diet, but few people in this changeable, and often cold, depressing
climate are willing to forgo their occasional use. One cannot get hot
water for a drink without a kettle or a small saucepan and a gas ring,
and hot water is often a very comforting and useful drink, especially
where an effort is being made to break off the tea and coffee habit.
A diet of bread and butter, biscuits, cheese, fresh and dried fruits
is excellent, provided our correspondent also includes grated raw
roots and salads as the medicinal part of the regimen, and keeps the
fresh fruit to itself as one meal of the day. Cold water or cold milk
could also be taken in the place of hot water or hot milk, although I
deprecate the use of milk as a beverage unless a person is willing to
live entirely on milk like a baby does. The hot vegetables are
uncalled for, provided the raw vegetables are substituted for them.
The puddings can well be discarded. Cocoashell beverages are useful in
very many cases.
Beans or lentils can be eaten sparingly in a raw state if first
soaked, then flaked in a Dana machine, and afterwards flavoured with
herbs or parsley. I certainly think that, if they _are_ to be cooked,
the taste is better if eaten hot; but there is no reason why cold
cooked lentils should not be eaten any more than is the case with an
other form of cooked food. Uncooked vegetables will not take the place
of lentils, because they are of a different order of food-stuff. The
uncooked vegetable would go well with the lentils as neutralising
agents of the acids into which all nitrogenous foods break down in the
body. Most people will find that nuts, cheese and eggs are better
sources of proteid than lentils or other "pulse foods."
H. VALENTINE KNAGGS.
THE
HEALTHY
LIFE
The Independent
Health Magazine.
3 AMEN CORNER LONDON E.C.
VOL. V OCTOBER
No. 27. 1913
_There will come a day when physiologists, poets, and
philosophers will all speak the same language and understand one
another._--CLAUDE BERNARD.
AN INDICATION.
Just as there is a pride that apes humility, so there is an egotism
that apes selfishness, a cowardice that apes stoicism and an indolence
that apes effort. This is especially apparent in matters pertaining to
health.
How often, on the plea of not causing worry or expense to others, does
a man or woman not put off taking necessary rest, or consulting a
doctor, until a slight ailment that once would have yielded to
treatment becomes an irreparable injury.
Such conduct is often admired as unselfish, but for unselfishness and
stoicism a psychologist would read fear, indolence and egotism. Fear
of being thought hypochondriacal and fear of facing facts; shrinking
from the exertion involved in the effort to become healthy and from
the pain involved in witnessing the possible distress and anxiety of
friends should the complaint prove serious--regardless of the fact
that its neglect and resultant incurability would cause infinitely
more distress; above all, that mental egotism which breeds in its
victim an unreadiness to acknowledge that he does not _know_ what may
be wrong and to take prompt steps to remedy his ignorance.
It is not fair, of course, to attach too much blame to the patient.
Such faults as those cited above are in themselves symptoms of nervous
disease. Body and mind act and react upon one another. Nevertheless,
the practice of the virtues loses its meaning when there is no pull in
the opposite direction.--[EDS.]
IMAGINATION IN INSURANCE.
_Regular readers will recognise in this article a continuation of the
series previously entitled "Healthy Brains." The author of "The
Children All Day Long" is an intimate disciple of one of the greatest
living psychologists, and she has a message of the first importance to
all who realise that true health depends as much on poise of mind as
on physical fitness._
It is an unpleasant subject, but have you ever faced the fact that
your widow might be left in poverty?
We all know the phrases that come so glibly from the lips of the
insurance agent. Perhaps the very fact that it pays companies to spend
thousands a year on the salaries of agents, and other thousands on
broadcast eye-catching advertisements, shows that there are many
things which our imagination only accepts "against the grain." Fire,
storm, loss by theft or burglary, sickness, disablement and death we
do not, by choice, dwell on these things in thought.
Now some people are inclined to pet this impulse of turning away. "Do
not think dark thoughts," they tell us, "the best insurance is
unconsciousness, insouciance, denial. Misfortune will pass you by if
you do not look for it."
Perhaps there is something to be said for this method when it comes
with absolute spontaneity from the innermost nature. But if for the
radiant apprehension of beauty and health we substitute an effort to
cling to the picture of good when our very bodies and nerves are
warning us with suggestions of evil, we run grave risks. By adopting
someone else's sense of freedom from danger and repressing our own
conviction that for us a certain danger, more or less remote, exists,
we are putting great pressure upon ourselves. At times of ill-health
or accidental worry, a sleepless night may bring us an agonising
succession of imaginative pictures, those very pictures which we have
attempted to banish from our daily life. If we have still greater
power of repression these grim images, forbidden throughout every
moment of waking life, may reappear in dreams.
(Of the still more serious dangers of repression and of its relation
to various forms of insanity, this is hardly the place to speak.[11]
It ought not to be necessary to appeal to alarming instances in order
to make us attend to a suggested warning.)
[11] See Bernard Hart's illuminating treatment of the whole subject in
_The Psychology of Insanity_, Cambridge Manuals of Science.
Now if we decide to regard all fear as a suggestion of precaution, the
emotional part of it to be laid aside as soon as it has fulfilled its
function of arousing interest and directing action, it is easy to see
the psychological justification for insurance.
Of course pecuniary insurance is but one instance of such sequences of
action, though it happens to be a rather obvious one. In a different
field, most of us know the delightful feeling of relief experienced
after consulting a doctor about some symptom that has perhaps been
troubling us for a long time. "May I safely do this? Ought I to
refrain from that?" and such perpetually recurring irritations to the
attention are replaced by the knowledge that it is now the doctor's
business to decide whether this or that is "serious," and that as
long as we carry out his orders we may lay aside all worry about the
matter.
So in the case of fire insurance, what we are really buying with our
annual premium is freedom from haunting questions as to the loss that
would ensue if our house or shop or office were burnt down or damaged.
Whenever the thought comes, it may, as far as the money loss is
concerned, be dismissed.
We see then that instead of keeping the suggestion of such misfortunes
before us, as some people might allege, the act of insurance
substitutes for vague and recurrent fears a formal and periodical
recognition of possibilities, a recognition, too, that contains within
itself a precaution against some of the results of the misfortune
should it ever occur. What we buy, at the cost of a fixed number of
pounds or shillings of money and a few minutes of time once a year, is
the right to put the dangers out of our consciousness altogether and
yet leave no residuum of repressed fear to split up our personality or
give us indigestion.
If we choose, for some reason or other, to let our imagination dwell
on the objective side of the possibility we have insured against, we
shall find a pleasure in thinking of what can be done by many people
working together. If we need help to meet some misfortune, it is ours
as a right, not doled out to us through others' pity. And every year
that we have made no claim we have the delight of knowing that we are
helping those who need.
The art of working together is yet in its infancy. But if even the
present standard of method devised for money insurance were to be
adopted in the deeper matters which we so often allow to trouble us,
what an advance in mental development we should have made and what new
possibilities of safe action would be opened up!
E.M. COBHAM.
* * * * *
Every youth should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with
his hands.--_Ruskin._
THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF VEGETALISM.
This article has been translated from the French of Prof. H. Labbe,
the head of the _laboratoire a la Faculte de Medecine_, in Paris. It
reflects a rather characteristic aloofness to any considerations other
than scientific or economic. But it will well repay careful
study.--[EDS.]
I
Vegetarianism has been the object of many attacks, and has also been
warmly defended. Most of its adepts have sought to give the value of a
dogma to its practice.
For quite a number of people "vegetarianism" is a kind of religion,
requiring of its votaries a sort of baptism, and the sacrifice of many
pleasures. It is this which justifies the infatuation of some, and the
systematic disparagement of others.
"Vegetalism"[12] cannot pretend to play a similar part, or to lend
itself to ambiguity. To be a "vegetalist" is to choose in the
vegetable kingdom, with a justified preference, foods susceptible of
filling the energy-producing needs, and the needs of the reparation of
the human system.
"Vegetalism" is a chapter of dietetic physiology which must utilise
the precise methods and recent discoveries of the science of
nutrition.
[12] The word "Vegetarianism" implies a judgment of the qualities
which such a diet entails. This word is derived, in fact, from the
Latin adjective "Vegetus" (strong). The word "Vegetalism," which we
oppose to the preceding one, admits only the establishing of a fact,
that of the choice--exclusive or preferred--of the nutritious matters
in the vegetable kingdom.
II
Before putting "vegetalism" into practice the first point is to know
whether the foods of "vegetal" origin contain, and are susceptible of
producing regularly, the divers nutritive principles indispensable to
the organisation of an alimentary diet. The principles are the
following:--Proteid or albuminoid substances; hydrocarbonated and
sweet substances fatty substances; mineral matters, alkalis, lime,
magnesia, phosphates and chlorides, etc. In most compound foods, no
matter of what origin, mineral materials almost always exist in
sufficient quantities. The most important amongst them, at all events,
are found combined in liberal, even superabundant, portions in dishes
of vegetal origin. The analysis of the ashes of our most common table
vegetables fixes us immediately to this subject: Leguminous plants
supply from about three to six per cent. of ashes, rich in alkalis,
lime and phosphates. Potatoes, green vegetables and fruit as a whole
absorbing considerable quantities of mineral elements. These are the
elements of a nature to allow a precise reply to this question which
we propose to expound briefly.
III
In order to examine a food thoroughly, for the purpose of ascertaining
if it can be advantageously introduced for consumption, whether
albumins, fats, hydrate of carbon, or sugar, etc., or again an
association of these principles in a composite article of food are in
question, divers researches must be carried out before giving a final
judgment.
If a more or less complex article of food is in question, before
considering it as a good nutriment, its centesimal composition, or its
immediate composition, should be established; its theoretic calorific
power should be known, and it should be measured if this has not yet
been done.
Besides the calorific yield thus estimated _in vitro_, the real
utilisation in the human organism of articles of food alone or mixed
with other foods should be determined, taking simultaneously into
account their effects, whether tonic, stimulating or depressing.
From a different point of view it is no longer allowable to neglect
before judging whether such and such a nutritive substance is
advantageous, the valuation of what we have called, with Prof.
Landouzy, the economic yield--that is to say, the price of the
energy, provided by the unity of weight of the article of food.
It is only in reviewing "vegetal" substances, taking these divers
titles into consideration, that we shall be justified in attributing
to the practice of "vegetalism," integral or mitigated, its definite
value.
IV
Only a few years ago, when Schutzenberger, emulator and forerunner of
Fischer, Armand Gautier, Kossel, first disjointed the albuminoid
molecule, to examine one by one its divers parts, the composition of
the various albumins was very little known. Whether, therefore,
albumins of the blood, or those of meat or eggs, were in question,
these bodies were hardly ever separated, except through physical
circumstances, amongst others by constant quantities of different
coagulation. As to the centesimal formula and the intimate structure
of the different protoid substances, they could be considered as
closely brought together.
From this fact, the physiological problem of the utilisation of
albumin was simpler. No matter which article of food contained this
albumin, its nutritive power by unity of weight remained the same. At
the present time the number of albumins is no longer limited. It is
not now physical characteristics founded difficult separations which
arbitrarily distinguish those bodies from each other. The
individuality of each of the albumins results from its formula of
deterioration, under the influence of digestive ferments, or of
chemical bodies acting in a similar way, as do mineral acids and
alkalis. For want of constituary formula this methodical deterioration
makes known the number of molecules (acids or other bodies) which are
responsible for the structure of each albumin. These deleterious
formula of proteid matter are not less suggestive than composition
ones. They reveal notable differences between "vegetal" and animal
albumins.
To be sure, animal albumins (beef, veal, mutton, pork, etc.) which we
are offered in an alimentary flesh diet, resemble more nearly the
structure of our own bodily albumins than do the gluten of bread or
the albumin of vegetables. This fact seems actually the best support
of the theory which affirms the superiority of the flesh over the
vegetable diet. Such a remark is therefore well worth discussing by
showing that the consequences which can be deduced from it are
paradoxical, and rest upon hypothesis which, not very acceptable in
theory, are hardly verified in practice.
Admitting that albumin plays in alimentary diet only the plastic part
of reconstruction of used-up corporal matter, it might be advantageous
to ingest but one albumin the composition of which is very similar to
our own. By virtue of the law of least effort such a one in equal
weights ought to be of more service than a foreign albumin, as it
requires less organic work. For man, albumin of animal origin ought to
be more profitable in equal weight than vegetable albumin. In the
organism, indeed, albumin passes through a double labour. After the
intestinal deterioration, followed by a passage through the digestive
mucus membrane, a re-welding of the liberated acids takes place, with
a formation of new albumin.
If, therefore, alimentary albumin's mission is, not to be definitely
burnt up in the organism, but to help in the plastication of the
individual, the more its initial formula approaches the definite one
to which it must attain, the more profitable it becomes, giving out
less useless fragments and waste. Animal albumin approaching more
nearly to human albumin, is also the one whose introduction into the
daily alimentary diet is most rational. This statement seems to be the
defeat of vegetal albumin. But let there be no mistake. It consecrates
at the same time the triumph of anthropophagy, for there could not be
for man a more profitable albumin than his own, or that of his
fellow-man! This should make us pause and reflect, before allowing
this deduction to be accepted.
Besides, these arguments _ad hominem_ do not appear to us necessary
for repelling such an interpretation of facts. Modern works have
shown us that the greater proportion of ingested albumin played, in
fact, a calorific, and not a plastic, part. Under these conditions one
is justified in doubting whether there takes place with regard to the
total albumins ingested a work of reconstruction thus complicated in
the organism, after their first deterioration. Evidently one may come
to believe that this complicated labour applies only to the more or
less feeble portion of albumin really integrated.
Practically speaking, the best criterion for judging the utilisation
of an ingested albumin lies in the persistence of the corporal weight,
allied to the ascertained fact of a stable equilibrium in the total
azotized balance-sheet which is provided by the comparison of the
"Ingesta" with the "Excreta." From this point of view there exists the
closest similitude between the albumins of animal and those of
vegetable origin; both, in fact, are capable of assuring good health
and corporal and cellular equilibrium.
However, the digestibility of vegetable albumins seems to remain
slightly inferior to that of animal albumins. 97 per cent. of the
animal fibrine given in a meal are digested, where 88 to 90 per cent.
only of vegetable albumins are absorbed and utilised. It is a small
difference, but not one to be overlooked. We must say, however, that
the method one employs in determining these digestibilities takes from
them a part of their value, and renders difficult the comparison of
results obtained. Sensibly pure albumins are too often compared in an
artificial diet. One deviates thus from the conditions of practical
physiology. In fact, in ordinary meals, all varieties of foods are
mixed together, acting and reacting upon each other, reciprocally
modifying their digestibility. If one conforms to this way of acting
towards alimentary albumins, the results change sensibly. In the
presence of an excess of starch, under the shape of bread, for
example, vegetable albumin seems to be absorbed in about the same
proportions as animal albumin.
If, in a flesh diet, animal albumins are always consumed nearly pure
(lean meat containing hardly anything but albumin, besides a little
fat, and an inferior quantity of glycogen) vegetable albumin is
always, on the contrary, mixed with a number of other substances. This
is doubtless one of the reasons which causes the digestibility of
vegetable albumins to vary, the foreign nutritive matters being able
to bring about, under certain circumstances, and in cases of
superabundant ingestions, a real albuminous "saving" in the newest
sense of the word.
Besides, a prejudicial question makes the debate almost vain. When it
was admitted by such physiologists as Voit, Rubner and their school
that from 140 to 150 grammes of albumin in the minimum were daily
necessaries in the human diet, a variation of a few units in the
digestive power presented some importance. Nowadays the real utility
of albumins is differently appreciated. The need of them seems to have
been singularly exaggerated; first lowered to about 75 gr. by A.
Gautier, it has dropped successively with Lapicque, Chittenden,
Landergreen, Morchoisne and Labbe, by virtue of considerations both
ethnological and physiological, to 50 grs., 30 grs. and even to 25 or
20 grammes. The "nutritive relation"--that is to say, the yield from
albuminoid matters to the total nutritive matters of diet--is thus
brought down from 1/3 its primitive value to 1/15 or 1/20 at most. It
follows that the slight inferiority found in the digestive powers of
vegetable albumin appears unimportant. It is sufficient to add 2 or 3
more grammes of albumin to a ration already superabundant of from 40
to 50 grammes of vegetable proteins to bring back a complete
equilibrium in the use of vegetable and animal varieties. The
theoretical inferiority of vegetable albumin thus almost completely
disappears.
H. LABBE.
(_To be continued._)
* * * * *
If your system has become clogged, go slow--and fast.
ODE TO THE WEST WIND.
O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes! O thou
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill
Wild Spirit which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!
Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear!
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers
So sweet the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision,--I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee--tameless, and swift, and proud.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own?
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe,
Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.
WHAT MAKES A HOLIDAY?
What is it makes a holiday? Some people want Paris, some Monte Carlo,
one man cannot be satisfied without big game to hunt, another must
have a grouse moor. The student has his sailing boat, the young
wage-earner his bicycle, three girl friends look forward to their week
in a Hastings boarding-house. Almost anything may be "a change"; most
things, to someone or other, are "a holiday." What does it all mean?