The human body viewed as a machine : suggestions for the promotion of longevity / by Adoniram B. Judson.

  • Judson, Adoniram Brown, 1837-1916.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The human body viewed as a machine : suggestions for the promotion of longevity / by Adoniram B. Judson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    ate, or the dictates of fashion. It is certainly not the part of wisdom to feed the body in this haphaz- ard way, to strive for great variety, to levy tribute on beasts, birds, and fishes at every meal, and to gather condiments and stimulants from the ends of the earth. If the old proverb is true that hunger is the best sauce, then the pleasures of the table are by no means absent from the board abundantly spread with simple food. The columns of profit and loss are cited to prove that the engine requires sim- ple fuel. Why not calculate as closely when pro- viding for the wants of the body? The care given to the locomotive or the marine engine may well be extended to that other incomparable machine, of which it was said: “What a piece of work is man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable!” A competent continuous diet might include starchy vegetables, fat meat, bre^d and other cere- als, milk, plain cake or pudding, fruit, and the cus- tomary liquids. Such food should carry one a long way toward the desired goal of a late and happy old age. Striking a just balance, the vain delights of extravagant variety may be set over against re- curring bilious attacks, dyspepsia, abnormal intro- spection, ill temper, a blighted complexion, rheu- matism, and other complaints due, in part at least, to the dietetic follies of mankind. Fuel is prepared for the engine with the greatest care. It is broken up and screened till the size of its particles is adapted to the wants of the machine. If the same careful attention were paid to the prep- aration of food there would be less trouble from the early decay and loss of the teeth. A man of middle age said that he had arrested purulent Riggs’s dis- ease by ceasing to chew his meals. When asked if he did not think it was necessary to grind his food