Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 275, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1917 — FEAST OR FAST? [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

FEAST OR FAST?

By DR. SAMUEL G. DIXON.

Commissioner of Health of Pennsylvania. «t 6 ’ -

In civilized life men find it impossible to pay proper attention to their

meals. They cann o t eat regularly and havb no time to eat stow-., ly, and they apparently will not eat what they have learped by precept and experience is fitting for those who do work indoors that requires intense application. Fail-

ing to follow the laws of health over a period of time, they begin to feel inert mentally and physically; their work becomes a burden ; eyesight loses Its acuteness, while the natural white of the eye is lost and it becomes congested, showing sometimes a yellow tinge; the appetite begins to fail; natural sleep is broken up and interrupted, and when awakening comes, the mind is puzzled by confused ideas. 15

When these symptoms are recognized, men of experience know it Isbecause the food taken has been in excess of the demands of the body. j Such a man was a laboratory associate of mine years ago. Occasionally he would salute mein the morning and say: "What do you prescribe, doctor, a feast or a fast?” He mean’t that he felt he had been neglecting all outdoor .£xercise for a long time and had not at all neglected taking heavy and frequent meals, until nbw his system was out of balance and something had to be done to restore balance. Query, should he fast himself back to health, or should he emulate the old

Romans and start with a feast? Most people are familiar with the ancient Roman feast, whose features We would describe nowadays more acqiirately with the name of orgy or deGhuch. These feasts always made them s|ck and the physical reaction would be such that no food was taken into the system for some time afterward. So that the same result of a fast was arrived at by a different route. My associate, being a man of humorous viewpoint, was just accenting this condition. When I asked him why he thought of the more roundabout way of the Romans/he replied that you got some hilarity with it. “You get more out of treating yourself by debauch, than drugs,” he said, and that is the way a good many people look .at it, unfortunately. The Roman custom is recognized historically as having continued long afterward in other races, and perhaps it Is still surviving today. In principle at least, among Individuals here and there. Still, the mass of our people have a more'sensible view. It is known that a fast will relieve nature while she is coping with the task of overcoming extra burdens that have been laid upon the system. The debauch, which is generally what high liters make of thor “feast,” on the contrary is seen generally as something that overloads the system anti adds to nature's burden, even though it mentally stimulates the subject, sometimes to the -point whore he might be guilty of crime. And there is the hiiarttsr—a thing to be remembered and tempt the subject to try the seme remedy the next time.