Part 4

Dalton gives the following as the quantity of food, per day, required for the healthy man, taking free exercise in the open air: meat, sixteen ounces; bread, nineteen ounces; fat or butter, three and a half ounces; water, fifty-two fluid ounces. It ought to be borne in mind that these amounts of food represent the diet for a whole day compressed, so to speak, into a convenient and readily understood form. Another calculation, setting down the daily amount of food required by an adult, at nitrogenous matter three hundred grains, and carbon at four thousand grains, shows that these amounts would be obtained from eighteen ounces of bread; one ounce of butter; four ounces of milk; two ounces of bacon; eight ounces of potatoes; six ounces of cabbage; three and a half ounces of cheese; one ounce of sugar; three-quarters of an ounce of salt; and water (alone, and in beverages) sixty-six and a quarter ounces—a total of no less than six pounds fourteen and a quarter ounces. Summing up the question of the amounts of food required by a healthy adult daily, and _excluding water in all forms as a matter of separate calculation_, it may be said that four and a half ounces of pure nitrogenous matter would be required in addition to three ounces of fatty food, fourteen ounces of starch or sugar, and one ounce of mineral matter. An ordinary adult consuming in twenty-four hours, food items equal to those contained in one pound of meat and two pounds of bread, may be regarded as consuming food of sufficient amount for ordinary work. When the work is increased, the diet must naturally be increased likewise. We find that persons in active employment require about a fifth part more nitrogenous food, and about twice the quantity of fat consumed by those engaged in light work; the sugars and starches remaining the same.

An interesting practical calculation has been made regarding the amounts of different foods required to perform a given and fixed piece of work. Taking the work performed by the German observers already named, as a standard, namely, that of raising a man’s weight (one hundred and forty pounds) ten thousand feet high, it has been found that the amounts and cost of various foods required for the performance of this work is as follows: Bread, 2.345 pounds, cost 3½d.; oatmeal, 1.281 pounds, cost 3½d.; potatoes, 5.068 pounds, cost 5¼d.; beef-fat, 0.555 pounds, cost 5¼d.; cheese, 1.156 pounds, cost 11½d.; butter, 0.693 pounds, cost 1s. 0½d.; lean beef, 3.532 pounds, cost 3s. 6½d.; pale ale, nine bottles, cost 4s. 6d.

The proportion of the different food-elements in an ordinary dietary has been set down as follows: nitrogenous matter one, fats six, starches and sugars three; and these proportions appear to be represented with singular exactness in the ordinary dietaries which experience has recommended to mankind. Excess of food in the matter of nitrogenous elements tends to induce diseases of an inflammatory and gouty nature, and likewise leads to fatty degeneration of the tissues. When, on the other hand, there exists lack of nitrogenous substances, the individual experiences weakness, want of muscular power, and general prostration. The healthy mean is that in which the proportions of nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous food are maintained as above indicated.

In the construction of dietaries, a few practical hints remain for notice. Thus, as regards sex, the dietaries of women are usually, in the case of the working-classes, estimated at one-tenth less than those of the opposite sex. Age has an important influence in determining the amount and quality of food. The growing body consumes more food, relatively to work and weight, than the adult, inasmuch as it requires material for new tissue. An infant under eight or nine months should receive no starch whatever in its dietary, because it is unable to digest that substance. Health is naturally a condition in which the question of foods assumes a high importance, and various dietaries, as is well known, are adapted for the cure of disease. The relation of food to work has already been alluded to, and statistics detailed; but it may be added that the brain-worker requires his food in a more readily digestible form, and also in smaller bulk and in more concentrated shape, than the muscle-worker or ordinary labourer. What has been said concerning foods will tend to show how wide is the field which the subject of nutrition occupies. It may only here be added, that the education of the individual in health laws and in the science of foods and food-taking, forms the only sure basis for the intelligent regulation of that all-important work—the nourishment and due support of the frame in relation to the work we perform and to every circumstance of life.

THE COMMON-SENSE OF SUPERSTITIONS.

Out of a medley of magpies, May cats, broken looking-glasses, crickets, village cures, lucky days, and tumbles up-stairs, there dawns a hint towards the solving of a very puzzling problem. The problem is, not why these things are called lucky or unlucky, but how it is that multitudes grow up in every generation to believe the same absurdities, and that still in this world of common-sense such items of uncommon nonsense keep their character for ‘coming true.’ How is this, and where do the secret links exist between the sense and the nonsense? If any one takes the trouble to gather together about a hundred rustic superstitions and old beliefs of quackery, the reason of the character for ‘coming true’—that is, the reason of the traditional hold upon the people—will presently begin to be plainly written across the whole medley, dawning by degrees, just as writing in acid might dawn upon an apparently blank missive held to the heat.

Most superstitions are signs of ill-luck. This in itself is a tell-tale fact. Unlucky omens are so numerous, that no believer could escape them for long; and in all likelihood he observes not only the unlucky signs, but his ill-luck following. The truth is, that the magpie on his path had no connection with his loss of money; and on his wedding-day, his bride’s unlucky glance in the looking-glass after she was fully arrayed, had nothing to do with her discontent as a wife; nor need the servant who broke the looking-glass have cried, looking forward to seven years of ill-luck. In all three cases, as all the neighbours knew, the ill-luck came. But it came because of the prepossessed frame of mind that observed and discounted these signs. The superstitious character lacks those practical and courageous qualities which wrest luck from fortune and make the best of life. The omens of ill-luck have come to the fortunate as often; but they were never noticed, because they who were cheerily fighting the battle had better use for their time. At this moment, the present writer knows of no household more radiantly prosperous than one in which the largest looking-glass was broken a few days after a move to their newly-built home; and no marriage more replete with happiness than a Saturday marriage, though proverbially Saturday’s marriage ‘has no luck at all.’ Of course, neither the prosperous household nor the well-matched pair were of that languid and timid mind that takes nervous note of superstitions.

But, it may be objected, there are signs of good luck too, though not so many. Certainly; and there is no truth better known than that courage commands success, and such courage in exceptional cases may come from a very trivial encouragement. There is a country superstition that if a man sets off running and runs round in a circle, when he hears the cuckoo for the first time, he will never be out of work till spring comes again. But the man who valued steady work would exert himself in a more sensible direction than unproductive circle-running, and be safe from idle days. Again, if a tumble up-stairs is lucky, the predisposition to luck is in the person who will be active and quick enough to run up the staircase. Another good omen, the turning of a garment inside out in dressing, though it seems to tell of the slovenliness that will not succeed, has probably an origin that indicated something better; it is a country saying, and it might well refer to the hurry and awkwardness of rising without artificial light before day—a habit likely to help the farmer’s household to good fortune. Or as proof of the real nature of many good signs which time has perverted into superstitions, can we doubt that the crickets which chirp round the hearth for luck were first noticed there because crickets, as a rule, only come to a warm and cosy fireside—the kind of hearth that marks a happy cottage home?

A simple grain of common-sense like this must have been the origin of many senseless observances. It was necessary to guard ladders from being knocked down, so superstition began to warn the passers-by: if the children went under the ladder, they would not grow; if girls went, they would have no chance of being married within the year; and if a man passed under, he would be hanged—in memory of the criminal’s ladder under the gibbet.

To take another original grain of common-sense. Warnings against carelessness assumed the form of omens. To spill the salt was unfortunate; or in some country places, to spill new milk; or in parts of Southern Europe, to spill the oil. Leonardo da Vinci painted spilt salt near Judas in his famous ‘Last Supper.’ It is one of the most widespread of ill omens, though in different places there are shades of difference; for instance, in Holland it betokens a shipwreck.

Beside the superstitious disposition being what we may call an unlucky disposition, and beside the germ of encouragement that makes its own success out of some ‘good signs,’ and the atom of original prudence that still exists in some so-called bad omens, there are two other reasons why superstitions still keep hold of the people by a reputation for ‘coming true.’ These two reasons cover a great deal of ground in our theory of explanation. The first is the vague character of forecasts. For instance, we all know the rhymes about the luck of birthdays, which country-people of different shires repeat rather variously. One Scottish version is:

Monday’s bairn is fair of face; Tuesday’s bairn is full of grace; Wednesday’s bairn is a child of woe; Thursday’s bairn has far to go; Friday’s bairn is loving and giving; Saturday’s bairn works hard for a living; But the bairn that is born on the Sabbath day, Is lively and bonnie, and wise and gay.

Contrast with this the English version:

Born of a Monday, fair in face; Born of a Tuesday, full of God’s grace; Born of a Wednesday, merry and glad; Born of a Thursday, sour and sad; Born of a Friday, godly given; Born of a Saturday, work for your living; Born of a Sunday, never shall we want— So there ends the week, and there’s an end on’t.

Any superstitious rustic who, from the page of the cottage Bible, dug out the deep secret of the day of his birth, would easily find the rhyme true of himself for any day of the week. Any country girl would trust it was true, if she was born on a Monday. And who that came on a Tuesday would confess himself graceless? But about Wednesday’s bairn there seems to be a difference of opinion among the prophets: one rhyme predicts ‘a child of woe;’ the other says, ‘merry and glad;’ while a third, well known in Devonshire, says, ‘sour and grum;’ and thereby, from self-contradiction, the old rhyme goes down like a house of cards. But all the rhymsters are agreed that Saturday’s child works hard for his living—as no doubt the children of every other day of the week work too, in the sphere of labouring country-life in which these old sayings are known. And as variable as this forecast there are many others; for every firm believer in superstition has a secret satisfaction in proving it true; and which of us is there that could not read our life as the interpretation of any forecast, since we all can look at the bright or the dark side, having known alike the good and the evil days?

The other reason for the reputation for truth is, that, for credulous folk, unlucky omens are too terrible to be put to the test. If they were freely tried, they would be detected as a mental tyranny, a popular fraud; and in a few generations would be remembered by the rustic classes, only as the learned now remember the foolish excitement of their forefathers in science, seeking the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone. If dinner-parties of thirteen were to become the fashion, we should not see, as we often see now, the cautious arrangements of Christmas invitations, or even the timid compromise of bringing in a side-table to accommodate the thirteenth. But which of the credulous would dare to test these things? It reminds the writer of a doubt—still unsolved—whether the taste of parsley would cause a parrot to drop down dead. Parsley as a parrot-poison was heard of in childhood, not as a superstition, but as a physical fact. What if it were true? The _if_ was too terrible. We had visions of our feathered gray ‘Prince Charlie’ seizing the green stuff in his hooked beak, and rolling off the perch in mortal agonies. So we disbelieved, but coward-like avoided the chance, just as all the world avoids thirteen at table.

As to superstitious cures, some of them contain slight elements of medicinal value; but most depend upon that influence upon the nerves which is well known to be capable of giving energy for a time and allaying pain. Some of the old cures were decidedly disagreeable and troublesome. The native of Devonshire who wanted to get rid of a wart was solemnly enjoined to steal a piece of meat, and after rubbing the wart with it, throw it over his left shoulder over a wall. The Hertfordshire villager, when afflicted with ague, might be cured if he would go to Berkhampstead, where oak-trees grew at the cross-roads; and after pegging himself by a lock of hair to the trunk of one of these trees, he was to give a vigorous jump, and rid himself at once of the ague and the tuft of hair. The loss of the hair was so painful, and the loss of the ague so doubtful, that the Berkhampstead folks many years ago ceased to go to ‘the cross-oaks.’ The ague, the toothache, and dog-bites were the subject of many charms. In the former two maladies, a nervous impression might go far to cure; and in the last, a charm against hydrophobia would protect the simple believer from the great peril that is in a brooding fear of madness. The ludicrous cures were a legion in themselves. It seems heartlessly unkind to give a poor dog the measles; but many an old nurse took a lock of hair from the nape of the sick child’s neck, made a sort of sandwich of it between bread-and-butter, and watched at the door to transfer, or fancy she had transferred, the measles to a stray dog—probably a stray dog, because only an ill-fed animal would take her bread. Equally unkind was it to strive to give our dumb friend the whooping-cough; but by the same process, with a bunch of hair and a piece of meat, the nurse could be guilty of that absurdity as well.

Have any of our readers ever encountered a toad with the whooping-cough? The Cheshire toads ought to be sometimes found crowing and whooping and in need of change of air; for the superstitious Cheshire woman whose child has the cough, knows that she has only to poke a toad’s head into her child’s mouth to transfer the whooping-cough to the toad. Query, Is the disease also transferred—and in that case, what are the alarming results—when the victim of whooping-cough gets rid of it by being passed nine times under and over a donkey? The cure for rickets is to pass the child under and over the donkey nine-times-nine turns. This was actually done in London as late as 1845; when a man and a woman, solemnly counting, passed the unfortunate child under and over the unsuspecting moke eighty-one times, in the midst of an admiring crowd. If there was one pass more or less, the charm would fail—a broad enough hint of the excuses that could be made when such cures as these were sought in vain. The eighty-one turns must have confused the counters’ arithmetic, as no doubt the child had personal objections, and lifted its voice aloud; and sore must have been the trial even to the patience of a donkey.

So, to sum up, we would suggest that superstitions keep their false character for truth, firstly, because those who observe them therein prove their own leaning towards ill-luck; secondly, because forecasts are vague, and interpretations can be traced somehow in the chances of life; thirdly, because the penalty of ill omens is so dreaded, that the credulous shrink from putting them to the test; fourthly, because there are nervous cures, and love-charms, and dreams, in which anxious consciousness points right—the wish being father to the thought; fifthly, victims of superstition are secretly pleased when (by chance) an unlucky omen comes true, and have a satisfaction even in relating their misfortunes; while, since no one tells of the cases that do _not_ come true, every chance fulfilment is a new rivet in the chain that ought long ago to have fallen to pieces.

NOXIOUS MANUFACTURES.

There is just now a most wholesome activity in regard to the national health, and the public are peculiarly interested in the various details of our sanitary machinery. Of this, by no means the least important department is that instituted under the Alkali Works Regulation Act, 1881, or, in other words, the inspection of noxious works and factories. In connection with the pollution of rivers, this is an old grievance; but too little has hitherto been done to realise or to remedy the evil in its general effects upon the public health. So greatly, too, have works prejudicial to health increased of late years, that their inspection has been decided upon none too soon. Probably, it will never be known how far the death-rate has been influenced by this cause. It is, however, one of the unavoidable penalties of civilisation that we should live under unwholesome conditions of life.

A multitude of influences injurious to health spring into active existence with the development of commerce and the growth of luxury. Most of these are evident enough. All the elements, indeed, are equally guilty. The earth, air, fire, and water, are allied against civilised humanity; and modern science is constantly bringing to light disagreeable facts in this connection. We have long lived in the comfortable belief that Mother Earth was the great purifier. The reverse is, it seems, nearer the truth. Years after the germs of infection have been consigned to the ground, they have been disinterred, and found to be not a whit diminished in virulence. Archæologists should, we are told, beware of handling newly found relics, lest, perchance, they should contract some archaic disease. Even mummies, it appears, in spite of their venerable respectability, are objects of legitimate suspicion! Fire, too, has a dreary catalogue of sins to answer for. It not only robs us of much of the oxygen, of which those of us who live in the towns have so scanty a supply, but it gives us in exchange unconsumed carbon in quantities which fill the air with smut. In smoke alone it furnishes us with food for reflection—and digestion—and probably will continue to do so for some time to come.

Again, water is the most insidious enemy of all. The most indispensable of the elements—and we are reminded of our obligations to it pretty frequently—it is credited with doing the greatest harm. In league with unnatural substances, it has developed such an affinity for noxious matter that it appears that nothing short of boiling can possibly enable us to drink it with any security. To most people, cold boiled water will not seem a very attractive beverage, but it has the advantage of being in many ways a safe one.

The air, too, is anything but true to the trust committed to her charge. We have long confidingly believed in her good-will. Our sewers, drains, and chimneys discharge their pestilent exhalations into the air; but instead of carrying these away into space, she receives them only to bestow them upon us again.

The outlook is indeed gloomy, and unless we make some progress in sanitary science, it is not a little difficult to see how we are to continue to support the burden of civilised existence.

In this connection, it is reassuring to know that something is being done to lessen these ominously numerous artificial dangers. The works which come within the scope of the Alkali, &c. Works Act, 1881, are very injurious to life. The manufacture of alkalies, acids, chemical manures, salt, and cement, alike involve processes prejudicial to health. More than one thousand of these were visited by the inspectors, appointed in pursuance of the above Act, during the year 1882; and it is interesting to know that some intelligent means are being devised whereby the offensive character of these manufactures may be diminished. To take a single cause of mischief. The manufacture of alkalies and acids has long been conducted in such a way that the proportion of noxious matter which was allowed to escape into the chimney, or atmosphere, often reached from twenty to forty grains per cubic foot of air, twenty being a not uncommon amount. The maximum amount which might be allowed to escape with impunity has been estimated at four grains per cubic foot; and it is a very important feature of the Act that it has been instrumental in reducing this very considerably. In the alkali works proper the escape has been brought down to two grains, while in some cases it is under one. The sulphuric acid works alone are now conspicuous for their failings in this important respect, the average escape in those examined during the year being 5.5. Again, chemical manure-works have long been a pregnant source of annoyance to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood in which these are carried on.