_Office Visits, $10_
It required all of two weeks of experimenting with my interior to convince
me that whatever it might be that annoyed me, it surely was not a thing
which an intensive bombardment of the liver would cure. The liver has a
low visibility but is easy to hit.
I had the aversion to seeking professional guidance for the curing of a
presumably minor disorder that most robust male adults have. In personal
tribute I may add that I have never been hypochondriac in any possible
respect. However, toward the end of those three weeks I formed the
decision that I would go to see a doctor or so. But I would sneak up on
these gentlemen, so to speak. I would call upon them in the rôle of a
friend rather than avowedly as a prospective patient, and take them into
my confidence, as it were, by degrees. Somewhere in the back part of my
brain I nursed a persistent fear that my complaints might be diagnosed as
symptoms of that incurable malady known as being forty-four years old,
going, on forty-five. And I knew that much already without paying a
physician twenty-five dollars for telling me so the first time and ten
dollars for each time he told it to me over again.
Rather shamefacedly, with a well-simulated air of casualness, I dropped in
upon a physician who is a friend of mine and in whose judgment I have
confidence; and then, after a two-day interval, I went to see a second
physician of my acquaintance who, I believe, also thoroughly knows his
trade. With both men I followed the same tactics--roundabout chatting on
the topic of this or that, and finally an honest confession as to the real
purpose of my visit. In both instances the results were practically
identical. Each man manifested an almost morbid curiosity touching on my
personal habits and bodily idiosyncrasies. Each asked me a lot of
questions. Each went at me with X-ray machines and blood tests and
chemical analysissies--if there isn't any such word I claim there should
be--until my being was practically an open book to him and I had no
secrets left at all.
And the upshot of all this was that each of them told me that though
organically I was as sound as a nut in fact much sounder than some of the
nuts they knew professionally--I was carrying an overload of avoirdupois
about with me. In other words, I was too fat for my own good. I was eating
too much sweet stuff and entirely too much starch--especially starch. They
agreed on this point emphatically. As well as I could gather, I was
subjecting my interior to that highly shellacked gloss which is peculiar
to the bosom of the old-fashioned full-dress or burying shirt upon its
return from the steam laundry, when what my system really called for was
the dull domestic finish.
"Well, doc," I said upon hearing this for the second time in language
which already had a familiar sound--"well, all that you say being true,
what then?"
"For one thing, more exercise."
"But I take plenty of exercise now."
"For example, what?"
"For example, golf."
"How often do you play golf?"
"Well, not so very often, as the real golf-bug or caddie's worm would
measure the thing--say, on an average of once a week in the golfing
season. But I take so many swings at the ball before hitting it that I
figure I get more exercise out of the game than do those who play oftener
but take only about one wallop at the pill in driving off. And when I
drive into the deep grass, as is my wont, my work with the niblick would
make you think of somebody bailing out a sinking boat. My bunker exercises
are frequently what you might call violent. And in the fall of the year I
do a lot of tramping about in the woods with a gun. I might add that on a
hunting trip I can walk many a skinny person into a state of total
exhaustion." I stated this last pridefully.
"All right for that, then," he said. "We'll concede that you get an
abundance of exercise. Then there is another thing you should do, and of
the two this is by far the more essential--you should go on a diet."
Right there I turned mentally rebellious. I wanted to reduce my bulk, but
I did not want to reduce my provender. I offered counter-arguments in
defense. I pointed but that for perhaps five years past my weight
practically had been stationary. Also I called attention to the fact that
I no longer ate so heavily as once I had. Not that I wished actually to
decry my appetite. It had been a good friend to me and not for worlds
would I slander it. I have a sincere conviction that age cannot wither nor
custom stale my infinite gastric juices. Never, I trust, will there come a
time when I shan't relish my victuals or when I'll feel disinclined to
chase the last fugitive bite around and around the plate until I overtake
it. But I presented the claim, which was quite true, that I was not the
consumer, measured by volume, I once had been. Perhaps my freighterage
spaces, with passing years, had grown less expansive or less accommodating
or something.
Likewise, I invited his consideration of the fact, which was not to be
gainsaid either, that many men very much less elaborated than I in girth
customarily ate very much more than I did. I recalled, offhand, sundry
conspicuous examples of this sort. I believe I mentioned one or two such.
For instance, now, there was Mr. William Jennings Bryan. The Bryan
appetite, as I remarked to the doctor, is one of the chief landmarks of
Mr. Bryan's home city of Lincoln, Nebraska. They take the sight-seeing
tourists around to have a look at it, the first thing.
To observe Mr. Bryan breakfasting on the morning when a national
Democratic convention is in session is a sight worth seeing. A double
order of cantaloupes on the half shell, a derby hat full of oatmeal, a
rosary of sausages, and about as many flapjacks as would be required to
tessellate the floor of a fair-sized reception hall is nothing at all for
him. And when he has concluded his meal he gets briskly up and strolls
around to the convention hall and makes a better speech and a longer one
and a louder pile than anybody. Naturally, time, the insatiable remodeler,
has worked some outward changes in Mr. Bryan since the brave old days of
the cross of gold. His hair, chafed by the constant pressure of the halo,
has retreated up and ever up his scalp until the forehead extends clear
over and down upon the sunset slope. The little fine wrinkles are thickly
smocked at the corners of the eagle eyes that flashed so fiercely at the
cringing plutocrats.
But his bearing is just as graceful and his voice just as silvery and as
strong as when in '96 he advocated free silver to save the race, or when
he advocated anti-expansion in the Philippines, or government ownership
of the railroads, or a policy of nonpreparedness for war when Germany
first began acting up--Grover Cleveland Bergdoll felt the same way about
it and so did Ma Bergdoll;--and I, for one, have no doubt that Mr. Bryan
will be just as supple, mentally and physically, three years hence when,
if he runs true to form, he will be advocating yet another of that series
of those immemorial Jeffersonian principles of the fathers, which he
thinks up, to order, right out of his own head, when a campaign impends.
Mr. Bryan knows how to play the political game--none better; but he
certainly does have a large discard. That, however, is aside from the main
issue.
The point I sought to bring out there in the office of my friend Doctor
So-and-so was that Mr. Bryan, to my knowledge, ate what he craved and all
that he craved, yet did not become obese. When the occasion demanded he
could be amply bellicose, but the accent was not upon the first two
syllables.
I cited similar cases further to buttress my position. I told him that
almost the skinniest human being I ever knew had been one of the largest
eaters. I was speaking now of John Wesley Bass, the champion raw-egg eater
of Massac Precinct, whose triumphant career knew not pause or discomfiture
until one day at the McCracken County fair when suddenly tragedy dire
impended.
He did not overextend himself in the gustatory line--that to one of John
Wesley Bass' natural gifts and attainments well-nigh would have been
impossible; but he betrayed a lack of caution when, having broken his
former record by eating thirty-six raw eggs at a sitting, he climbed upon
a steam merry-go-round, shortly thereafter falling off the spotted wooden
giraffe which he rode, and being removed to the city hospital in an
unconscious condition.
That night later when the crisis had passed the doctors said that as
nearly as they could figure out a case so unusual, Mr. Bass had had a
very close call from being just naturally scrambled to death. I spoke at
length of my former fellow townsman's powers, dwelling heavily upon the
fact that, despite all, he never thickened up at the waistline. Throughout
the narrative, however, the doctor punctuated my periods with derisive
snorts which were disconcerting to an orderly presentation of the facts.
Nevertheless, I continued until I had reached what I regarded as a telling
climax.
"Piffle!" he rejoined. "One hoarse raucous piffle and three sharp decisive
puffs for your arguments! I tell you that what ails you is this: You are
now registering, the preliminary warnings of obesity. The danger is not
actually here yet; but for you Nature already has set the danger signals.
There's a red light on the switch for one I. Cobb. You are due before a
great while for a head-end collision with your own health. You can take my
advice or you can let it alone. That's entirely up to you. Only don't
blame me if you come back here some day all telescoped up amidships.
"And please don't consume time which is reasonably valuable to me, however
lightly you may regard it, by telling me now about slim men who eat more
than you do and yet keep their figures. The woods are full of them; also
the owl wagons. The difference between such men as those you have
described and such men as you is that they were made to be thin men and to
keep on being thin men regardless of their food consumption, and that your
sort are naturally predisposed to fatness. You can't judge their cases by
yours any more than you can judge the blood-sweating behemoth of Holy Writ
by the plans and specifications of the humble earwig.
"One man's meat is another man's poison; that's a true saying. And here's
another saying--one cannot eat his cake and have it, too. But that's an
error so far as you are concerned. The trouble with you is that when you
eat your cake you still have it--in layers of fat. If you want to get rid
of the layers you'll have to cut out the cake, or most of it, anyway. Must
I make you a diagram, or is this plain enough for your understanding?"
It was--abundantly. But I still had one more bright little idea waiting in
the second-line trenches. I called up the reserves.
"Ahem!" I said. "Well now, old man, how about trying some of these
electrical treatments or these chemicalized baths or these remedies I see
advertised? I was reading only the other day where one successful operator
promised on his word of honor to take off flesh for anybody, no matter who
it was, without interfering with that person's table habits and customs."
My friend can be very plain-spoken when the spirit moves him.
[Illustration: "YOU ARE NOW REGISTERING THE PRELIMINARY
WARNINGS--" _Page 87_]
"Say, listen to me," he snapped, "or better still, you'd better write down
what I'm about to say and stick it in your hat where you can find it and
consult it when your mind begins wandering again. Those special
mechanical devices to reduce fat people are contrived for the benefit of
men and lazy women who are too slothful to take exercise or else too
besotted in the matter of food indulgence to face the alternative of
dieting. They may not do any harm--properly operated, they probably do
not--but, at best, I would regard them as being merely temporary
expedients specially devised as first aid to the incurably lazy.
"And as for pills and boluses and bottled goods guaranteed to reduce your
weight, and as for all these patented treatments and proprietary
preparations which you see boosted in the papers--bah! Either they are
harmless mixtures, in which event they'll probably do you no serious
injury, but will certainly do you no real good; or else they contain drugs
which, taken to excess, may cut you down in size, but have the added
drawback of very probably cutting short your life.
"No, sir-ree! For you it's dieting, now and from now on. You may be able
to relax your diet in time, but you can never altogether forego it. Give
us this day our daily diet--that's your proper prayer. And you'd better
start praying pretty soon, too!"
"All right, doc," I said resignedly. "You've practically converted me. I
can't say I'm happy over the prospect, but if you say so I'm prepared to
become a true believer. But since, between us, we're about to take all the
joy out of life, let's be thorough. What must I do to be saved? Give me
the horrible details right here. I might as well hear the worst at one
session."
"I'm no dietitian," he said. "I don't profess to be one. That's not my
line--my line is the diagnostic. Of course I could lay down a few broad
general rules for your guidance--any experienced practitioner could do
that--but to get the best returns you should consult a diet specialist.
However, in parting--I have several paying guests waiting for me and we
are now about to part--I will throw in one more bit of advice without
charge. No matter what suggestions you may get from any quarter, I would
urge you not to follow any banting formula so rigorous as to take off your
superfluous flesh very rapidly. Take your time about it. If you live as
long as both of us hope you may you'll have plenty of time. There's no
rush, so go at it gradually. Be regular about it, but don't be too
ambitious at the outset. Don't try to turn yourself into a tricky sprite
in two weeks. For a fat man too abruptly to strip the flesh off his bones
I regard as dangerous. It weakens him and depletes his powers of
resistance and makes him fair game for any stray microbe which may be
cruising about looking for a place to set up housekeeping."
At first blush it might appear to the lay mind that a germ would scarcely
care to pick a bone when it had fat meat to feed on, but my own
recollections bore out my friend's statements. I remembered a man of my
acquaintance, an enormously fleshy and unwieldy man, who, fearing
apoplexy, undertook a radical scheme of banting. He lost fifty pounds in
three months, so apoplexy did not get him, but pneumonia did with great
suddenness. He was sick only three days. Nobody suspected that he was
seriously ill until the third day, when suddenly he just hauled off and
died.
So I promised to have a care against seeking to hurry myself right out of
the flounder class and right into the smelt division.