ot be properly repaired and ill-health will
follow. Our reason would tell us in the same way that if too much
material is furnished, the machine will be clogged and the work will
not be properly done. We will also understand at once that an
irregular supply of new material would interfere with the elaboration
of that which is undergoing the process of digestion and assimilation.
We can see, too, that unless the various tissues receive the material
which they can transform into themselves, they will not be fully
repaired. If material is taken into the system which supplies no
tissue with what it needs, this material becomes a source of
irritation.

These general rules borne in mind are sufficient to guide us into a
wiser life than if we do not understand them; and, understanding
these general principles, we will be anxious to study the particular
rules which govern digestion and assimilation.

I have known young women in college to be so absolutely ignorant or
indifferent to physiological law as to be injuring themselves
constantly by disobedience of such laws. I knew one girl, supposed to
be a very fine student, and to have brought on "fits" by overstudy,
while away at school. I had an opportunity to investigate the case,
and I discovered that she had been eating from morning till night. She
carried nuts, and candy, and apples in her pocket, had pickles and
cake in her room, and studied and munched until it was no doubt a
disturbed digestion, rather than an overused brain, that caused the
"fits."

If you will eat regularly of plain meat, vegetables, fruits, cereals,
milk and eggs, plainly prepared, and avoid rich pastries, cakes,
puddings, pickles and sweetmeats, you will have compassed the round of
healthful diet, and need give yourself very little anxiety in regard
to anything more. I should like to emphasize the fact, however, that
tea and coffee are not foods. They are irritants, stimulants,
nerve-poisons. They bring nothing to the system to build it up. They
satisfy the sense of hunger without having contributed to the
nourishment of the body. If you are wise you will avoid them. You
will not create for yourself any false necessities. You will avoid
the use of alcohol in all forms, whether wine, ales, beer or cider, as
well as in the stronger forms, because you will know that these
products interfere with digestion. Dr. Kellogg, of Battle Creek, has
made an experiment which proved that sherry to the amount of 1