ucts,
he is found arm in arm with the sun-bather. But Science will by no
means allow him to eat his uncooked food in peace. "If we all adopt
_that_ diet," her pseudo-disciples cry, "what is to become of the
potatoes?"

Now, with regard to uncooked foods, it would seem that as little fault
can be found with ripe fruit in its natural state as with any article
of diet. Yet even here "Science" holds up a warning hand and is
succeeding in scaring people away from one of the most harmless, most
wholesome and most neglected of foods.

Leaving generalities, let us come to a specific case, an actual
difficulty propounded to me by a sufferer, one who had spent her
substance till she could spend no more in having various parts of
herself examined and in learned prescriptions and processes of cure,
but who found herself as far from health as ever. Obsessed by certain
theories of "Science," this lady had acquired a dread of sugar _in
every form_. Hence her query addressed to me: "In your book, _No
Rheumatism_, you say that sugar is to be avoided. Why, then, do you
recommend fruit, which is mostly sugar?"

I replied as follows: "The reason I recommend ripe uncooked fruit--in
spite of its containing a certain quantity of sugar--is that it
contains also purifying salts, and that for most people it is the
pleasantest form in which these salts can be taken. Moreover, fruit
sugar appears to be more wholesome than that formed from starch. When
you say that 'fruit is mostly sugar,' are you not leaving the water of
the fruit out of account? As the water often amounts to 90 per cent.
this makes all the difference. Taking the fruits generally grown in
this country the average proportion of sugar is seven per cent.

[This statement is based on the following figures given in Goodale's
Physiological Botany:--

Apples contain 7.73 per cent. sugar
Pears " 8.26 " "
Plums " 3.56 " "
Strawberries 6.28 " "
Gooseberries 7.03 " "

Grapes are stated to contain 24.36 per cent, but often contain much
less and sometimes even more.]

"Now a person eating fruit _ad lib._, but allowed other foods, will
hardly ever eat more than a pound or two a day (generally less). But
suppose him to eat two pounds. Seven per cent. of this is 2+1/4 oz. If he
eats only 1 lb. he takes 1+1/8 oz. sugar. Now compare this with
the amount he gets from starchy foods,