Almost every person who can afford it, eats more than is requisite for
promoting the growth, and renewing the strength and waste of his body.
It would be ridiculous to speak concerning the precise quantity of food
necessary to support the body of different individuals. Such rules do
not exist in nature. The particular state or condition of the
individual, the variety of constitution, and other circumstances, must
be taken into account. If, after dinner, we feel ourselves as cheerful
as before, we may be assured that we have made a dietetical meal.
Much has been said of temperance. The fact is, that there is an absolute
determined standard of _temperance_, the point of which must be fixed
by every man’s natural and unprovoked appetite, while he continues _in a
state of health_. As long as a person who pursues a right habit of life,
eats and drinks no more than his stomach calls for and will bear,
without occasioning uneasiness of any kind to himself, he may be said to
live temperate. The stomach revolts against the reverse of it; indeed,
the stomach is the grand organ of the human system, it is the
_conscience_ of the _body_, and like that, will become uneasy if all is
not right within; it speaks pretty plainly to those who lead an
intemperate life.
“We may compare,” says Doctor Kitchener, “the human frame to a watch, of
which the heart is the main _spring_, the stomach the _regulator_, and
what we put into it, the _key_, by which the machine is set a-going;
according to the quantity, quality, and proper digestion of what we eat
and drink will be the action of the system: and when a due proportion is
preserved between the quantum of exercise and that of excitement, all
goes well. If the machine be disordered, the same expedients are
employed for its re-adjustment, as are used by the watch-maker; it must
be carefully cleaned and then judiciously oiled. To affirm that such a
thing is wholesome, or unwholesome, without considering the subject in
all the circumstances to which it bears relation, and the unaccountable
idiosyncrasies of particular constitutions is, with submission, talking
nonsense. Every man must consult his stomach; whatever agrees with that
perfectly well, is wholesome for him, whilst it continues to do so
whenever natural appetite calls for food.”
Celsus spoke very right when he said that a healthy man ought not to tie
himself up by strict rules, nor to abstain from any sort of food; that
he ought sometimes to fast, and sometimes to feast. When applied to
eating, nothing is more true than the proverb--
“_Bonarum rerum consuetudo pessima est._--SYRUS.
“_The too constant use, even of good things, is hurtful._”
It is certainly better to restrain ourselves, so as to _use_, but not to
_abuse_, our enjoyments; and to this we may add the opinion of doctor
Fothergil, which the experience of every individual confirms, namely,
that “the food we fancy most, sits easiest on the stomach.”
What has been so far stated on the choice and quantity of food to be
taken at a time, of course, relates only to persons in a state of
health; the diet of the delicate, the sickly, and the infirm, must be
regulated by the physician, and even the aged require particular kinds
of food.
“Experience[17] has fully convinced me, (says an eminent Physiologist),
that the latter stages of human life, are often abridged by unsuitable
diet.”
[17] Carlisle on the disorders of Old Age, ps. 2 and 27. This
book exhibits an excellent view of the most suitable diet for aged,
weak, and sickly people.
“The most numerous tribe of disorders incident to advanced life, spring
from the failure or errors of the stomach, and its dependancies, and
perhaps the first sources of all the infirmities of inability, may be
traced to effects arising from imperfectly digested food.”