ly as a cause of malnutrition. Companionship is a
powerful promoter of assimilation. The attractive serving of food, a
pleasant room, and good ventilation are of high importance. The lack of
these, so commonly faced by the lonely student or the young man making
a start in a strange city, may be to some extent counteracted by the
cultivation of optimism and the mental discipline which makes it
possible to detach one's self from sordid surroundings."

Almost as important as eating is drinking, for liquids constitute the
"largest item in the income" of the body. Free drinking is recommended
by physiologists, the beneficial results being, "the avoidance of
constipation, and the promotion of the elimination of dissolved waste
by the kidneys and possibly the liver." In regard to the use of water
with meals, a point upon which emphatic cautions were formerly offered,
recent experiments have failed to show any bad effects from this, and
the advice is now given to drink "all the water that one chooses with
meals." Caution should be observed, however, about introducing hot and
cold liquids into the stomach in quick succession.

Other liquids have been much discussed by dietitians, especially tea
and coffee. "These beverages owe what limited food value they have to
the cream and sugar usually mixed with them. They give pleasure by
their aroma, but they are given a peculiar position among articles of
diet by the presence in them of the compound caffein, which is
distinctly a drug. It is a stimulant to the heart, the kidneys, and the
central nervous system."

"Individual susceptibility to the action of caffein varies greatly.
Where one person notices little or no reaction after a cup of coffee,
another is exhilarated to a marked degree and hours later may find
himself lying sleepless with tense or trembling muscles, a dry, burning
skin, and a mind feverishly active. Often it is found that a more
protracted disturbance follows the taking of coffee with cream than is
caused by black coffee.

"It is too much to claim that the use of tea and coffee is altogether
to be condemned. Many people, nevertheless, are better without them.
For all who find themselves strongly stimulated it is the part of
wisdom to limit the enjoyment of these decoctions to real emergencies
when uncommon demands are made upon the endurance and when for a time
hygienic considerations have to be ignored. If young people will
postpone the formation of the habit t