Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:: 1883-1892

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

47/896 page 33

$milk and eggs.* London needle-women were found to be starving upon tea, bread, and bacon, costing 2s. 7d. per week, while Irish labourers were well fed on potatoes, milk, and maize, at a cost of Is. 9|d. per week. Under the head of Drink, I shall not take up Water, which is to form the subject of a separate lecture, but pass at once to say something about stimulants. Depression may arise from bad air or from over-fatigue, or from ill health. Bad air is to be remedied by ventilation, and for bad health a physician should be consulted. Alcoholic stimulants are the worst we can select, speaking generally, for the effects pass off with great rapidity, and leave the depression worse than before. There is no doubt that alcoholic liquors should be abjured by growing people except under medical advice, and for grown-up people the only time that they cannot be proved to do marked harm is when taken largely diluted, along with food, ifter the day's work is done. I may refer you to experiments carried on by the late Dr Parkes, at Netley Hospital. He selected three men to be experi- mented upon—Sergeant-Major Don, Private P. Holz, and Private W. Hutchins. These men volunteered to undergo experiments for a week, in the shape of marches in heavy marching order, carrying a total weight, including the clothes on their persons, of 51 lbs. Dr Parkes states that, ' having breakfasted at six o'clock, they started at seven, and marched 13^ miles without a halt or refresh- ment of any kind. This march was accomplished in 4 hours and 20 minutes. After resting for an hour, during which their pulses and temperatures were taken, they received either rum, or extract of meat, or coffee, with, in each case, ten fluid ounces of water. They then marched i\ miles, making 17J in all, and then, after another halt, had a second allowance of the same substance, with the same quantity of water. A march of 3 miles was then made, making 20J miles. The rate of march was 3*2 miles per hour; the time taken was hours, of which two were occupied with halts. At the end of the last march the men had their dinner. * See ' Food Reform Association's Cookery Book,' by Tarrant: worth buying. Price 2d. 0$

Health lectures for the people.

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