er of total abstinence from all
food for several days. What we have said about appetite being the best
guide applies to the old especially, and if they could but realize what
a very small quantity of food is necessary, they would not be perturbed
to find that their appetite guided them to eat very much less than at a
younger age.

Milk, which is the ideal food for the very young, is for that reason
often undesirable for the old, and it is a great mistake for such to
drink much of it with solid food.

Diet for the very aged becomes mainly a question of invalid diet, and
it must be remembered that much should be granted to the individual's
choice and liking. All foods for the aged should be light and easily
digested, and careful attention paid to proper cooking.

A striking example of lost health recovered and life and activity
prolonged to a great age, by strict temperance in food, is Cornaro, a
Venetian nobleman of the sixteenth century, who lived over 100 years.
He says:--"Our kind mother Nature, in order that old men may live to
still greater age, has contrived matters so that they should be able to
subsist on little, as I do, for large quantities of food cannot be
digested by old and feeble stomachs. By always eating little, the
stomach, not being much burdened, need not wait long to have an
appetite. It is for this reason that dry bread relishes so well with
me.... When one arrives at old age, he ought to divide that food of
which he was accustomed to make but two meals into four, and as in his
youth he made but two collations in a day, he should in his old age
make four, provided he lessen the quantity as his years increase. And
this is what I do, agreeably to my own experience; therefore my
spirits, not oppressed by much food, but barely kept up, are always
brisk, especially after eating, nor do I ever find myself the worse for
writing immediately after meals, nor is my understanding ever clearer,
or am I apt to be drowsy, the food I take being in too small a quantity
to send up fumes to the brain. Oh, how advantageous it is for an old
man to eat but little! Accordingly, I, who know it, eat but just enough
to keep body and soul together."

Digestion.--Digestion is the process whereby the food we eat is turned
into material fit to be assimilated by the blood. It begins in the
mouth by the mechanical grinding and crushing of the food, and the
chemical conversion of the starchy part into sugar, in which form al