urs from some other disease.

Treatment.--There is no known cure. Keep the general health in good
condition according to the advice of your family physician.

OBESITY.--An excessive development of fat; it may be hereditary. It occurs
most frequently in women of middle age and in children. Its chief cause is
excessive eating and drinking, especially of the starch and sugar foods
and malt liquors, and lack of exercise. The increase of fat is in all the
normal situations and the heart and liver are often large and fatty. The
condition in general may be good or there may be inactivity of the mind
and body. Disturbances of digestion and symptoms of a fatty heart. There
is less power to resist disease. Death may occur from fatty infiltration
of the heart, resulting in dilatation or rupture.

[CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES 331]

Treatment.--Must be in regulating the diet. The person must avoid all
excess in food and drink, and avoid especially foods that contain starch
and sugar. There must be regular and systematic exercise, hot baths and
massages are helps. Medicines made from the poke berry are much used and
are successful in some cases.

Diet.--The food of a fleshy person should be cut down gradually. Its bulk
can be great, but its nourishing properties should be small. The diet for
reduction of obesity should consist chiefly of bulky vegetables, but not
too much of any one article or set of articles. The following list is
recommended by Dr. Hare of Philadelphia:

For Breakfast.--One or two cups of coffee or tea, without milk or sugar,
but sweetened with a fraction of a grain of saccharin. Three ounces of
toasted or ordinary white bread or six ounces of brown bread; enough
butter may be used to make the bread palatable, not more than one ounce.
Sliced raw tomatoes with vinegar, or cooked tomatoes without any sugar or
fats. This diet may be varied by the use of salted or fresh fish, either
at breakfast or dinner. This fish must not be rich like salmon or
sword-fish, but rather like perch or other small fish.

Noon Meal--Dinner.--One soup plate of bouillon, consomme julienne, or
other thin soup, or Mosqueras beef-jelly, followed by one piece of the
white meat of any form of fowl or a small bird. Sometimes a small piece,
the size of one's hand, of rare beef, or mutton but no fat, may be
allowed, and this should be accompanied by string beans, celery (stewed or
raw), spinach, kale, cabbage, beans, asparagus, beets and young on