present time we are told that no considerable outbreak of this dreadful pestilence has occurred, except in Preston: a circumstance which must be traced, we think, to the methodical way in which the unemployed have been fed, as compared with the experience of 1847 in the same county. It is unfortunately impossible to procure sufficient data to construct an accurate table of the diseases produced by the scarcity of 1847-48 in Wiltshire and other districts similarly situated; but we know that among the principal results of a continuously meagre diet, such as a large part of the poor population were subjected to, bowel complaint, scurvy, scrofula, consumption, ulcers, rheumatism, and gout must be reckoned, besides a decidedly increased susceptibility to contagious fevers and acute inflammations. Nor must we forget the significant fact that among the poor of the poorer agricultural districts the proportion of lunacy is always uncommonly high.

So far, we may imagine the mind of an alderman to have dwelt with considerable complacency on our remarks. Under-feeding has been proved to be a most mischievous practice, to be avoided by all sensible people. In truth, however, this homily of ours on the evils of starvation has been introduced as a mere prologue to some serious remarks on the very opposite error into which as many of us as have the means are very apt to run, and for which we have not the excuse that "we couldn't help it." One hears very much in these days of the baneful practice of excess in drink; but it may be well to inform our readers that Dr. Fothergill, a physician of large experience, who had seen the worst of the old drinking times of the eighteenth century, expressed his deliberate opinion that even in the days when alcoholic debauches were fashionable, more harm was done by over-eating than by over-drinking. In the present day, at any rate, these words are, we believe, undoubtedly true; although we should hardly now-a-days agree with the notions that formerly prevailed as to the manner in which repletion works its evil effects.

First, as to repletion from mere quantity of food, this being decidedly in excess of what the healthy body requires, we may remark that whatever may be the truth, which is a matter of dispute, as to its producing a continuous and increasing state of plethora, of over-nourishment, with an accompanying tendency to congestion and a disposition to inflammatory disease, there can be no doubt that one of its most important evil results is the "fatigue," to use an expression of Dr. Brinton's, which it inflicts upon the organism. The researches of Bidder and Schmidt have proved that the various secretions which effect the elaboration of food are poured out in enormous quantities, and that so far from being altogether eliminated from the body, the greater part of them is again taken up into the blood. Now the secretion of complex fluids like these is, undoubtedly, a process which demands a large expenditure of vital force, and, in all probability, any unnecessary increase of such a process is highly exhausting to the system. Moreover, the systematic continuance of a diet which. calls for such increased exertions rapidly weakens the digestive powers,

and the ultimate result will inevitably be that less rather than more than the necessary amount of food will be concocted and made fit for the nutrition of the body, while the excreting organs will be taxed to the uttermost, and their powers seriously weakened for the important purpose of removing effete or poisonous matters from the body. It is thus possible that the over-fed man may be, in truth, at once starved and poisoned; and it may thus happen that the very diseases (e. g. gout) which are often produced by insufficient diet, may be caused by a wasteful supply of food.

In this country, at least, excess in eating means, for the most part, excess in consumption of flesh food; and unfortunately, the very persons who indulge most freely in this way are the least fitted for such habits, for they are generally individuals whose muscular system, from comparative disuse, is feebly developed. The alderman who indulges himself in half a dozen dishes, consisting of various kinds of flesh, and following a basin of rich turtle-soup, is not usually a Hercules as to muscle, or he might suffer less from his imprudence; for it has been established by physiologists that the animal whose muscular system is welldeveloped can dispose of more flesh food than a weaker animal. One of the most mischievous consequences of such a manner of feeding is the propensity engendered to take large doses of alcohol with the meals; and although some of the more immediate ill consequences of gourmandizing are thus obviated, the results are most unfortunate, for such doses of alcohol exercise an undoubtedly poisonous narcotic influence, not only upon the nervous system at large, but also, locally, upon the stomach, the nervous force of which they materially weaken. And when such liquors as port-wine are used in large quantity, the tendency to such disorders as gout, already sufficiently strong, is materially increased.

On the whole it may be said that absolute repletion, or excessive foodsupply, has most certainly a deteriorating influence upon the tissues, and in this way it is possible to account for most of the morbid affections to which the over-fed system is liable. The tendency to fatty and earthy degeneration of muscles and of blood-vessels, and to wearing out, so to speak, of secreting glands, which is produced, is sufficient to explain the diseases of the heart, of the liver, the kidneys, and the brain to which systematic over-eaters are liable.

But besides the 'absolute' repletion which is caused by a food-supply altogether excessive in quantity, scarcely less harm is done to the system by the exhausting efforts which are entailed upon it by irregular eating. The practice, which is so common, of crowding several hearty meals into the space of a few hours, and then leaving the stomach empty during a long period, is very hurtful, and among the wealthy classes may almost be called the source of dyspepsia. And where the same practice is followed by persons whose meals are composed of coarser and less digestible food, as by young servant-girls, serious disease of the stomach. is often produced, the evil effects being greatly increased by the haste

and carelessness with which the food is chewed, or, rather, not chewed. But with all persons the question, how much should be eaten at any one particular meal, must be determined not so much by absolute rules as by relative considerations. Much depends on the amount of bodily fatigue which may exist at the moment of eating; for under circumstances of great exhaustion a meal which at other times would be moderate, may prove altogether excessive; and a basin of soup, under such circumstances, may be more nutritious than a dinner of five courses. Yet such is the force of habit, that men who come home exhausted by a day's laborious work at chambers or counting-house constantly sit down to meals which would tax the energy of the most vigorous stomach.

Even supposing, however, that the digestive organs are of such potent vigour that they can dispose of burdens which are far beyond the just limit, and that in one way or another the enormous mass of food does for the most part get absorbed and carried into the blood, it is not to be supposed, as the over-feeder is apt to do, that all difficulties are at an end. Nothing can be more conclusive than the proof obtained by Bischoff and Voit, that the taking of an unnecessarily large quantity of flesh food (the ordinary form of gourmandizing in England) produces a marked increase in the rate of the waste of the tissues, even while it preserves or increases the total bulk of the body; and this process, carried beyond very restricted limits, is undoubtedly most unwholesome, and must come in time to interfere with the proper balance of physiological processes, and, in fact, result in what really amounts to starvation. It is thus that persons who may never in their lives have felt the necessity of checking a large appetite and an overweening love of rich savoury meats, may be laying for themselves the foundation of a real atrophy of organs, the integrity of which is essential to any long continuance of life.

If the reader now, in some alarm at these remarks, proceeds to inquire, "How much, then?" and endeavours to fix us to some exact quantitative rules, we must fairly tell him that he will be disappointed. So many considerations affect the question of the total bulk of daily food necessary, that absolute rules are impossible: nevertheless, it is extremely useful to examine those rough approximative calculations which have been made by various observers, both scientific and practical. Foremost in interest are some well-known experiments of Chossat, which show under what circumstances of feeding life can not be supported: any diet, he found, which permitted any one of the higher vertebrate animals to lose so much as two-fifths of its weight invariably proved fatal to its life when that point of wasting was reached. The experiments were repeated by Schuchardt with substantially the same results; and both these observers established the fact that improper feeding produced precisely the same results (though in a longer time) as absolute starvation. If we pass from the consideration of what will cause fatal starvation to the results of a diet only slightly, by comparison, deficient, we find an apt illustration of the results of such a style of feeding in the circumstances of Wiltshire

In

during the potato famine, and of Lancashire at this present time. the latter county, we learn from the quarterly report of the RegistrarGeneral that the average income of the unemployed population for a long time past has not exceeded 4d. per head per diem, while in a large number of cases it sinks far below this scale. But the prices of provisions are not at famine rate, and in this respect there is a vast difference from the state of things which prevailed in 1847; and, on the whole, the condition of the people may be said to represent a degree of nutrition not very materially below the line of sufficiency.

In Wiltshire there has always been a great difference between different districts as to the amount of wages; but in a large portion of the county they did not exceed 6s. a week prior to the potato famine: that was the price of the men's labour, and that source of income would be supplemented by the sums they could earn by piece-work, and at extraordinary times, such as harvesting. Morcover, many of the cottages had gardens attached to them, in which the labourers could grow vegetables, either for their own use or for sale. At present the wages in most places where they were originally 6s. have risen to 8s. per week; and we believe that, for the most part, this change was effected during the time of the distress of 1847-48: it is fair, therefore, to suppose that men in full work received 88. But, on the other hand, there was a great failure, not only in potatoes, but in other vegetables which at ordinary times might have been grown in the cottagers' gardens. In a large number of cases of families, consisting of man, wife, and three or four young children, 88. a week must have represented the whole income during the very worst times of distress from high prices; as, for instance, a month or two prior to the harvest of 1847, when bread rose to 1s. 5d. the 8 lbs. Now, if we subtract from the weekly 8s., 18. for rent, another 1s. for firing, and another 1s. for tea and sugar, there remains 5s. for the solid food-necessaries. If we allow the man and wife 8 lbs. of bread each, and three children 4 lbs. each per week, we consume another 3s. 64d., leaving only 1s. 5d. How would this small remaining sum be spent ?-in vegetables or meat, butter or cheese? It is impossible to give a precise answer to this question, but this much is certain, that many labourers' families lived altogether on bread, and that a large number more lived upon bread chiefly, supplemented with a little rice, of which the coarser kinds were then sold at 2d. per pound, and perhaps occasionally a few vegetables. Meat of all kinds disappeared almost totally (even bacon) from use, and butter and cheese were also for the most part given up. To the last, however, tea never appears to have been renounced; the people would rather stint themselves in solid food than do without that luxury, or necessary, as we may please to call it. It is a fact, that not only did these labourers live, in by far the greatest part, on bread, but that (like all poor persons whom we have ever known) they utterly refused to eat anything but the whitest and finest, that is, the least nutritious, kinds: and in this way the evils of the distress must have been most materially aggravated, not only as regards the actual

fatality of disease, but as regards the production of chronic diseases, such as low gout and rheumatism. On the whole, we are justified in saying that the scale of nutrition was certainly fully as low, and probably considerably lower than that prevailing among the unemployed of Lancashire at the present time; or, at least, that this would be true with regard to the northern division of Wiltshire, and this, too, with the men in work, and not idle, as the Lancashire operatives are. Somewhere about one pound and a half of bread per diem, together with a little tea, must have constituted the diet of many a working labourer—a diet which he would probably, with an almost pardonable instinct, in many cases supplement by running up a limited score for beer at the public-house.

Now if we turn from this picture, roughly drawn it is true, of an insufficient diet, to the declarations of physiologists as to what is sufficient, we shall find considerable diversity among their opinions. Valentin, who experimented on himself, states that about 6 lbs. per diem of solid and liquid food was the quantity which sufficed to keep him in full health; and Dr. Brinton, who agrees generally with this estimate, considers that 2 lbs. should consist of solid food. Dalton, an American physiologist, considers, from experiments made on himself, that about 24 lbs., of solids and 3 lbs. of liquids per diem is the proper quantity, at least when a diet is used consisting of bread, meat, butter, coffee, and water, as in his investigations. The elaborate researches of Vierordt give a different result, only about 18 ounces of solids being used, together with a much larger quantity of water than in either of the preceding estimates. But as the experiments of Valentin and Dalton were made on themselves, i. e. on persons actively exerting their minds (and probably their bodies also), whereas the subject of Vierordt's experiments seems to have been a mere human lay figure, using, probably, the minimum of exertion of any kind, no fair comparison can be made between the results.

So much for attempts roughly to decide the quantity of diet merely by weight. The fact, however, becomes very quickly apparent to any student of dietetics, that an immense deal depends on quality also, and numerous direct researches illustrate this principle very forcibly. In the first place, it is found that a monotonous diet, consisting of any one substance only, is very innutritious, a fact which agrees with Bischoff and Voit's observations on dogs. The latter observers found that to support dogs adequately upon a diet consisting of lean meat only, as much of the food must be used daily as would equal 1-20th to 1-25th of the entire weight of the animal. If, however, a certain small proportion of fat were added, the quantity of lean flesh required was reduced to an entirely disproportionate extent, not more than one-half or one-third as much being used. The substance on which, as the sole article of diet, it is easiest for the adult human being to subsist in health, is doubtless bread, but monotony even in the use of this admirable food has been abundantly proved to be very hurtful; and most probably this kind of sameness of diet co-operates powerfully with mere insufficiency of food in producing evil results in