Health and Longevity through Rational Diet - Practical hints in regard to food and the usefulness or harmful effects of the various articles of diet #177903

Probably but very few physicians have so frequently an opportunity to observe the harmful consequences of a faulty mode of nourishment as one who is practising as a Carlsbad bath physician. It is a surprising fact that even scholars well versed in a great variety of subjects often display the veriest ignorance or show the greatest carelessness precisely in respect to what and the manner in which they eat. Others, again, fall into the opposite error,—those, for example, who studiously avoid all foods containing even a trace of uric-acid-forming constituents, lest an excess of such substances prove injurious, and meanwhile overlook the fact that in addition to such uric-acid-producing components these foods contain many other important substances, e.g., certain nutritive salts, an insufficient intake of which may result in serious injury, particularly in the period of growth and development of the body. Because overeating may prove harmful, many persons restrict their diet to such an extent as to do their bodies more harm than they would by eating to excess. Every housewife knows that her dog or cat will thrive splendidly when plentifully fed upon proper food, but in the case of her children she often overlooks this point. Every farmer, too, is aware of the fact that horses require altogether different kinds of food, according as they are to be used as draught, riding, or carriage horses, and that a dog, to be used in the hunt, as a watch-dog, or to draw carts needs a different diet in each case. It is only in man that we observe the contrary condition, viz., that persons following most diverse occupations, be they laborers or brain-workers, scholars, merchants, officials, officers, clergymen, physicians, traveling salesmen, factory hands, or field workers, —all of them with their dependents, take the same or at least very siniilar foods, The diet should vary according to the nature of the occupation and the functions to be carried out, just as has always been the custom in the case of domestic animals.