Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 October 1878 — Suggestions for Fat People. [ARTICLE]

Suggestions for Fat People.

It is Brillat-Savarin, we believe, who, in his immortal book on gastronomy, avers that no one is entirely satisfied with his weight; every one wants to be somewhat fatter or somewhat leaner; or, if he or she really is just about as he would be in this respect, he imagines a tendency one way or the other which he feels he must be on his guard to correct. There is enough truth in this to make it an object for that enterprising class of individuals who make their money out of the weaknesses of their fellows to advertise pretty constantly various secret fat-producing and fat-decreasing nostrums. The extraordinary sale of Banting’s famous pamphlet, which reached 60,000 or. 70,000 copies, attests the same, and almost every year there is some new remedy offered to the regular profession, either to make fat or to disperse it. The larger class, or, at any rate, apparently the more anxious class, are those who are too fat, and who wish to grow leaner. Of the various drugs proposed to accomplish this, acids, in the form of vinegar, and alkalies, especially liquor potass®, are the best known. No doubt both these produce the effect desired, but they both do it at the cost of profound disturbances of the nutritive functions, and, in many cases, serious danger to life. Recently Dr. Tarnier has called attention to the success of a milk diet in these cases. He commences by allowing three-fourths the usual food and one liter of milk the first day; one-half the usual food and two liters of milk the second day; one-fourth the food and three liters of milk the third day, and thereafter four liters of milk daily and nothing else. Often, however, it is better to allow a small proportion of the usual food each day, to prevent the patient becoming tired of the milk. Should diarrhea set in, the milk should be suspended for a while and then resumed. The treatment may be continued until the fat is reduced. Dr. Tarnier claims that this treatment is always successful, and entails no danger whatever.—Medical and Surgical Reporter.