The Proper Food for Man.*

BY J. D. BUCK, M. D.,

of Cincinnati, Ohio.

Foods are those substances which when introduced into the body are capable of renewing and maintaining its structure and vitality. Aside from the direct renewal of tissue and vitality there are certain substances that have a more direct relation to the heat of the body. These are classed with foods though alone they are incapable of renewing the tissues. The normal temperature of the body bears always a direct ratio to its vitality, and these heat-producers, like the fats and oils, are more or less incorporated with albuminates in the production of tissues. There is again another class of substances-the product of fermentation and distillationclassed as stimulants, heat-producers and yet not, strictly speaking, nutritious. Just as the fats are capable of being rapidly oxydized and so to increase the heat of the body, so malt and alcoholic liquors act as a stimulant to the vitality of the organism so that a larger amount of energy may be expended within a given time, but to be followed by proportionate after exhaustion. To the substances already named must also be added water and air as promoting both nutrition and vitality.

Medicines and foods may be contrasted in this wise. Medicines are directly related to the forces of life and indirectly to the tissues; while foods are directly related to tissues and indirectly to vitality.

The present is, however, not the place or time for an elementary treatise on foods, stimulants or medicines. These subjects have been carefully investigated and the results are easy of access. The point to which I desire to draw attention is the two great classes of foods derived in the one case from the vegetable kingdom, and in the other from the animal world, or vegetable and animal foods. Of these two classes the vegetable foods are inclusive and animal foods exclusive. So far as the chemistry of nutrition is concerned every element really necessary for the maintenance of animal or human life is to be derived from the fruits and vegetables, while strictly animal substances, both in theory and in fact, can furnish but a part of the necessary and healthy nutriment of man. In other words, animal substances furnish nothing necessary for man that cannot be found in fruits and vegetables.

It is not my purpose to recite statistics or the result of experiment in support of this statement, though these are by no means wanting. There have been not only whole communities, but whole nations, who have entirely excluded animal foods from their bill of fare, and statistics show that such peoples have been remarkably free from both disease and crime. Aside from mere chemism and the equivalents of energy, there is a more subtle quality involved, and it is this quality that I regard as of prime importance. It is an old saying that " man grows like what he feeds on," and if we take into account the quality as well as the quantity of energy to be derived from foods, the discussion narrows down to our aims and ideals." If our aim is to breed a warlike race, who shall cut throats without compunction and be enthusiastic subjects of tyrannical aggression, we should feed them largely on beef and rum. We have here the concentration of energy of the grossest form; but the vitality of animals is inseparable from the disease of animals. A short, wild, brutal life is the inevitable result of such feeding. While it is true that meat-eaters and rum-drinkers have

*Read before The Ohio State Sanitary Association.

sometimes reached a ripe old age, it is not true that the quality of the life forces of these have exhibited the higher human attributes in any large degree. On the other hand, it is true that a great majority of those persons who have been noted for longevity have been exceedingly temperate and abstemious, if not exclusive vegetarians. It is well known that animals like the beef, the sheep, and the hog, are subject to many diseases that affect human beings. Catarrhal diseases of the intestinal tract and air-passages, diseases of the liver and kidneys, are very common in all these food-animals. Nor is the presence of these diseases to be detected from examination of the carcass after the diseased organs have been removed. Beyond these undetected taints of animal foods, there are others known to food-inspectors of so gross and palpable a nature as to be easily seen, and where hucksters are so often detected in exposing for sale meats palpably diseased, it may readily be inferred that no conscientious scruples will induce them to destroy foods that present no visible taint, even when known to be present.

With fruits and vegetables the case is very different. Freshness and soundness can easily be determined by anyone, and were such not the case the poisonous effects arising here are in no way comparable to those arising from the diseased animal carcass. We are indebted to the hog and the sheep for trichina and tape-worm, though these are doubtless among our lesser obligations. If the superiority of man over the animals is manifest in the shambles and the reeking abattoir, our dumb brothers manage to balance the account by transmitting to us all their diseases.

I hold that meat-eating is an acquired appetite—unnatural and unnecessary—not justified by any known law of physiology, and that it is the cause of many diseases. If mere brawn, strength of muscle and endurance are the only things desired, the horse and the ox certainly get these from grass and grain; but if we are not satisfied in developing these but must develop the tiger and the goat, we can become both blood-thirsty and salacious at once by living largely on animal foods.

Every physician is aware that the average citizen is not remarkably abstemious or temperate; he eats far more than either health or comfort require, and many diseases are directly traceable to over-feeding. It is just this tendency to over-feeding that meat-eating stimulates. The vegetarian seldom suffers from hunger, and yet eats with relish at the allotted time. There are probably more diseases due to over-feeding than to strong drink, and yet this form of intemperance is but slightly condemned.

The diet of the sick offers no exception to the foregoing suggestions. The idea that the sick or those debilitated by disease must be fed on animal broths, beef tea, and the like, is a relic of barbarism. Fats and phosphates are generally the elements needed in such cases, and animal substances are rendered necessary only on account of previous habits and long generations of acquired and unnatural appetites. The white of an egg in a glass of milk contains far more real nourishment than an equal quantity of beef tea.

I am perfectly well aware that in expressing these views I am in a minority of the medical profession. So long as the venders of liquid filth, with every characteristic of carrion, can amass fortunes by the aid and "indorsement" of the medical fraternity, the minority to which I belong will be designated as cranks and croakers. The facts of nature, however, always disregard majorities, and the lessons of human experience are the only real tests of theories.

The promotion of health and the prevention of disease is beginning to be regarded as superior to all attempts at the cure of disease, and Boards of Health are emphasizing this higher aim and larger beneficence.

The time is not far distant when the question I have herein raised will be recognized as most vital in the prevention of disease, in the promotion of long and happy lives, and in the elevation of the mental and moral status of mankind. Then majorities will change sides, and it will be seen that the commandment "Thou Shalt not Kill" is without regard to the degree or quality of life. There will be no longer a "blood offering "to human appetite, and the "ruddy hue of health" will be no longer derived from the shedding of blood, but from the pure air and the sunlight where the fruits of the orchard and the flowers of the field get their beauty and bloom.

Will General Sanitation Ever Become Popular ?

BY JOHN MCCURDY, M. D.,

of Youngstown, Ohio.

*

What we mean is, will those laws that secure good health, long life, and a vigorous physical and mental condition be cheerfully learned and practiced?

In other words, will that branch of medicine known as preventive medicine, which can be learned and practiced by all laymen, be acquired and utilized?

It would seem natural to answer this in the affirmative when we call attention to the deadly epidemic known as the plague that visited Russia, Germany, Italy, England, and all nations in Europe, taking its hundreds of millions of victims in the aggregate; Hecker telling us that this disease alone swept from the earth 25,000,000 of people from the years 1347 to 1351. London alone having lost by it 100,000 a month, Venice the same, Paris 50,000, Avignon 60,000 in the same time, and it is believed that in England not one-tenth of her population escaped from this cause.

By the observance of the simplest sanitary injunctions this plague was barred from entering one nation after another, until the doors of all are now closed against it, and it has perished as a pestilence and a terror from the face of all civilized nations, and is not known to any of them even by name.

We can point to the visitations of cholera in France, Russia, Germany and England, and show that in the years 1831-32 the number of victims went up into the millions; but when this same disease visited these same countries, in 1873, so well was it understood, that its fangs were extracted just as civilization advanced.

In England it did not even attain the importance of an endemic.

We can turn to our own country and look at the condition of things in 1831-32, and note the incalculable ruin it wrought to life and industries; but pointing again to the same disease when it visited us in the years 1834-66, we see that its march was like that of a lion, paralyzed, with fangs extracted, all along the eastern part of our country, for the laws of preventive medicine were respected. The filthy South and West alone suffered severely.

* Read before the Ohio State Sanitary Association.

The typical filthy city of America is New Orleans.

Cholera visited it and the Mississippi River in the years 1832-34-48-66, gathering, as usual, a large number of victims, while the good sanitary condition of the East secured for her complete safety. Yellow fever has appeared in our country and the West Indies 180 times. It is safe to say that the South never escaped, and this disease continued to harvest its victims in it without opposition until the year 1863, when both General Butler and it started for New Orleans.

The General reached there first, bringing with him all the elements, both of yellow fever and cholera, in the large bodies of men with the indispensable host of camp-followers, who are entirely irresponsible in their habits of life; and added to these the vast numbers found in the city, depressed in body and mind by poor and scanty food and fright: people who were too ignorant, too poor, and too helpless to get away from it, and added to this the vast number of animals indispensable in the movement of large bodies; and to complete the above unfavorable conditions, the reeking filth and loathsome condition of this city with the germs of these diseases that had never left this old camping ground. What was there now wanting to generate a cyclone of death equal to that which ever visited any country?

While that city was held in the grip of General Butler, he, in turn, yielded ready obedience to his sanitary engineers, sanitary inspectors and medical officers, aiding them with just such an intelligent, earnest and ample force as they needed to carry out in a prompt and effective manner all plans for the securing of cleanliness.

So marked was the immunity from disease that not only were the eyes of all people cast upon it, but to this day it has been spared from both epidemics. How largely this single factor entered into the solution of the greatest governmental question of all time can be realized by all who have witnessed an epidemic in a crowded city.

The problem of self-government is watched by all intelligent, liberty-loving people upon the globe, and their eyes are all upon us, as we are the only example of a powerful people governing themselves voluntarily.

Suppose yellow fever and cholera had attacked our armies as pestilential diseases did large bodies of men of old. Where would have been the republic we to-day enjoy?

We can point to Memphis in 1879, with its yellow fever scourge.

There is not a city in our country we cannot point to for proof of the profit and vital importance of observing the laws of preventive medicine.

I shall cite a few extracts from the pen of that classical lay writer, Charles Dudley Warner, who in writing of our great West, as he saw it, says of the city of Memphis: The student of social science will find in the history of Memphis a striking illustration of the relation of sanitary and business conditions to order and morality. In 1878 the yellow fever came as an epidemic, and so increased in '79 as to nearly depopulate the city; its population was reduced from 40,000 to about 14,000, two-thirds negroes. Its commerce was absolutely cut off; its manufactures were suspended; it was bankrupt. The turning point in its career was the adoption. of a system of drainage and sewerage which immediately transformed it into a fairly healthful city. The inhabitants were relieved from the apprehension of the return of a yellow fever epidemic.

66

Population and business returned with this sense of security and it can now truthfully claim between 75,000 and 80,000." In practical sanitary reform, England first started, and is still in the lead, and she has no city which has profited more by it than her great manufacturing city, Manchester, with her more than half million people. Her sanitary records show that for all expenses of every kind, $435,000 were paid out in one year and for this, the actual saving of life was 2,301, about 1,000 of them between 20 and 70-or a gain of $1,000,000, at the rate of $1,000 per person; add to this the saving for funeral expenses, about $75,000, and a gain of $250,000, that would have been spent in the treatment of 103,000 citizens preserved from sickness, and another $250,000 for the wages they must have earned; and then, at a very moderate computation, we have a gain of more than $1,500,000, to be set against the expenditure of $435,000-not including the bodily suffering of the sick, and the mental distress of the friends.

Professor Pettenkofer, of Munich, Germany, has made careful estimates of the German cities with about the same showing. New York, in our country, is the great sewer into which is poured, more than any single city, the scum and slush of Europe and the West Indies, in addition to her own; and although, invaded by every form of pestilence, nearly every day in the year, her health department has demonstrated again and again its ability to starve or stamp it out, till now every family and individual feels that nothing can molest or make them afraid; although before her health department was organized, one case would put "a thousand, and two, ten thousand to flight."

It would seem, from what has been said, that the people would cheerfully respond and be eager to enforce sanitation, but exactly the opposite is true.

That city does not exist upon the globe to-day with a sense of cleanliness strong enough to keep herself clean voluntarily. The determination and deadly resistance between the health department and the great bulk of the people, corporations and many manufacturers is as deep and desperate as that displayed at the Battle of Gettysburg. People will not keep clean. The natural bent of human nature is to filth and poverty, and the virtue of personal and property cleanliness, like all others, is secured by hard and persistent effort; by driving up hill the vice, ignorance, laziness and poverty that stand in the way. The refined, the educated, the selfrespecting and the enterprising only are the friends of cleanliness. The advocates of protective medicine show facts clear and strong as the sunlight in the protective powers of vaccination, but it avails not. In Paris, where vaccination is lax, there there are yearly 10 deaths to each 100,000 inhabitants; and in Zurich, where the mortality was 8 in 100,000, the vaccination ordinance was repealed, and at once the deaths rose to 85 per 100,000. Then, look across to Germany, where it is enforced by law, and in the face of all those elements so productive of contagious diseases as large standing armies and immense numbers of poor-there is not 1⁄2 of one to the 100,000; and in London, where the law is rigidly enforced, there is only of one to 100,000, and this, too, in the face of poverty, squalor, vice, ignorance and filth. Yet in all the latter countries the enemies of vaccination are so numerous, fierce and persistent, that they are organized and expend large sums of money trying to defy the law and have it obliterated. We point them to Germany, England and France and the United States, and show them the lives lost, and the fabulous sums of money filth costs in disease, and still every city and town presents