Experience has taught us that the nature of our food is not a matter of
indifference to the respiratory organs. Diseased lungs are exasperated
by a certain diet, and pacified by one of an opposite kind. The
celebrated diver, Mr. Spalding, observed, that whenever he used a diet
of animal food, or drank spirituous liquors, he consumed in a much
shorter period the oxygen of the atmospheric air in his diving-bell; and
he therefore, on such occasions, confined himself to vegetable diet. He
also found the same effect to arise from the use of fermented liquors,
and he accordingly restricted himself to the potation of simple water.
The truth of these results is confirmed by the habits of the Indian
pearl-divers, who always abstain from every alimentary stimulus previous
to their descent into the ocean.--_Dr. Paris on Diet._
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