Note 11 — Chapter I · NATURE’S INSURGENT SON

As little is the question of the use and abuse of food and drink dealt with, as yet, by civilized man. As in many other matters man has carried into his later crowded, artificial, nature-controlling life habits and tendencies derived from savage prehistoric days, so has he perpetuated ways of feeding which are mere traditions from his early ‘animal’ days, and have never been seriously called in question and put to proof. The persistence under new conditions of either habit or structure which belonged to old conditions may be attended with great danger and difficulty to an organism which changes, as man does, with great rapidity important features in its general surroundings and mode of life. This is in effect Metschnikoff’s doctrine of ‘désharmonies.’ It is probable that in very early days when a tribe of primitive men killed a mammoth, they all rushed on to the dead monster and gorged as much of its flesh as they could swallow (cooked or possibly uncooked). They had to take in enough to last for another week or two—that is to say, until another large animal should be trapped and slain. Accordingly he who could eat most would be strongest and best able to seize a good share when the next opportunity arrived, and it naturally became considered an indication of strength, vigour, and future prosperity to be capable of gorging large quantities of food. By means of the phrases ‘enjoying a good appetite,’ or ‘a good trencherman,’ or other such approving terms, civilized society still encourages the heavy feeder. The lower classes always consider a ravenous appetite to be an indication of strength and future prosperity in a child. Most healthy men, and even many women, in Western Europe, attack their food and swallow it without sufficient mastication, and as though they did not hope to get another chance of feeding for a week or two to come. Medical men have never ventured to investigate seriously whether civilized man is doing best for his health in behaving like a savage about his food. It is their business to attend to the patient with a disordered digestion, but not to experiment upon the amount of food of various kinds which the modern man should swallow in order to avoid indigestion and yet supply his alimentary needs. No individual can possibly pay medical men to make these observations. It is the business of the State to do so, because such knowledge is not only needed by the private citizen, but is of enormous importance in the management of armies and navies, in the victualling of hospitals, asylums, and prisons. Thousands of tons of preserved meat have been wasted in recent wars because the reckless and ignorant persons who purchased the preserved meat to feed soldiers had never taken the trouble to ascertain whether preserved meat can be eaten by a body of men as a regular and chief article of diet. It appears that certain methods of preserving meat render it innutritious and impossible as a diet.

It is probable from recent experiment that we all, except those unfortunate few who do not get enough, eat about twice as much as we require, and that the superfluous quantity swallowed not only is wasted, but is actually a cause of serious illness and suffering. It surely is an urgent matter that these questions about food should be thoroughly investigated and settled. In the opinion of the most eminent physiologist of the United States (Professor Bowditch), we shall never establish a rational and healthy mode of feeding ourselves until we give up the barbarous but to some persons pleasant custom of converting the meal into a social function; we are thus tempted into excess. Only long and extensive experiment can provide us with definite and conclusive information on this matter, which is far more important than, at first sight, it seems to be. And similarly with regard to the admittedly serious question of alcohol—only very extensive and authoritative experiment will suffice to show mankind whether it is a wise and healthy thing to take it in small quantities, the exact limits of which must be stated, or to reject it altogether.