y associated. Still,
it may be stated generally that indulgence in food, beyond what is
requisite to repair daily waste, goes towards the increase of flesh,
particularly of fat. This is more especially the case when the
non-nitrogenous (the fatty, saccharine and starchy) elements of the food
are in excess. The want of adequate bodily exercise will in a similar
manner produce a like effect, and it is probable that many cases of
corpulence are to be ascribed to this cause alone, from the well-known
facts that many persons of sedentary occupation become stout, although
of most abstemious habits, and that obesity frequently comes on in the
middle-aged and old, who take relatively less exercise than the young,
in whom it is comparatively rare. Women are more prone to become
corpulent than men, and appear to take on this condition more readily
after the cessation of the function of menstruation.

For the prevention of corpulence and the reduction of superfluous fat
many expedients have been resorted to, and numerous remedies
recommended. These have included bleeding, blistering, purging, starving
(see FASTING), the use of different kinds of baths, and of drugs
innumerable. The drinking of vinegar was long popularly, but
erroneously, supposed to be a remedy for obesity. It is related of the
marquis of Cortona, a noted general of the duke of Alva, that by
drinking vinegar he so reduced his body from a condition of enormous
obesity that he could fold his skin about him like a garment.

In 1863 a pamphlet entitled "Letter on Corpulence, Addressed to the
Public by William Banting," in which was narrated the remarkable
experience of the writer in accomplishing the reduction of his own
weight in a short space of time by the adoption of a particular kind of
diet, started the modern dietetic treatment, at first called "Banting"
after the author. After trying almost every known remedy without effect,
Banting was induced, on the suggestion of Mr Harvey, a London aurist, to
place himself upon an entirely new form of diet, which consisted chiefly
in the removal, as far as possible, of all saccharine, starchy and fat
food, the reduction of liquids, and the substitution of meat or fish and
fruit in moderate quantity at each meal, together with the daily use of
an antacid draught. Under this regimen his weight was reduced 46 [lb] in
the course of a few weeks, while his health underwent a marked
improvement. His experience, as might have bee