ng
him, they might take the same precautions; and Pecuchet took down from
his bookshelves a _Manual of Hygiene_ by Doctor Morin.

"How had they managed to live till now?"

Their favourite dishes were there prohibited. Germaine, in a state of
perplexity, did not know any longer what to serve up to them.

Every kind of meat had its inconveniences. Puddings and sausages, red
herrings, lobsters, and game are "refractory." The bigger a fish is, the
more gelatine it contains, and consequently the heavier it is.
Vegetables cause acidity, macaroni makes people dream; cheeses,
"considered generally, are difficult of digestion." A glass of water in
the morning is "dangerous." Everything you eat or drink being
accompanied by a similar warning, or rather by these words: "Bad!"
"Beware of the abuse of it!" "Does not suit everyone!" Why bad? Wherein
is the abuse of it? How are you to know whether a thing like this suits
you?

What a problem was that of breakfast! They gave up coffee and milk on
account of its detestable reputation, and, after that, chocolate, for it
is "a mass of indigestible substances." There remained, then, tea. But
"nervous persons ought to forbid themselves the use of it completely."
Yet Decker, in the seventeenth century, prescribed twenty decalitres[6]
of it a day, in order to cleanse the spongy parts of the pancreas.

This direction shook Morin in their estimation, the more so as he
condemns every kind of head-dress, hats, women's caps, and men's caps--a
requirement which was revolting to Pecuchet.

Then they purchased Becquerel's treatise, in which they saw that pork is
in itself "a good aliment," tobacco "perfectly harmless in its
character," and coffee "indispensable to military men."

Up to that time they had believed in the unhealthiness of damp places.
Not at all! Casper declares them less deadly than others. One does not
bathe in the sea without refreshing one's skin. Begin advises people to
cast themselves into it while they are perspiring freely. Wine taken
neat after soup is considered excellent for the stomach; Levy lays the
blame on it of impairing the teeth. Lastly, the flannel waistcoat--that
safeguard, that preserver of health, that palladium cherished by Bouvard
and inherent to Pecuchet, without any evasions or fear of the opinions
of others--is considered unsuitable by some authors for men of a
plethoric and sanguine temperament!

What, then, is hygiene? "Truth on this side of the Py