Foods for the fat : a treatise on corpulence, and its scientific dietary cure / by Nathaniel Edward Yorke-Davies.

  • Yorke-Davies, Nathaniel Edward, 1844-
Date:
1891
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods for the fat : a treatise on corpulence, and its scientific dietary cure / by Nathaniel Edward Yorke-Davies. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    3. Or, perhaps, being a believer in the old adage, ' that a man is either a fool or a physician ' before he is forty, he proceeds to experiment upon himself, and by dint of purg- ing, starving, and tiring himself by manual work or walk- ing, reduces a few pounds in weight; but as there is no scientific principle in his system he soon finds it too hard to continue, and once more resigns himself to the inevitable and to increasing misery and danger.* 4. This is a great mistake, as corpulency is caused by a faulty diet as much as by any hereditary tendency; and as there are means of obviating this, when its treatment is based on scientific principles, and with due regard to habit, constitution, age, and mode of hfe, therefore no person need despair. A properly constructed dietary, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, and the health, soundness, and constitutional requirements of the sufferer, will absolutely permanently and certainly reduce weight at the rate of from four to eight pounds per week. 5. The first thing the patient has to be made to beheve is this : That a rapid reduction in weight may take place, and the obese person be stronger and better in every way than he was before, and that this may be done better, safer and more certainly by diet than physic. For instance, take the case of the horse. It is a well-known fact that when a horse is turned out to grass he becomes in a short time very obese and weak, and if worked perspires, and is easily distressed. If it becomes necessary to put him in condition, what is done ? Why, simply this : He is brought into the stable, and put on corn and hay, groomed—a form of massage—anxi given * If people who are becoming too fat only knew how much more dangerous an illness is under such circumstances it might induce them to take steps to obviate the mischief in its early stage. A lady writes me from one of the Channel Islands : ' The doctor was delighted with my loss of fat lb. and 6 inches in abdominal girth in nine weeks), and said he found me looking better than he had seen me for years. He also told me what I did not know before, that one of the greatest dangers in my past illness was the superabundance of fat. Everyone has noticed the great improvement in my figure, and fortunately the fat has disappeared proportionately.'