Since an account of the properties of food is a part of the doctrine of
Hygiene, we shall add that to the preceding, having premised only a few
remarks before delivering the particular rules on this head; for nothing
is more indispensably necessary than to be well acquainted with the
properties of food. Things of an attenuating power open the pores, and
clear away the viscid humours which are impacted in them, and cut and
attenuate the thick; but when persevered in as articles of food, they
beget serous and bilious superfluities, or, if still longer continued,
they render the blood melancholic. One ought therefore to abstain from
the continued use of them, and in particular those who are of a bilious
temperament; for they only suit with those who have collections of
phlegm, and of crude, viscid, and thick humours. Those of incrassating
powers are sufficiently nutritious, and, if properly digested in the
stomach and liver, they form good blood, but occasion obstructions of
the spleen and liver. Of these some have only thick juices, as the dried
lentil, but some viscid, as the mallows; and in some they are both thick
and viscid, as the testaceous fishes. An attenuating diet is safer than
an incrassating for the preservation of health, but yet, as it supplies
little nourishment, it does not impart tone or strength to the body.
One ought, therefore, to take some moderately nutritious food, when
experiencing the effects of a deficient diet. They may do so with the
least danger who are given to exercises and can take as much rest as
they please. But all those who cannot take exercise before food ought to
avoid such things as are incrassating; and those who are of an indolent
habit ought by no means to take such food. For complete inactivity
is one of the greatest evils for the preservation of health, whereas
moderate exercise is particularly good. Those articles of food which are
intermediate between the incrassating and the attenuating are the best of
all, producing blood of a proper consistency. Such a diet, then, agrees
with our bodies, but that which produces a bad chyme ought to be shunned.
It is better also to avoid variety of food, more particularly if it
consist of contrary qualities; for such things, when taken together, do
not digest properly.
* * * * *
COMMENTARY. The ancient writers on Dietetics are, Hippocrates (de
Diæta, de Affectionibus, et alibi); Celsus (ii); Dioscorides (Mat. Med.
ii); Galen (de Facult. Alim., et de Probis Pravisque Aliment. Suc.);
Xenocrates (de Aliment, ex aquat.); Oribasius (Med. Collect. i et seq.);
Aëtius (ii); Simeon Seth (de Alimentis); Actuarius (de Spiritu Animali,
p. ii); Anonymus (Tract, ap. Ermerins Anecdota Græca); Marcellus (Sideta
de Piscibus); Psellus (Carmen de Re Medica); Rhases (ad Mansor. iii,
Cont. xxxiii); Avicenna (Cantic. p. ii); Averrhoes (Comment. de Cantic);
Haly Abbas (Theor. v, 15); Athenæus (Deipnos. passim); Plutarch (de
Sanitate tuenda, Symposiacon); Macrobius (Saturnal. vii); Cælius Apicius
(de Opsoniis); Geoponica (xii); Horace and Martial (pluries.)
Of all the ancient writers on Dietetics, Galen is beyond dispute the
best. In the two treatises mentioned above, he has treated of everything
connected with this subject so fully and so correctly, as to leave little
to be supplied even at the present day. All the subsequent authorities in
general are his servile copyists, with the exception of Averrhoes, who
commonly differs from him only by deviating into error.
The ancient philosophers were at great pains to explain why a regular
supply of food is necessary to the existence of animals. On this subject,
Timæus Locrus, Plato, and Aristotle have philosophized with great
acuteness and ingenuity. No one, however, has given a plainer account of
the matter than the poet Lucretius in the following verses:
“Illud item non est mirandum, corporis ipsa
Quod natura cibum quærit quoiusque animantis;
Quippe etenim fluere, atque recedere corpora rebus
Multa modis multis docui, sed plurima debent
Ex animalibus iis, quæ sunt exercita motu;
Multaque per sudorem ex alto pressa feruntur,
Multa per os exhalantur, quam languida anhelant:
His igitur rebus rarescit corpus; et omnis
Subruitur natura dolor quam consequitur rem.
Propterea capitur cibus, ut suffulceat artus,
Et recreat vires interdatus, atque patentem
Per membra ac venas ut amorem obturet edendi.”
(De Rerum Nat. iv, 856.)
The explanation given by one of Rhases’ authorities is to the same
effect. He says: “Since our bodies are in a continual state of waste
from the surrounding atmosphere, and the innate heat which is within, it
behoved them to have nourishment to supply the part which is melted down;
and, as all the food which is taken is not assimilated, it was necessary
that there should be passages for the discharge of the superfluities.”
Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, and Musonius (ap. Stobæi Sentent. 18)
remark that the stomach is to animals what the earth is to vegetables.
Our author’s general remarks on the properties of food are condensed from
Galen’s work. (De Prob. p. Al. suc.) Horace agrees with Galen and our
author in condemning the mixture of various articles of food. (Satir.
ii, 2.) The arguments for and against this practice are very ingeniously
stated by Macrobius. (Saturn. vii, 5, 6.) It appears that Asclepiades
maintained the opinion that a multifarious diet is most easily digested.
(Celsus, iii, 6.)
The ancients had the following meals during a day corresponding to those
now in use: breakfast, _jentaculum_, ἀκράτισμα; dinner, or rather lunch,
_prandium_, ἄριστον; soirée, _merenda_, ἑσπέρισμα; supper, _cœna_,
δεῖπνον. To these may be added the _commissatio_, κῶμος, which was a
sort of jollification after the great meal or supper. See Athenæus (lib.
i); Jo. Bruyer (de Re Cibar. iii, i); Lambinus (in Plut. Truculent,
ac. i, sc. 7, l. 16); Potter (Arch. Græc. iv, 16.) The common hour of
breakfast was about 7 o’clock a.m., of dinner about 3 p.m.; and of
supper about 8 p.m. The practice, however, of taking so many meals
appears to have been disapproved of by the physicians and _savans_: for
we find Actuarius discussing the question whether it be proper to eat
twice or only once in the day; and Galen decidedly recommends people
not to take food in general oftener than twice. Cicero even forbids to
take two full meals in a day. (Tuscul. Quæst. v.) Hippocrates speaks
with disapprobation of the practice of eating a full dinner. (De Vet.
Med.) Suetonius makes it a reproach to Domitian that he dined fully.
(In Domit.) Haly Abbas enters into a full examination of the question
with regard to the number of meals. Some, he says, eat only once in the
day, some twice, and others three times. He advises those persons who
are actively employed not to dine, because, if obliged to take exercise
immediately afterwards, the body will be loaded with half concocted
chyle. Upon the whole he prefers supper to dinner. (Pract. i, 13.)
Alsaharavius considers one meal in the day not sufficient for persons
of a gross habit of body. He advises persons not to change even a bad
regimen too suddenly. Rhases remarks, that to take another supply of food
before a preceding meal is digested, will prove highly prejudicial to the
health.
From the views of domestic life given in the Greek novels we are inclined
to think that the supper was the only meal which all the members of
a family of the better class partook of together. See in particular
Achilles Tatius (pluries.) The breakfast and dinner were light meals,
consisting of bread or cheese dipped in wine. (Apul. Metam. and Martial
Epigr.)
The ancient physicians attached great importance to the proper regulation
of the diet. Galen seriously admonishes his readers not to eat
thoughtlessly, like brute beasts, but to consider attentively what kinds
of food and drink they find from experience to be prejudicial to them.
(De Sanit. tuenda, vi, 13.)
According to Athenæus, a good physician ought to be a good cook.
(Deipnos. vii.) Upon the authority of Daphnus, the Ephesian physician,
he decides that night is the most proper time for taking the supper or
principal meal, because, says he, the moon promotes putrescency, and
digestion is a species of putrefaction. (vii, 2.)
The processes which food undergoes in the body from its first
introduction to its complete assimilation are stated in a very scientific
manner by Macrobius. In the first place, he says, it is dissolved in the
stomach, as much of it at least as is digestible, and that which is not
soluble passes down to the intestine, while the chyme, or portion which
has been dissolved, passes to the liver, there to undergo the second
process of digestion, namely, sanguification, or conversion into blood.
It then passes into the arteries or veins, where it undergoes its third
species of digestion, namely, purification, by having its recrementitious
particles sent off in the form of bile and urine. It is then conveyed to
the different parts of the body where the fourth process of digestion is
accomplished, namely, assimilation, by which it is converted into the
different substances of which the body is composed. (Saturnal. vii, 4.)