Page 147 - My FlipBook
P. 147
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Plugging the Teeth. 127
" The temporary celebrity occasionally obtained by adver-
tisers of cements, only attests the extreme disposition to gulli-
bility of the public. Few things are more mortifying to the
well informed practitioner, than to find his patients leaving
him to place themselves under the care of one of these puffing
pretenders of the day. The fashion for using cements will,
like all others pass away, and the great number of unsuccess-
ful cases will accelerate its progress to oblivion. It is an old
complaint, and though old, unhappily not an obsolete one,
that ignorant pretention, especially when wrapt in mystery,
is more attractive to the million than modest ability.
*'It is consoling however, to the respectable practitioner to
know, that while empirical tricKery may confer evanescent
fame, sound scientific aquirement, is the only basis, or which
can be founded a reputation solid, progressing and endur-
ing." Snell, page 158.
will convert it all to the purpose of nuiritioiv-. In proof of this law, there
are many cases on the records of medicine, of persons having lived on an
astonishing small quantity of food for a longtime; and again, of gor-
mandizers whose rapacity food could no. satisfy.
A case is related in les Anecdotes dc Medicine, of a French soldier,
who is said to have eaten a whole quarter of beef in a single day : he
used to contend with the dogs for the grocest food, and at length is sup-
posed to have taken to cannibalism.
There are three kinds of diet, the animal, vegito- animal or milk, and
the vegetable. The laboring man requires a stimulating diet er animal
food, as the following anecdote illustrates.
Three or four years ago, the hue and cry was raised in New York,
that the prisoners were beng starved at Sing Sing. An inquiry was
instituted, when it was ascertained that a liberal allowance of bread was
given them, but less of beef. The diet was ordered to be changed ; less
bread given, and more of animal food, when the complaint ceased.
The man who leads a sedentary life requires a nourishing diet, but a
less stimulating one, than the laboring man
: hence he should partake
largely of vegetable or vegito-animal food.
Nature kindly points out to man, the kinds of food best for him to par-
take of, in the different regions of the earth. Thus in the torrid regions, he
has little appetite for animal food, but mostly repasts on the various pro-
ductions of the earth. As we recede from the torrid towards the frozen
regions, a more stimulating diet is required, and more of it. Thus the
East Indians live on rice, fruit, &c. People of the temperate regions
live both on animal and vegatable food : those of the frozen regions,
mostly on animal food, as the Esquimaux, who live on train oil, the most
gross of all kinds of food.
Plugging the Teeth. 127
" The temporary celebrity occasionally obtained by adver-
tisers of cements, only attests the extreme disposition to gulli-
bility of the public. Few things are more mortifying to the
well informed practitioner, than to find his patients leaving
him to place themselves under the care of one of these puffing
pretenders of the day. The fashion for using cements will,
like all others pass away, and the great number of unsuccess-
ful cases will accelerate its progress to oblivion. It is an old
complaint, and though old, unhappily not an obsolete one,
that ignorant pretention, especially when wrapt in mystery,
is more attractive to the million than modest ability.
*'It is consoling however, to the respectable practitioner to
know, that while empirical tricKery may confer evanescent
fame, sound scientific aquirement, is the only basis, or which
can be founded a reputation solid, progressing and endur-
ing." Snell, page 158.
will convert it all to the purpose of nuiritioiv-. In proof of this law, there
are many cases on the records of medicine, of persons having lived on an
astonishing small quantity of food for a longtime; and again, of gor-
mandizers whose rapacity food could no. satisfy.
A case is related in les Anecdotes dc Medicine, of a French soldier,
who is said to have eaten a whole quarter of beef in a single day : he
used to contend with the dogs for the grocest food, and at length is sup-
posed to have taken to cannibalism.
There are three kinds of diet, the animal, vegito- animal or milk, and
the vegetable. The laboring man requires a stimulating diet er animal
food, as the following anecdote illustrates.
Three or four years ago, the hue and cry was raised in New York,
that the prisoners were beng starved at Sing Sing. An inquiry was
instituted, when it was ascertained that a liberal allowance of bread was
given them, but less of beef. The diet was ordered to be changed ; less
bread given, and more of animal food, when the complaint ceased.
The man who leads a sedentary life requires a nourishing diet, but a
less stimulating one, than the laboring man
: hence he should partake
largely of vegetable or vegito-animal food.
Nature kindly points out to man, the kinds of food best for him to par-
take of, in the different regions of the earth. Thus in the torrid regions, he
has little appetite for animal food, but mostly repasts on the various pro-
ductions of the earth. As we recede from the torrid towards the frozen
regions, a more stimulating diet is required, and more of it. Thus the
East Indians live on rice, fruit, &c. People of the temperate regions
live both on animal and vegatable food : those of the frozen regions,
mostly on animal food, as the Esquimaux, who live on train oil, the most
gross of all kinds of food.
