The Physiology of Taste by Brillat Savarin (suggested reading .TXT) 📕

ale from a huge pitcher he

kept by his side.

 

His strange appearance used to attract the attention of passers,

whom he used always to put to flight by saying in a sepulchral

tone “What are you staring at like wild cats? Go about your

business, you blackguards,” etc.

 

Having spoken to him one day, he told me that he was not at all

annoyed and that if death did not interrupt him, he would be glad

to live till the day of judgment.

 

From the preceding, it appears that if obesity be not a disease,

it is at least a very troublesome predisposition, into which we

fall from our own fault.

 

The result is, that we should all seek to preserve ourselves from

it before we are attacked, and to cure ourselves when it befalls

us. For the sake of the unfortunate we will examine what resources

science presents us.

 

MEDITATION XXII.

 

PRESERVATIVE TREATMENT AND CURE OF OBESITY. [Footnote: About

twenty years ago I began a treatise, ex professo, on obesity. My

readers must especially regret the preface which was of dramatic

form. I averred to a physician that a fever is less dangerous than

a law suit; for the latter, after having made a man run, fatigue,

and worry himself, strips him of pleasure, money, and life. This

is a statement which might be propagated as well as any other. ]

 

I WILL begin by a fact which proves that courage is needed not

only to prevent but to cure obesity.

 

M. Louis Greffulhe, whom his majesty afterwards honored with the

title of count, came one morning to see me, saying that he had

understood that I had paid great attention to obesity, and asked

me for advice.

 

“Monsieur,” said I, “not being a doctor with a diploma, I might

refuse you, but I will not, provided you give me your word of

honor that for one month you will rigorously obey my directions.”

 

M. Greffulhe made the promise I required and gave me his hand. On

the next day, I gave him my directions, the first article of which

demanded that he should at once get himself weighed, so that the

result might be made mathematically.

 

After a month he came to see me again, and spoke to me nearly

thus:

 

“Monsieur,” said he, “I followed your prescription as if my life

depended on it, and during the month I am satisfied that I have

lost three pounds and more; but have for that purpose to violate

all my tastes and, habits so completely, that while I thank you

for your advice I must decline to follow it, and await quietly the

fate God ordains for me.”

 

I heard this resolution with pain. M. Greffulhe became every day

fatter and subject to all the inconveniences of extreme obesity,

and died of suffocation when he was about forty.

 

GENERALITIES.

 

The cure of obesity should begin with three precepts of absolute

theory, discretion in eating, moderation in sleep, and exercise on

foot or horseback.

 

These are the first resources presented to us by science. I,

however, have little faith in them, for I know men and things

enough to be aware that any prescription, not literally followed,

has but a light effect.

 

Now, imprimus, it needs much courage to be able to leave the table

hungry. As long as the want of food is felt, one mouthful makes

the succeeding one more palatable, and in general as long as we

are hungry, we eat in spite of doctors, though in that respect we

follow their example.

 

In the second place to ask obese persons to rise early is to stab

them to the heart. They will tell you that their health will not

suffer them, that when they rise early they are good for nothing

all day. Women will plead exhaustion, will consent to sit up late,

and wish to fatten on the morning’s nap. They lose thus this

resource.

 

In the third place, riding as an exercise is expensive, and does

not suit every rank and fortune.

 

Propose this to a female patient and she will consent with joy,

provided she have a gentle but active horse, a riding dress in the

height of the fashion, and in the third place a squire who is

young, good-tempered and handsome. It is difficult to fill these

three requisites, and riding is thus given up.

 

Exercise on foot is liable to many other objections. It is

fatiguing, produces perspiration and pleurisy. Dust soils the

shoes and stockings, and it is given up. If, too, the patient have

the least headache, if a single shot, though no larger than the

head of a pin, pierce the skin it is all charged to the exercise.

 

The consequence is that all who wish to diminish embonpoint should

eat moderately, sleep little, and take as much exercise as

possible, seeking to accomplish the purpose in another manner.

This method, based on the soundest principles of physics and

chemistry, consists in a diet suited to the effects sought for.

 

Of all medical powers, diet is the most important, for it is

constant by night and day, whether waking or sleeping. Its effect

is renewed at every meal, and gradually exerts its influence on

every portion of the individual. The antiobesic regimen is

therefore indicated by the most common causes of the diseases, and

by the fact that it has been shown that farina or fecula form fat

in both men and animals. In the latter, the case is evident every

day, and from it we may deduce the conclusion that obtaining from

farinaceous food will be beneficial.

 

But my readers of both sexes will exclaim, “Oh my God, how cruel

the professor is. He has at once prescribed all we like, the white

rolls of Limet, the biscuit of Achard. the cakes of … and all

the good things made with sugar, eggs, and farina. He will spare

neither potatoes nor macaroni. Who would have expected it from a

man fond of everything good?”

 

“What is that?” said I, putting on my stern look which I call up

but once a year. “Well, eat and grow fat, become ugly, asthmatic

and die of melted fat. I will make a note of your case and you

shall figure in my second edition. Ah! I see, one phrase has

overcome you, and you beg me to suspend the thunderbolt. Be easy,

I will prescribe your diet and prove how much pleasure is in the

grasp of one who lives to eat.”

 

“You like bread? well, eat barley-bread. The admirable Cadet de

Vaux long ago extolled its virtues. It is not so nourishing and

not so agreeable. The precept will then be more easily complied

with. To be sure one should resist temptation. Remember this,

which is a principle of sound morality.

 

“You like soup? Eat julienne then, with green vegetables, with

cabbage and roots. I prohibit soup au pain, pates and purees.

 

“Eat what you please at the first course except rice aux volailles

and the crust of pates. Eat well, but circumspectly.

 

“The second course will call for all your philosophy. Avoid

everything farinacious, under whatever form it appears. You have

yet the roasts, salads, and herbacious vegetables.

 

“Now for the dessert. This is a new danger, but if you have acted

prudently so far, you may survive it. Avoid the head of the table,

where things that are dangerous to you are most apt to appear. Do

not look at either biscuits or macaronies; you have fruits of all

kinds, confitures and much else that you may safely indulge in,

according to my principles.

 

“After dinner I prescribe coffee, permit you liqueurs, and advise

you to take tea and punch.

 

“At breakfast barly-bread is a necessity, and take chocolate

rather than coffee. I, however, permit strong cafe au lait. One

cannot breakfast too soon. When we breakfast late, dinner time

comes before your digestion is complete. You eat though, and

eating without appetite is often a great cause of obesity, when we

do so too often.”

 

SEQUEL OF THE REGIMEN.

 

So far I have, like a tender father, marked out a regimen which

will prevent obesity. Let us add a few remarks about its cure.

 

Drink every summer thirty bottles of Seltzer water, a large glass

in the morning, two before breakfast and another at bed-time.

Drink light white acid wines like those of Anjon. Avoid beer as

you would the plague. Eat radishes, artichokes, asparagus, etc.

Eat lamb and chicken in preference to other animal food; eat only

the crust of bread, and employ a doctor who follows my principles,

and as soon as you begin you will find yourself fresher, prettier,

and better in every respect.

 

Having thus placed you ashore, I must point out the shoals, lest

in excess or zeal, you overleap the mark.

 

The shoal I wish to point out is the habitual use made by some

stupid people of acids, the bad effects of which experience has

demonstrated.

 

DANGERS OF ACIDS.

 

There is a current opinion among women, which every year causes

the death of many young women, that acids, especially vinegar, are

preventives of obesity. Beyond all doubts, acids have the effect

of destroying obesity, but they also destroy health and freshness.

Lemonade is of all acids the most harmless, but few stomachs can

resist it long.

 

The truth I wish to announce cannot be too public, and almost all

of my readers can bring forward some fact to sustain it.

 

I knew in 1776, at Dijon, a young lady of great beauty, to whom I

was attached by bonds of friendship, great almost as those of

love. One day when she had for some time gradually grown pale and

thin (previously she had a delicious embonpoint) she told me in

confidence that as her young friends had ridiculed her for being

too fat, she had, to counteract the tendency, been in the habit

every day of drinking a large glass of vinaigre.

 

I shuddered at the confession, and made every attempt to avoid the

danger. I informed her mother of the state of things the next day,

and as she adored her daughter, she was as much alarmed as I was.

The doctors were sent for, but in vain, for before the cause of

her malady was suspected, it was incurable and hopeless.

 

Thus, in consequence of having followed imprudent advice, our

amiable Louise was led to the terrible condition of marasmus, and

sank when scarcely eighteen years old, to sleep forever.

 

She died casting longing looks towards a future, which to her

would have no existence, and the idea that she had involuntarily

attempted her own life, made her existence more prompt and

painful.

 

I have never seen any one else die; she breathed her last in my

arms, as I lifted her up to enable her to see the day. Eight days

after her death, her broken hearted mother wished me to visit with

her the remains of her daughter, and we saw an extatic appearance

which had not hitherto been visible. I was amazed, but extracted

some consolation from the fact. This however is not strange, for

Lavater tells of many such in his history of physiogomy.

 

ANTIOBESIC BELT.

 

All antiobesic tendencies should be accompanied by a precaution I

had forgotten. It consists in wearing night and day, a girdle to

repress the stomach, by moderately clasping it.

 

To cause the necessity of it to be perceived, we must remember

that the vertebral column, forming one of the walls in the cavity

containing the intestines, is firm and inflexible. Whence it

follows, that the