in need of
nutriment. The appetite was intended by Nature for this purpose, yet how
few people wait upon appetite! The generality of people eat by time,
custom, habit, and sensual desire; not by appetite at all. If we eat
when not hungry, and drink when not thirsty, we are doing the body no
good but positive harm. The organs of digestion are given work that is
unnecessary, thus detracting from the vital force of the body, for there
is only a limited amount of potential energy, and if some of this is
spent unnecessarily in working the internal organs, it follows that
there is less energy for working the muscles or the brain. So that an
individual who habitually overfeeds becomes, after a time, easily tired,
physically lazy, weak, perhaps if temperamentally predisposed, nervous
and hypochondriacal. Moreover, over-eating not only adds to the general
wear and tear, thus probably shortening life, but may even result in
positive disease, as well as many minor complaints such as constipation,
dyspepsia, flatulency, obesity, skin troubles, rheumatism, lethargy,
etc.

Just as there is danger in eating too much, so there is much harm done
by drinking too much. The evil of stimulating drinks will be spoken of
later; at present reference is made only to water and harmless
concoctions such as lime-juice, unfermented wines, etc. To drink when
thirsty is right and natural; it shows that the blood is concentrated
and is in want of fluid. But to drink merely for the pleasure of
drinking, or to carry out some insane theory like that of 'washing out'
the system is positively dangerous. The human body is not a dirty barrel
needing swilling out with a hose-pipe. It is a most delicate piece of
mechanism, so delicate that the abuse of any of its parts tends to throw
the entire system out of order. It is the function of the blood to
remove all the waste products from the tissues and to supply the fresh
material to take the place of that which has been removed. Swilling the
system out with liquid does not in any way accelerate or aid the
process, but, on the contrary, retards and impedes it. It dilutes the
blood, thus creating an abnormal condition in the circulatory system,
and may raise the pressure of blood and dilate the heart. Also it
dilutes the secretions which will therefore 'act slowly and
inefficiently, and more or less fermentation and putrefaction will
meanwhile be going on in the food masses, resulting in the formation of
gases, a