You To.

In that series of compromises which we call life there is no compromise
more perplexing than the compromise with the stomach. No problem requires
more earnest thought than the food problem. It is the stomach that makes
men work. There would be no produce exchange were it not for the
stomach--no yellow fields of wheat and corn, no grazing herds of cattle,
no fleets of white-sailed fishing-vessels. Clothing and shelter are
secondary demands. The stomach is master; and, as is ever likely to be the
case with autocrats, it is selfish--wherefore we humor it--we hold out
crutches to it--we offer it tempting inducements to be lenient with us.

A sense of relief, therefore, is produced by reading Dr. Woods
Hutchinson's article, "Some Diet Delusions," in the April _McClure's_; for
therein is advanced the doctrine of "intelligent omnivorousness." Says Dr.
Hutchinson:

Every imaginable experiment upon what would and what would
not support life must have been tried thousands of years
ago, and yet our most striking proofs of how highly men
value their "precious right of private haziness," as George
Eliot shrewdly terms it, are to be found in the realm of
dietetics. The "light that never was on sea or land" still
survives for the most matter-of-fact of us in the memory of
"the pies that mother used to make," and nowhere else do we
find preferences so widely accepted as evidence, and
prejudices as matters of fact, as in this arena. In fact, if
we were merely to listen to what is said, and still more to
read what is printed, we would come to the conclusion that
the human race had established absolutely nothing beyond
possibility of dispute in this realm.

When the Doctors Disagree.

Every would-be diet-reformer, and we doctors are almost as
bad as any of them, is absolutely certain that what
nine-tenths of humanity find to be their food is a deadly
poison. One philosopher is sure that animal food of every
description, especially the kind that involves the shedding
of blood, is not only absolutely unfit for human food, but
is the cause of half the suffering and wickedness in the
world. Another gravely declares that the only thing which,
above all things, is injurious is salt. Another takes up his
parable against pork. Still another is convinced that half
the misery of the world is due to the use of spices; and one