Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1894 — FOR FAT PEOPLE. [ARTICLE]

FOR FAT PEOPLE.

THE CAUSE AND TREATMENT OF OBESITY. Bismarck's Private Physician Discourses Upon Corpulency and How It Can Be Cured*-What Fat People May Eat. Professor Schweninger is Prince Bismarck’s protege and private medical adviser, and, although his reputation in Germany rests upon a wholly different footing, this alone should entitle him to be heard with respect whenever he has a consolatory message to deliver to sick and suffering humanity. Of late years he has devoted his attention to the annihilation of the ills to which well fed flesh is heir, and has published his views in an article entitled “Cure and Cures.” His treatment of obesity is the outcome of his views on its nature and origin. As to the causes that produce embonpoint, Professor Schweninger holds that they are legion. Among the most frequent and efficacious, however, he enumerates mental indolence—leanness being a characteristic of the thinker; lack of physical exercise, a sedentary life, too much sleep, badly lighted and badly ventilated rooms, which promote corpulency by impeding the organic process of combustion. But by far the most effective cause is eating and drinking; an increased supply of food, while consumption and secretion remain the same or diminish, of necessity augment the weight of the body and lead to an accumulation of fat.

The German physician lays great store by his method of treating obesity,and condemns those of all his predecessors,who lay too little weight upon details and upon the necessity of adjusting and modifying their prescriptions in accordance with the varying needs of the patient. Food, he holds, plays an important part in the cure of corpulency, not, however, merely by reason of its chemical composition, but in various other respects. Thus, the amount of liquid food, the times and frequency of meals, their mixture and temperature, the relation between the quantity of nourishment taken and the amount of work done by the patient, are more important factors in the eyes of Dr. Schweninger than the question of allowing or forbidding any pa rticular edible. Attention should also be paid to mental activity, to exercise, repose, clothing, dwelling, to the general and local distribution of the blood, to secretion and excretion, to sleep, to the weight and measurement of the whole body and of certain parts of it. The treatment is not at all drastic. In the first place, the progress made during the cure must be verified and controlled at every stage by means of weight and measurement, both of which, of course, are relative. And first weigh*. At least once a week the' girth of the body should be measured round the chest and the abdomen. The girth round the abdomen decreases in direct proportion to the weight, one kilogramme of the latter corresponding to ten centimetres of the former. The girth round the chest decreases much more slowly. The face often reveals furrows and wrinkles during and even after the cure, which had no existence before; and ladies especially are apt to wax wroth at the awkward discovery. It must be borne with, however, the professor tells them, but only for a time. The wrinkles will certainly disappear if only the patient show herself worthy of that name. At the very beginning of the cure the stout man must oast off all clothing of a kind calculated to exert a pressure on the body, to impede free circulation and hinder the process of combustion.

The next prescription is partial cold water applications, which we are assured come as a boon and a blessing to the patient whose body, “being isolated from the outer world by a dense layer of fat, that is, by a very bad conductor of heat,” can with difficulty free itself from the redundant warmth and longs for a cooling. As mechanical causes contribute to obesity, mechanical action must be enlisted in the service of the sufferer from it. Walking, working, gymnastics, are beneficial, in moderation—the essential point being to alternate physical exercise and repose with mental. It is a gross mistake to fancy that long walks, mountain tours, heavy rowing, bicycling or skating for hours at a time are the readiest means to lose flesh. Moderate exercise, short walks, dancing, swimming, rowing, and even tree felling, are all excellent in moderation, the golden rule being that each individual should remain well within the limits of his physical capacity, although he may, of course, aim at extending it gently and gradually. But all exercise should be of short duration and followed by real repose, which same repose consists in something more than mere cessation from previous effort, and includes change of position. Thus sitting is not the appropriate kind of rest that should be indulged in after a walk, but lying, because in both sitting and walking the legs hang downward. Finally comes the all-important question of diet. Man lives not on what he eats and drinks, but on what he digests and consumes, and according to the way in which he digests and consumes it. With reasonable limits his patients may eat and drink as much as they like, provided that they confine themselves to the kinds of food which he permits, that they eat little at once, though oftener than usual, and allow a certain time to elapse between eating and drinking. Prof. Schweninger allows his patients to compose their mepu from the following foods: 1. Staple nourishment —Every species of flesh meat cooked in every conceivable manner, and served hot or cold, fat or lean; fish, oysters, caviar, crabs, lobsters, sausage, eggs, cheese, etc. 2. Subsidiary food —Bread, fruit, spinach, asparagus, cabbages, sauerkraut, cucumbers, green salad. Drinks— Water, soda-water, acidulated mineral waters, fruit juices and lemon juice. Alcohols are to be avoided, as are •Iso soups, potatoes, turnips, nuts,

macaroni, rice, pastry and butter and lard (except in so far as they are needed in order to cook the meat and vegetables), and not only alcoholic drinks, but also tea, coffee,chocolate, cocoa and milk. The Professor dolefully complains of the indignation often manifested by his stout female patients on hearing sentence pronounced against tea, coffee, milk and chocolate. “Milk, cocoa and chocolate are banished already,” they murmur. “If I have, in addition, to give up my tea and coffee, what else is there for me to take at my first breakfast in the morning?” To this Dr. Schweninger has one stereotyped reply. Tea and coffee have been struck out for the ex press purpose of radically changing the form of the first breakfast, which should be a “compact meal,” consisting of meat, fish, eggs, cheese or some other similar nutritious food.