A treatise on food and dietetics : physiologically and therapeutically considered / [F.W. Pavy].

  • Frederick William Pavy
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on food and dietetics : physiologically and therapeutically considered / [F.W. Pavy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    by the time devoted to the consumption of food. Indeed, as we are designed by Nature for a mixed diet, so it may be considered that the most appropriate mode of taking food is something between that adopted by the animal and the vegetable feeder ; and this happens to accord with the general practice of the majority of nations. The prevailing custom—and, doubtless, this has arisen from instinct and from what has been found by experience to be best suited to our requirements—is for three meals of a substantia] nature to be taken during the day, at intervals of about five or six hours' duration. Observation has shown that an ordinary meal is digested and has passed on from the stomach in about four hours' time, and thus, according to the precept laid down, the stomach is allowed to remain for a short period in a state of quiescence before it is filled with food again. It is important that we should break our fast, or, as the term goes, breakfast, without much delay after rising. The length of time that has elapsed since the last meal of the previous day leads to a demand for food for the ordinary purposes of life. The system, moreover, at a period of fasting—as experience has but too plainly, and it may be said, on some occasions, painfully testified— is more prone to be perniciously influenced by infection, miasmata, exposure to cold, and other morbid conditions, and less adapted for sustaining fatigue than at any other time. In any case, therefore, where exposure to influences of this kind has to be undergone, it becomes of the deepest importance that food should be previously taken. The size of the meal should be regulated by collateral circum- stances. If food has been taken late in the previous evening, the appetite is not great for food in the morning. Where considerable exertion has to be afterwards sustained, a substantial meal may be looked upon as advisable. Otherwise, however, a light meal will be found most conducive to health and activity. A maid of honour, it is stated, in the court of Elizabeth, breakfasted upon beef and drank ale after it. Such may be compatible with plenty of out-door exercise to carry ofF the meal, but not so with the in-door life which is led by so many of the present generation. Supposing breakfast to be taken at 8 or 9 a.m., the next meal, no matter by what name it is called, should follow about I or 2. A fairly substantial meal should be taken at this time, and it does not signify whether it goes under the name of luncheon