Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge.

  • Ridge, Benjamin
Date:
1861
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Ourselves, our food, and our physic / by Benjamin Ridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    72/220 (page 60)
    cannot possibly define wliat it is in the end tliat does ns the most good, cither as nourishment or medicine. We know tliat a certain class of food jn’oduces animalized constituents, which are the nitrogenized variety; that anotlicr class pro- duces heat; and a third, the uon-nitrogenous, which have the propei'ties of stufifers, to keep the alimentary tract properly tilled, especially the large intestines, and whilst doing so, generate the vitalizing gases. Again, the variety of food, considered as diet and medicine, may at times, from a peculiar condition of the elements witliin the system, act in the latter capacity, and produce vomiting or jmrging, to the great benefit of the system generally. IIci*e then, without ai-tificial assistance, disease becomes arrested, because the first elements that produce it have been removed. It is a very pleasing study to know the elementary consti- tuents of everything, and trace ‘ all flesh to grass,’ to show the animals that feed on these vegetable substances, and man on them. There are, however, reasonable bounds put to oiu’ knowledge for our own good, which dietitians endeavour to transgress by eschewing the things that might do them good, and then flying to medicine which docs them harm. Our jihi- losophy should take the broadest gauge in the matter of diet. Every country funiishes something distinctive, and its denizens take that which is the most fitting for them in the climate in which they live. The old a.xiom, ‘ When at Homo do as the Eomans,’ should be followed. If it be seen that in hot countries the use of alcohol or sj)irit is al)jurcd, and vege- table predominates over the animal or flesh diet, there is some good reason for it. So with the blubber and fat con- simied mostly by the Greenlanders and Esquimaux. 'With respect to ourselves oim habits arc varied; yet with all this there lurks a deep philosophy in all wo do, if we only search after it. Why is it that throughout the kingdom a preference exists for roast, broiled, or baked, over boiled ipeats ? that out of the whole three hundred and sixty-five days, probably not thirty days can be reckoned for boiled-meat dinners by the most ardent lovers of this fare? No one knows why they do this or why it is best for them, beyond the fact that they prefer it. When the arbitrary acts of routine in the army, navy, or large estal)lishmeuts compel a deviation from this, the result is diseiuso and death in a larger proportion in these