IR is more immediately necessary to life than FOOD,
the knowledge of the latter seems of more importance; it admits
certainly of great variety, and a choice is more frequently in our
power. A very spare and simple diet has commonly been recommended as
most conducive to health; but it would be more beneficial to mankind if
we could show them that a pleasant and varied diet was equally
consistent with health, as the very strict regimen of Arnard, or the
miller of Essex. These, and other abstemious people, who, having
experienced the greatest extremities of bad health, were driven to
temperance as their last resource, may run out in praises of a simple
diet; but the probability is, that nothing but the dread of former
sufferings could have given them the resolution to persevere in so
strict a course of abstinence, which persons who are in health and have
no such apprehension could not be induced to undertake, or, if they did,
would not long continue.

"In all cases, great allowance must be made for the weakness of human
nature: the desires and appetites of mankind must, to a certain degree,
be gratified, and the man who wishes to be most useful will imitate the
indulgent parent, who, while he endeavours to promote the true interests
of his children, allows them the full enjoyment of all those innocent
pleasures which they take delight in. If it could be pointed out to
mankind that some articles used as food were hurtful, while others were
in their nature innocent, and that the latter were numerous, various,
and pleasant, they might, perhaps, be induced to forego those which were
hurtful, and confine themselves to those which were innocent."--_See_
Dr. STARK'S _Experiments on Diet_, pp. 89 and 90.

[19-*] See a curious account in COURS GASTRONOMIQUE, p. 145, and in
Anacharsis' Travels, Robinson, 1796, vol. ii. p. 58, and _Obs._ and note
under No. 493.

[19-+] See the 2d, 3d, and 4th pages of Sir WM. TEMPLE'S _Essay on the
Cure of the Gout by Moxa_.

[20-*] "He that would have a _clear head_, must have a _clean
stomach_."--Dr. CHEYNE _on Health_, 8vo. 1724, p. 34.

"It is sufficiently manifest how much uncomfortable feelings of the
bowels affect the nervous system, and how immediately and completely the
general disorder is relieved by an alvine evacuation."--p. 53.

"We cannot reasonably expect tranquillity of the nervous system, while
there is disorder of the digestive organs. As we can perceive no
permanent source o