The inexpert,—they who can not claim sufficient acquaintance with a given subject to enable them to think freely (“free thinking” being altogether another matter),—find it sufficiently difficult to obtain an author’s meaning, when they are really desirous of so doing, and devote some time and patience to the work in hand; it is impossible, often, to arrive at just conclusions otherwise. The liability to error is increased many fold when the subject is not merely not popular, but is, in fact, un-popular. It is a prevalent custom to “skim over” a volume, and then praise or condemn it, according to the reader’s preconceived notion.

Sick people searching for means whereby they may be made well, sometimes fall into this error, and for want of thoroughness in their reading of a health-book make blunders in carrying out the prescribed treatment. In such cases, not only do the patients themselves suffer, perhaps lose their lives, or fail in some way, but their failures exert an influence tending to throw a sound method into disrepute. In this way it often happens that what is termed “dieting” is either overdone, half done, or not done at all in the manner designed by the author; “exercise” is taken under wrong conditions, as, for example, in point of time in relation to meals, it is conducted spasmodically or, perhaps, carried to excess, and the organism thereby depleted instead of strengthened; if the prevailing habit of over-wrapping the body is emphatically condemned, as is the case in the present volume, the reader, if a convert and designing to “go by the book,” may conclude that he is expected to go shivering about in shirt-sleeves in all weathers; and the unfriendly critic is sure to make a point—taking off the idea in a manner to send a chill along the spine of an inquiring consumptive. In this way, too, has arisen the saying, as applied to the supposed notion of food-reformers, “Whatever is good is bad, and whatever is bad is good.” Whatever it may be worth, therefore, I preface this volume with the simple request that the health-seeker, the casual reader, and the critic, alike, shall examine it in a manner to get the real meaning of the text before practicing, praising or condemning.