides, which of the claimants to knowledge is to be followed, and is there any knowledge at all such as is claimed?

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

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

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

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

A.A. VOYSEY.

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

CAMPING OUT.

FOOD QUESTIONS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What are flap-jacks," I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C.R. FREEMAN.

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

SEASICKNESS: SOME REMEDIES.

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

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

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

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

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

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

HEREWARD CARRINGTON.

IMPORTANT.

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

A SYMPOSIUM ON UNFIRED FOOD.

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

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

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

(3) The effect of the diet in childbirth.

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

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

(6) Is the diet quite satisfactory in winter?

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

ST ALBANS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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