Chapter XXI: HIRED HELP (continued) (4)

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.

If this patience with words, this respect for the familiar fine things of our native tongue, this desire to make them yield up their strength and beauty, if this has nothing to do with healthy living I don't know what has. William Wordsworth's--

"And vital feelings of delight
Shall rear her form to stately height"

is only a metrical expression of a great and practical truth. You do not need to be a "Christian Scientist" to know that ideas and emotions can affect the stoop of the shoulders or the lines of the mouth. Other people besides "Eugenists" have observed that ugly or mean-spirited parents seldom have beautiful children.

But though the power of ideas is a commonplace, and though psychologists tell us how much we may improve mental concentration by letting the words of any sentence call up each its own picture, what they a omit to do is to recognise the need of the human spirit for beauty. You can concentrate your thought on the list of pickles in a grocer's price list: it is doubtless a good exercise. But the same exercise directed to some great phrase, such as Emerson's _Trust thyself: ever' heart vibrates to that iron string_; or some vivid lyrical image such as _All the trees of the field shall clap their hands_, or even a complete poem of simple words but permanent beauty, such as that one of Wordsworth's beginning _I wandered lonely as a Cloud_; this will not only improve concentration and sharpen memory: it will enrich the mind with ever-available sources of inspiration, courage and joy.

EDGAR J. SAXON.

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

Tell me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,
In what cavern of the night
Will thy pinions close now?

Tell me, moon, thou pale and grey
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day.
Seekest thou repose now?

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest
On the tree or billow?

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

CLOUD-CAPPED TOWERS.

Building castles in the air has always been one of the favourite amusements of mankind. To it we owe much, not only of the zest of life, but also of motive power for overcoming difficulties and reaching out towards new possibilities. Yet all literature, and tradition that is earlier than any written literature, is full of a deep note of warning; over and over again we see in the dim past the shadow of a tower that was built in vain, of walls that were piled too high and toppled into ruin, of crests that tapped the thunder-clouds and drew down lightning to their own destruction. Evidently man has seen danger in his own desire! The castle must be built with wisdom as well as with industry and boldness if it is to escape disaster and to become a storehouse, a safe defence or a vantage-ground for surveying earth and sky.

There is one obvious precaution we should observe in building our castles, and that is to realise that all which we imagine and think about tends sooner or later to externalise itself and pass into action. Every idea tends to glide into an ideal. Nearly all thinkers have recognised this, and have seen that morality lies much farther back than action, farther back than conscious will. Banquo had dreams of ambition, as had Macbeth, but they dealt differently with them; while Macbeth allowed his visions to lead him on to treachery and murder, Banquo prayed against the temptations that came to him in sleep. To most of us imagination, sleeping or waking, comes in less dramatic form, but we should all think more sanely and act more wisely if we interposed a definite revision by the conscious mind and will of all our plans and ideals between their (perhaps quite automatic) formation in our imagination and their translation into fact. Slack muscle should go with the daydream or picture of the future; we should not strike or clench or lift until we have decided that the action is right and just and wise. The girl who counted her chickens and broke the eggs is a true enough example: every doctor and coroner knows many instances of results far more tragic.

But sometimes the vision has nothing in it but what is pure and good and noble. Are there any dangers even here?

There is this danger always, that we find the picture so lovely and so satisfying that we cannot summon up courage and energy to turn away from it towards the serious work which it suggests. The castle in the air is radiant and tall, but it is generally meant as a model for a tougher building made out of common earth, by toil and pain, amidst mud and dust. It is so much easier, as Sordello knew, to imagine than to do. Actual circumstances, real life, other people all this that lies round us is sterner stuff than our easily moulded material of dreams. Who has not at some time or other lain sleepily in bed of a morning and gone through in thought the processes of getting up, until a louder call or an alarum bell has awakened the realisation that the task is not yet begun? Who has not been tempted to shirk practice of some sort in thinking of a prize? Who has not sometimes built expectation higher and higher until his demands of fate have become so great that, in despair of making good, he has let the whole plan slip away into the valley of forgotten dreams?

These dangers, the almost involuntary carrying out of unworthy aims that have been cherished in thought and the loss of vigour for real achievement, due to too easy an indulgence in blameless aspiration, are fairly obvious and have long been recognised.

There is another that has been seen from time to time and occasionally expressed.[16] We have seen that too loose a dream-world may make the world in which we live seem dull and ordinary. But is not the converse at least as often true? If our thought-world is too narrow, too selfish or too weak, all our ordinary work, sound and compact though it may be, is stultified, misdirected, often wasted. We all know how in the industrial world something more than industry is needed; in the emotional world something more than a clumsy and unapprehending goodwill. We need a certain insight to turn these solid qualities of labour and feeling to the best account. "A man's reach should exceed his grasp," a great poet tells us, and even the birds or beavers do not go on quite blindly with their building, but, when effort on effort has been destroyed by wind and water or man's interference, they at last accommodate their instinct to circumstances so as to give themselves a better chance of fulfilling their deeper purpose. In many ways we have hardly outgrown the beaver stage: wars, accidents, disease, disputes--how many times must we try over again the same path which has led us before into trouble and disaster before we put our imagination seriously to work on the problem and try to find some more complete solution?

Of all the dangers of the use of the imagination, perhaps the greatest of all is the neglect to use it, the denial of it and its consequent starvation.

E.M. COBHAM.

[16] Mrs Book sees an allusion to this danger, as well as to the first, in the warnings against covetousness in the Tenth Commandment.

THE PLAY SPIRIT[17]: A CRITICISM.

[17] See the article, "The Play Spirit," in the November issue.

With your contributor's description of the play spirit, that happy leisure from self and its responsibilities in order that time and thought and heart may be filled with wider inspiration, most of your readers will, I think, entirely agree, and all of us will be grateful for the spirited claim on behalf of "play."

The one criticism that occurs to the mind is that a touch of professionalism, of patronage towards the ordinary person, has crept into the author's thought and peeps out through many of the sentences.

"Common men" ... "ordinary everyday people" ... "average humanity," ... "a worker" who ... "cannot play"; does the writer of the Play Spirit really show us what is in their hearts? He is an artist in words, he is a keen admirer of other arts, he is interested in thinking; it seems all but impossible to him that anyone can have "freedom" without the power of expressing it, without even the consciousness of its possession.

We are all too apt, I think, to imagine that our own discoveries of the mystery and magic of life are peculiar to ourselves, or shared only with a sympathetic few, passed on sometimes (by the _very_ few who have both will and power to do so) to such of the outsiders as are interested enough to enter into that enchanted garden and take gifts from it. But has not the supreme discovery of the greatest artists, philosophers and teachers been that the "everyday people" _do_ live as deeply and broadly as the thinkers and artists? They are inarticulate and cannot tell what they see, but to them life is made amusing, or interesting, or consecrated according to their temperament.

Who can say what the Cornish sea means to that tired worker? At least it seems a boldness that is almost insolence to decide what it did _not_ mean to her!

Has not every life its revelations? Is it not because we do _not_ see as God does that some one particular life which strikes across our path cannot reveal its revelation over again to us?

Surely "the commonplace is the highest place." Or rather, there are no hierarchies of the soul. Artist or seamstress or carpenter, we live by the glory that flows to us through whatever curtains of environment are round us.

I have not a word of criticism for the writer's ideal. All that I would suggest is that the ideal is really present in the world, "common" as the "everyday" flowers at his feet. Not all can sing or paint or write, but many more can laugh or run and all, perhaps, can love and pray.

L.E. HAWKS.

ON LEARNING TO BREATHE.[18]

[18] This is article has been specially written as a preface for _Health Through Breathing_, by Olga Lazarus, shortly to be published (1s. net).

To breathe correctly and sufficiently is to live more healthily. This dictum is incontrovertible, and it becomes my pleasant duty herein to demonstrate its truthfulness. And, after a careful perusal of the hundred exercises which the authoress has so clearly and succinctly described, I am still more convinced of the very great, one might almost say of the tremendous, importance of deep-breathing exercises. What has struck me so forcibly in this little book is the fact that there is no undue enthusiasm evident; no embellishment of the subject; no extravagant claims for the system advocated; just a plain sane, sober and intelligent description of procedures of immense value to all who would either keep, or improve, their health. The authoress has, as it were, laid before the reader a feast of good things in the way of physical culture, and leaves it at that. She seems to have brought into purview a splendid variation of the exercises, and indeed every mode of breathing and exercise likely to be beneficial--to those in health as out of it.

Reverting for a moment to the supreme importance of the subject, I may say that it has of late years come home to me more than ever, and with greater insistency, that innumerable ills of to-day are due to faulty breathing and lack of correct physical exercises generally. I wonder how many of us could conscientiously say that we devote fifteen or twenty minutes regularly every day to the system? And yet such a great deal could be done for health in that time! No, we "haven't time," or we "oversleep ourselves so often," or we make some such other flimsy excuse; but of course we ought to "make time," we ought not to "oversleep ourselves." The fact is, rather, that most of us are too lazy to go through the exercises, even though we may know of their transcendent benefit. In the words of the poet: "Let us, then, be up and doing"--that is, up in time in the morning in order to be going through exercises such as described in this little volume.

It is within my personal knowledge, and must be within the personal knowledge of every actively engaged physician, that but very few of us yet have any idea, in spite of all the teaching and the advocacy of it, of really deep and scientific breathing. If the system could be made quite general and enforced upon us--especially when young or adolescent--we should not see, as we do now, _thousands_ walking about the streets whose nostrils are too narrow through insufficient breathing, whose lungs are not properly inflated as they inspire; and, as a consequence, who have neither the bloom nor the carriage of health.

Perhaps if I show here how vastly important it is for us to have our blood well oxygenated, it may be some sort of encouragement for Mrs Lazarus's readers to persevere with and _work into their lives_ the system she advocates and describes.

If we did not renew the oxygen in our lungs to a sufficient extent, we should die in a few minutes. We can do without food for many days; without water for less days, but only for a few minutes without oxygen. Anything which tends to increase the intake of this vitally important element, whether deeper breathing or exercises, will have a very pronounced effect upon our general health. Now deep breathing is, _par excellence_, the way to bring about this desirable condition. It may interest the readers of this little book if I remind them that in the ordinary way the total capacity of the lungs is about 340 cubic inches; as a rule, the amount of air breathed amounts only to some 20 or 30 cubic inches, but this, by special effort, can be increased by some 110 cubic inches. Thus it is demonstrated how much more air we could take into the lungs by better and deeper breathing, thereby securing, sooner or later, a greater natural expansion of the lungs, with the result, of course, of improved health generally.

It would surprise most people if they tested their breathing capacity by the aid of the spirometer, to discover how inefficiently they did breathe; in other words, how much below the normal was the amount of air they were usually inspiring. Encouragement might also be found in the matter--incentive, that is, to learn how to breathe and exercise correctly and scientifically--if mention were here made categorically of the very profound influences upon certain physiological processes of our organisation which are brought about if we would but mend our ways in this respect. Space will only allow of a few such to be detailed.

1. The circulation is improved and equalised. This implies much more than appears on the surface: it means that the blood is made to flow from any congested internal organ (such as the liver, stomach, etc.) towards the peripheries--that is, the extremities and everywhere where there is the capillary system--the changing-place between the venous and the arterial blood; thus we at the same time warm our extremities and relieve internal congestion. In other words, "to bring the blood to the surface" in many conditions of ill-health is of paramount importance.

2. It will strengthen the action of the heart and lungs. For lack of proper breathing exercises the heart's walls get thin, the expansive power of the lungs' tissue gets less, and as a consequence, when any little extra strain is thrown upon either, permanent damage is often the result.

3. In any tendency to constipation, indigestion and similar conditions, such exercises are especially beneficial, and that both by flushing the system with more oxygen and by mechanically exerting pressure on the different organs--thus giving those latter what is actually a good massaging!

4. Indirectly, such exercises must of necessity be splendid for "nerves," as we thus get these supplied with a larger amount of purified blood, and of course this must result in better and heightened nerve and brain action.

And all this--and much more which we have not space enough to deal with--being so, it might now be well asked, who and what class of individuals would benefit by these exercises. The list is a long one, and would include practically all growing children and adolescents--in order that adenoids, narrow chests, debility in general, malnutrition and a host of other abnormal states might be either cured or prevented. Innumerable adults would also benefit by such exercises: those who are in health, in order to keep so; those who are depressed mentally, or who are suffering from constipation, dyspepsia, anaemia, obesity, debility, etc.

Even those who are "getting on" in years could, with care and caution, go through such exercises to advantage, providing, that is, that their heart, lungs and blood vessels are fairly normal; it is only where there is serious organic disease such exercises must be withheld.

Thus we have a big field for such a system which Mrs Lazarus has described so fully in this little work of hers; it deserves wide recognition, and my final word to the reader is not only to keep the book as a "boon companion," but to encourage others to purchase it and to carry out its most excellent teachings.

J. STENSON HOOKER, M.D.

LETTERS OF A LAYMAN.

1.--DOCTORS AND HEALTH.

Medicine is a progressive science--and art, if we judge by the statistics given of the fall in the rate of mortality. Even this, however, must be carefully analysed, because a good deal of the fall of mortality is due to the great reduction in the birthrate which has taken place in the last twenty years. Still, after this has been allowed for, there is probably a balance in the doctors' favour--something to the good of the science and art of medicine. Doubtless the science is improved and the practical advice offered by medical men is better and more effectual than it used to be.

A layman, nevertheless, may be forgiven if, with all due deference, he is tempted to believe that many of the benefits attributed to medicine have been achieved through attention to sanitation--cleanliness and ventilation. Of course this is due to the work of science, which necessarily includes the members of the medical profession, but it is not due to medical science _qua_ medical science.

The terms 'sanitation' and 'sanitary' nearly always connote only ideas associated with cleanliness, free ventilation, etc. They scarcely connote ideas of food management, or, if they do, it is only to the extent of inferring that food shall not be adulterated or of bad quality--and perhaps that there shall be enough of it.

Such questions as what food shall we eat, and how much; what are the real reasons for taking food into the body, whether it is to give strength and heat to the body or only to supply the body's waste, as Dr Rabagliati contends--these and other relevant questions are usually left to unorthodox members of the medical profession to declare upon. They seem to be very important questions, but we do not find that they were discussed--or ever mentioned--at the thirty-fourth International Medical Congress, which completed its sittings several months ago.

Obviously, the practical questions of food supply are answered very differently, according as one _believes_ they must be answered one way or another, as, for instance, in Dr Rabagliati's or Dr Haig's way. But that they are questions not worthy of consideration by doctors in congress may be taken as an ominous sign.

It must not be forgotten that we owe many valuable discoveries of medical science to qualified members of the profession, just as discoveries of mechanical science are made by men working at their respective trades. We have sorrowfully to admit, however, that nearly all the great achievements upon which medicine plumes herself are in the direction of increasing the doctors' power over his patient, and seldom of giving his patient power over disease. It is also true that the advocacy by unorthodox members of the profession of simple and natural remedies often involves them in a charge of charlatanism, and subjects them to persecution by medical associations.

If the medical profession were all that it is supposed to be, it might be good that the reformer should suffer in solitude while his experiments and methods were subjected to adequate tests and criticism. If the associated physicians and surgeons jealously guarded the public from quackery while they impartially investigated every fresh discovery, the true reformer would welcome the protection afforded him from the "counter-currents of senseless clamour" within the doctors' own ranks, occasioned by party and vested interests.

It may be true that "loneliness tends to save the Seer from becoming a charlatan and to make of him a true Reformer." But it is not that peculiar loneliness of the Seer that the medical trade unions afford the reforming physician. That is inevitably and sufficiently accorded him by the "unwillingness of the masses to enter into the thoughts of the Seers."[19] An ignorant and inert people will always follow a charlatan, because they like to do things which are mysterious and involve no trouble on their part.

[19] The reason "Why the Prophet should be lonely" is perfectly elaborated in a chapter under that title in _Logic Taught by Love_, from which I have quoted.

The Seer among doctors is boycotted by his fellow medicos _after_ he and his co-workers have tested their experiments for themselves, weeded out what is false from what is true, and proved their methods to be right. Not only that, but too often it turns out that it is proper food selection, cleanliness, personal effort and restraint advocated by doctors as substitutes for serums and drugs, which excites the opprobrium of medical coteries. Whereas, the misguided Serum Specialist, who ought to be saved from himself, and from whom the public ought to be protected, is given full medical honours--and facilities to become that most dangerous type of charlatan, the licensed one.

There are doubtless many abstract questions of health and disease which orthodox and unorthodox doctors alike are unable satisfactorily to settle. But if that be admitted, then it is certainly not in the public interest that serum treatments should be accepted as almost the last words in medical science. More anti-social still is it to attempt to justify the compulsory orders of Parliament that expensive sanatoria shall be built to cope with disease that might be more economically and more satisfactorily treated.

Is there not too little consideration given to theoretical issues underlying practical experience of disease? Is there not too great an anxiety to force remedies at the public expense before all the bearings of the different questions and their phases have been considered? All new methods savour too much of compulsion. They all require the provision of large armies of officials to carry them out. It is interesting to note that the successors of the men who told us how grievously the Church has failed because she is established, should be so anxious to more firmly establish the medical priesthood.

Modern statecraft calls out to us: 'we will appoint officials to inquire into and decide upon what is to be done, but we will make no inquiries into the real nature of this disease and that: we will find out remedies which, in the form of serums to be injected into the blood, shall counteract the effects of disease: we will also appoint, at your expense, doctors to perform these operations: we will force the man whose family may have the misfortune to contract a disease, which the doctors have not told him how to prevent, to submit them to such treatment.' But nothing is said about the desirability of exercising government over oneself, one's body and one's mind! And nothing is _said_ either, but it is suggested, that, if one accepts meekly coercive treatment by official doctors, one may probably be able to ignore the laws of life and health without having to pay the penalty.

No sane and properly instructed citizens would be satisfied to have State officials compel them to do what they ought to do for themselves. It is because of this and because the suggestions and compulsions of modern medicine are in keeping with the prevailing philosophy that accumulates knowledge without wisdom, that we need such counteracting influences as are afforded by journals like _The Healthy Life._

LAYMAN.

A DOCTOR ON DOCTORS.

"I charge that whereas the first duty of a physician is to instruct the people in the laws of health and thus prevent disease, the tendency has ever been towards a conspiracy of mystery, humbug, and silence."

"I charge that the general tendency of the profession has been to depreciate the importance of personal and municipal cleanliness, and to inculcate a reliance on drug medicines, vaccination, and other unscientific expedients."

ALEXANDER ROSS, M.D., F.R.S.

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MODERN GERM MANIA: A CASE IN POINT.

Under the sensational heading, _Doomed to Carry Germs: Woman Typhoid Victim for Life_, the following account appeared recently in _News of the World_:--