The article (signed “M.D.”) with the above title which we published in the July number has, as we anticipated, aroused considerable discussion. One interesting criticism appeared in the August number. We now publish two further contributions, to be followed, in our next issue, by two further articles by Dr Rabagliati and Mr Ernest Starr.—[Eds.]

I

As one who has tried the low proteid diet, and came to grief on it, I desire to set my experience against that of Mr Voysey,[9] and to assert that, if it is true for him, it certainly is not true for me. Mr Voysey indulges in many loose and generalised statements which do not help the average man or woman in the least. I imagine it is these that “M.D.” has in mind when he advises a certain standard of diet, below which it is not safe to go. If Mr Voysey can, as Horace Fletcher can, exist on a very low proteid diet, that does not prove that all men and women can do the same and be healthily active; it only shows that he and Fletcher are exceptions to the average person, and that it may be dangerous to follow their example. For most men, “M.D.'s” proteid standard is not so nauseating as he finds it. Here is a specimen dietary for a day, for a man of ten stone, following, as most of us do, a sedentary occupation:—

• 3 oz. cheese.
• 9 oz. bread.
• 8 oz. vegetables and salad.
• 8 oz. fruit.
• 1½ pints milk.

Will any average person say that that quantity, divided into three meals, would be nauseating to him? And is that diet so very expensive that it would be beyond the means of an agricultural labourer in any country? It is certainly no mockery. The cost to such a labourer would probably not exceed 3d. or 4d. Of course the diet can be made as expensive as one chooses, and widely varied.

[9] See August number.

Who amongst ordinary men and women has a reliable natural taste that would be an infallible guide in all matters of food? And what a misleading statement that is which asserts “that all the hardest work of the world has always been done by those who get the least food.” Put it to the test on the average person and see where it leads to.

My contention is that the average person, throwing over his or her accustomed meat diet, requires some definite guidance as to the quantity of proteid, such as Dr Haig's wide experience and much patient research have proved needful, or at least advisable, for the continuance of a healthy and vigorous life; and I will say that it does not help this average person in the least to put before him the misty statement that “the quantity depends on the development that is in progress, and is only discoverable by the natural guides of appetite and taste, ruled by reason and love of others.” All very noble and very well in another place, but hardly meeting the case of the ordinary person who is seeking a healthy diet. Nor can you “make the body a more harmonious instrument for the true life of man” by habitually underfeeding it. I thought that was a mediÆval notion that had been knocked on the head long ago.

Is there any man, lay or scientific, Mr Voysey notwithstanding, who can claim to have as wide an experience of diet in its relation to health and disease as “M.D.,” to say nothing of the trained mind and long years of patient thought that have been exerted in dealing with the facts of this wide experience. For myself, I have come to see that, if “M.D.” does not hold in his grasp the absolute truth in the matter of diet, he is nearer to it, and is a safer guide, than all your low proteid advisers, lay or otherwise, where they come much below “M.D.'s” standard.

So, using Mr Voysey's phrases, I would urge laymen like myself to shun that weak-kneed manikin, the low proteid diet, and unite with me in a long strong pull to get him and others like him out of the rut in which that sorry weakling holds him.

Hy. Bartholomew.

II

The Editors were quite right in saying that the article under this heading in the July issue would arouse discussion. My wife and I, having discussed “M.D.” and many others with the title, feel constrained to put forth a warning against blind faith in anything which the faculty have to say on dietetics.

There are of course brilliant exceptions, such as Dr Rabagliati, Dr Knaggs, Dr Haig, the late Dr Keith and others, who give chapter and verse for every statement made; but when we consider the excellent work of laymen such as Albert Broadbent, Joseph Wallace, Horace Fletcher, Alice Braithwaite, Eustace Miles, Hereward Carrington, Edgar J. Saxon, Bernarr MacFadden, Arnold Eiloart, ordinary folks like ourselves may be excused if we venture to give our experience as against that of “qualified” men.

With your permission, then, we reply to “M.D.'s” five suggestions in the order he gives them:—

1. Food qualities are not of extreme importance.

2. Quantity tables may have been “settled” by physiologists to their own satisfaction many years ago; but very good reasons have since been given for altering, or even ignoring, them.

3. The particular number of grains of proteid to be consumed per day is not of serious moment.

4. That departure from the quantity specified has not led to disaster is proved by the fact that the human race still persists, in spite of the very varying eating customs found in different nations. The great majority being poor or ignorant, or both, know neither “tables” nor the need for them.

5. There can be no reply to such a general statement as: “The nature of this disaster may appear to be very various, and its real cause is thus frequently overlooked.”In such matters an ounce of personal experience is worth a pound of cut-and-dried theory. We—my wife and I—have been reared in an atmosphere suspicious of doctors, both sets of grandparents having relied rather on herbs, water treatment, goodness of heart and faith in God; and their children have had too many evidences of medical ignorance to accept any dogmas. We are anti-vaccinators, nearly vegetarian, and, to come to the point, we have four children who will persist in thriving on a basis of always too little rather than too much of food. The respective ages are girl 13, boy 10, girl 6, boy 2.

All have been brought up on these lines: never pressed to eat, but continually asked to chew thoroughly. Foods “rich in proteid” put sparingly before them. Milk has been well watered; and eggs, bacon and other tempting and rich foods only on rare occasions given to them.

We would ask readers who can to make the following experiment: Let your children have a good drink to start the day, and then run and play; don't offer food till asked for. You will almost to a certainty find, if you start this plan immediately after weaning, that day by day and year after year it is twelve to one o'clock before they inquire for “something to eat.” We have done this for twelve years, with children of entirely different temperament and of both sexes. They go to school, poor things! breakfastless. During these twelve years light breakfast for father has been on the table—he goes without lunch—and not once in fifty do they ask to join him. Nor, if invited, will they after three or four years of age.

The have never had a fever which lasted more than a day or two, and they are all above average height and weight.

They get fruit in season just as asked for, and as much to drink as they like, but not at meal-times.

Our experience is over a period of twelve years, and we have come to the conclusion that the infectious diseases so prevalent and death-dealing amongst children of all classes, rich or poor, are, in the main, the result of over-feeding. We find it wise to keep highly nutritious foods (like eggs, cheese, meat, etc.) away from children—that is, for regular consumption; a little occasionally may do no harm.

You will have it borne in on our minds year by year, as your children grow up under such a plan, that Dr Rabagliati, Hereward Carrington and others are quite right. We do not get our strength, nor heat, from food. Let the force of animal life (zoo-dynamic, I believe Dr Rabagliati calls it) have free play, and your children can't help growing up well and strong.

In to-day's London Daily Chronicle I see a special article by Dr Saleeby, under this heading: World's Doctors versus Disease. 5000 Medical Men Meet To-day. The Triumphs of Three Decades. We know how much this wonderful faculty knew thirty years ago about, e.g., fresh air for consumptives. There is not a word said in this article (which is a sort of programme of the weighty matters for discussion) on the relation of food to the body. That question probably 4950 of them believe was settled by the eminent physiologists who compiled those “food-tables” years ago—and in so doing went far to pave the way for the modern frightful increase of cancer, Bright's disease, etc., as well as for “scientific” horrors like anti-toxin, tuberculin—not to mention compulsory eugenics!

J. Methuen.