FOREWORD.

It has been said, with considerable truth, that man is not by nature a drinking animal. If present-day economic and climatic conditions permitted, and man’s normal palate called for, a universal, daily and abundant use of fresh fruits and vegetables, the necessity for drinking, per se, would disappear, and this book would not need to have been written. Modern civilized life, however, includes an omnivorous diet, widespread adulteration of foodstuffs, a sparsely cultivated countryside and a scarcity throughout the greater part of the year of cheap, sound fruit and salad vegetables. Such factors have produced a physical degeneracy in our midst, clear to all who have eyes to see and perfectly obvious to anyone who is of necessity brought into immediate daily contact with physical disease and ill health. This degeneracy is revealed in bodies all more or less clogged with waste and effete material, a condition clearly traceable to faulty diet and unnatural environment.

A human body thus clogged needs liquid for cleansing purposes, and that need expresses itself in thirst, since it is Nature’s voice. Unfortunately, civilized man is in the habit of answering that cry for liquid by imbibing beverages which not only do not cleanse, but which in many instances sadly aggravate the very conditions which created the thirst.

The aim of this book is to make known the vast array of cleansing, curative, tonic and nutritive beverages which, at any given season of the year, can be prepared from the materials supplied by a prodigal Nature.

In the following pages, much light is thrown (in passing) upon the working of the human body, the nature of disease, the process of digestion, the rationale of Nature Cure methods, the principles of sensible diet and the harmful nature of certain popular beverages and commodities.

The chief indication of the need of liquid is thirst. This statement needs qualifying. When thirst is caused by over-indulgence in stimulating drinks, alcoholic or otherwise, the drinking of further stimulants will not satisfy Nature, even if, for the moment, the feeling is stilled. Moreover, when thirst is induced by the eating of salted, over-seasoned, or adulterated and preserved foodstuffs, the mere fact of freely drinking fluids of any kind will not correct the sensation of thirst.

To permanently overcome thirst it is not only necessary to choose a suitable beverage that is really cleansing and cooling, but also to remove the cause of that unnatural thirst by abstaining from the types of food and drink which produce it. Hence the urgent need, among the public, of a better knowledge of food chemistry, of the simple construction of the human body, and of the right kind of food reform, which is inseparable from that study.

Every care has been taken to ensure accuracy. Most of the recipes have been tested, and the subjects have been arranged alphabetically to facilitate easy reference.

I have to thank Mr. E. J. Saxon for carefully revising the MS. of this book and for preparing same for the press. His wide knowledge of the subject has eminently fitted him to give me this assistance.

H. Valentine Knaggs, L.R.C.P., etc.

55a, Welbeck Street, W.