The original "Glutton or Epicure" has been completely revised and
much enlarged, including considerable new matter added in the form
of testimony by competent investigators, which confirms the original
claims of the book and supplements them with important suggestions.
The "New Glutton or Epicure" is now issued as a companion volume to
the "A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition," in the "A. B. C. Series," and is
intended to broaden the illustration of the necessity of dietetic
economy in the pursuit of an easy way to successful living, in a manner
calculated to appeal to a variety of readers; and wherein it may
suggest the scrappiness and extravagance of an intemperate screed, the
author joins in the criticism of the purists and offers in apology the
excuse that so-called screeds sometimes attract attention where more
sober statement fails to be heard.
Especial attention is invited to the "Explanation of the A.B.C.
Series," at the back of this volume, as showing the desirability of
regard for environment in all its phases; and also to the section,
"Tell-tale Excreta," on page 142, an evidence of right or faulty
feeding persistently neglected heretofore, but of utmost importance in
a broad study of the nutrition problem.
The professional approval of Drs. Van Someren, Higgins, Kellogg, and
Dewey, representing wide differences of points of view and opportunity
of application, are most valuable contributions to the subject.
The confirmation of high physiological authority strengthens this
professional endorsement. The testimony of lay colleagues given is
equally valuable and comes from widely separated experiences, and
from observers whose evidence carries great weight. The commandante
of a battleship cruising in foreign waters and representing the
national descent of Luigi Cornaro; a general manager of one of the
largest insurance companies of the world; a cosmopolitan artist of
American farm birth and French matrimonial choice and residence; and a
distinguished _bon vivant_, each with a world of experience, testifying
in their own manner of expression, is appreciated as most valuable
assistance to the cause of economic dietetic reform.
During the original experiments in Chicago, and in Dayton, Ohio,
the originator was much indebted to James H. Lacey, Esquire, of New
Orleans, La., and Cedar Rapids, for helpful suggestions, which his
early training as a pharmaceutical chemist rendered him able to give.
There are also numerous altruistic, self-sacrificing women, who have
been active colleagues of the author in testing the virtues of an
economic nutrition, and who have greatly assisted in making the
economy an added new pleasure of life, instead of being a restraint
or a deprivation. This is accomplished easily by a change of attitude
towards the question, and in such reform women must have an important
part to play. To their kindly meant, but hygienically unwise,
aggressive hospitality, in begging friends to eat and drink more than
they want, just to satisfy their own generous impulses, is due much of
the milder gluttony that is prevalent.
Imposition upon the body of any excess of food or drink is one of
the most dangerous and far-reaching of self-abuses; because whatever
the body has no need of at the moment must be gotten rid of at the
expense of much valuable energy taken away from brain-service. Hence
it is that when there is intestinal constipation the energy-reserve is
lowered enormously, and even where there is no painful obstruction,
the mere passage of waste through some twenty to twenty-five feet of
convoluted intestinal canal is a great tax upon available mental and
physical power; and this disability is often imposed on innocent men by
well-meaning women in the exercise of a too aggressive hospitality.
Mention of constipation suggests another reference to one of the
specially new features of this discussion, insisted upon by a truly
economic and æsthetic nutrition, and herein lifted out of the depths of
a morbid prejudice to testify to the necessity of care in the manner
of taking food for the maintenance of a respectable self-respect.
So firmly rooted is the fallacy that a daily generous defecation is
necessary to health that less frequent periodicity is looked upon
with alarm, whereas a normally economic nutrition is _proven_ by
greater infrequency, accompanied by an entire absence of difficulty in
defecating and by escape from the usual putridity due to the necessity
of bacterial decomposition.
To illustrate the prevailing ignorance relative to this most important
necessity of self-care, and also a traditional prejudice, even among
physicians, the following extract from a letter just received is given:
"You ask me to define more exactly what I mean by constipation; this
is not at all difficult; I mean skipping a day in having a call to
stool. There was no trouble about it, and the quantity was not large,
but when I mentioned it to my doctor he advised me to stop chewing
if it interfered with the regular daily stools. I must confess that
I never felt so well as while I was chewing and sipping, instead of
the hasty bolting and gulping which one is apt to do on thoughtless
or busy occasions, but I don't think it is worth while for a chap to
monkey with his hygienic department when he is employing a professional
regularly to tell him the latest kink about health." To this surprising
state of ... the evidence of "professionals" like Van Someren, Kellogg,
Higgins, and Dewey, as well as that of the great men of physiology who
have spoken herein, and in the "A.B.-Z. of Our Own Nutrition," gives
hopeful answer, but suggests a warning.
The author has noticed that immediately folk begin to give attention
to any new _régime_ relative to diet, exercise, mental discipline,
or whatever else, they begin to charge all unusual happenings to
the change of habit, whereas before the same things were common but
unnoticed. Even among men of scientific habit of thought, unduly
constipated by stale conservatism, the old, old corpse of tradition,
"The accumulated experience of the whole race must be correct," is
revived and used in argument contentiously; but to this relapse
into non-scientific reasoning comes the reply: "If the accumulated
experience of the human race is evidence that crime and disease are
natural, then disease and crime are good things and should not be
discouraged."
There are many sorts of constipation, the worst of which are
constipation of affection, of appreciation, of gratitude, and of all
the constructive virtues which constitute true altruism. Let us avoid
sinning in this regard! In pursuit of this thought the following is
_àpropos_: