Medical essays / by T.R. Allinson.

  • Allinson, T. R. (Thomas Richard)
Date:
1915
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical essays / by T.R. Allinson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The nature of the food, also, may cause obesity. Thus: all the starchy, sugary, oily, and fatty foods cause stoutness. The starchy foods are potatoes, rice, sago, tapioca, maca- roni, hominy, cornflour, &c. The sugary foods are the dried fruits, carrots, and artificial sugars. The oily and fatty foods are cream, butter, cheese, some fishes, fat fowls, and fat meats. ‘The vegetable fat foods are olives and nuts. When food is not burnt up by exercise, fatness results. Exercise burns up excess of food by consuming -it in the form of. work; exercise also carries more oxygen into the system, and this burns up waste. Men who are active and busy with their bodies rarely get stout ; thus one rarely ever sees a fat soldier, sailor, or anyone daily engaged in active duty. But porters, policemen, watchmen, and others who lead a life of not too active a nature, soon put on flesh. Persons who lead a sedentary life are stouter than those who do not. With sedentary habits and plenty of food stoutness comes on sooner than if we lead seden- tary lives and have but scanty food, or active lives and plenty of food. The last cause of obesity is the result of waste matter being left in the body. Alcohol in the form of beer, wines, or spirits causes retention of waste in the system, and so gives rise to obesity. Alcohol prevents the blood from freely carrying oxygen into the system, waste of all sorts is. retained, and obesity results. This is the worst kind of. stoutness, common amongst brewers’ men, and drinkers of of all sorts; it is bloatedness and diseasedness. ‘Tobacco is another cause of stoutness, as it slows the heart’s action, the blood does not get sufficiently purified, and the waste left in the system causes an increase in weight. — Ineffi-. ciency of the excretory organs is another cause, for when the excreting organs are in poor condition, or in a state. of disease, stoutness results as a consequence; but whatever the cause of it, obesity is always a sign of disease. Stout- ness often comes on in women between the ages of 40 and 50, because reproduction is then practically over, and the force expended in this function is used to digest excess of _ food, and nutriment in the form of fat gets stored up, as there i is less waste of it. RESULTS. —Stoutness causes an increased weight of the’ body; this makes it more difficult to get about. In races
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