Unfortunately, we are still far from the time when the public will appreciate that "prevention is better than cure." Perhaps this fundamental principle of health will be honored during the 20th century. At present it certainly is not. Meanwhile, those who have ruined their health by modern city life take recourse for their cure to a holiday, hasten to places where they find mineral waters, or try laxatives or milk diet to improve their condition. They wish to do something for their health once or twice a year. How much better, if they had not been acting against their health all the year round.

It is extremely difficult to teach our people to eat healthily. You will find no difficulty to persuade them to take medicine. People have always time to swallow a pill, but you will certainly have trouble to teach them to chew with leisure. How many people who find time every year to spend the season at Vichy will tell you it is quite impossible for them to spend five minutes more every day at luncheon time. And nevertheless they would regain these few minutes a day with interest, if they would avoid that host of maladies which will stop them one day in the midst of their occupations. I have seen a good many of my clients getting entirely rid of their rheumatic pains and gout and ceasing to suffer from sleepless nights by observing the following simple rules.

In order to chew meat conveniently - and this is one of the main points - one must accustom one's self never to mix meat and bread in the same mouthful. Take a small mouthful, chew it about thirty times, then swallow that part which has been reduced to pulp, and so on until all has been masticated. In doing this you will soon find out that roasted and broiled beef or mutton requires a longer trituration than boiled meats or stews; you will also perceive that fish is more easily masticated than meat, and you will finally understand why certain dyspeptics are forced to limit their food to fish, eggs, and milk diet. In fact, milk diet serves no other purpose than to furnish a perfectly digestible nourishment.

One of the indirect and unforeseen benefits of a careful mastication is that people gradually become accustomed to be satisfied with a comparatively small quantity of food, for as slow chewing is always more or less tedious, those who observe this rule soon cease to be great eaters, and also learn quickly to accustom themselves to another very important rule, viz., to drink moderately while eating. Two glasses of liquid will then quite suffice for a person who would drink four if he ate his viands swallowing them down without chewing.

Many obese dyspeptics when they once commence to carefully and to take liquid moderately while eating lose weight with an astonishing rapidity and become cured of the bloating of the stomach without being finally obliged to have recourse to the rigorous dry diet of Prof. Bouchard.

Wine and water, the French national drink, is an extremely frequent, and very often misunderstood, cause of dyspepsia. A good many people would enjoy excellent health if they were satisfied with pure water, that favorite drink of the aged. It is quite perplexing sometimes to see at the same table three neighbors, drinking at their dinner, the one wine, the other beer, and the third tea. How much better would it be if people, instead of choosing their habitual drink according to the place that they come from, would select it more with regard to their individual constitution! I know many who, after having, for fifty years, quietly ignored the fact, have come to the recognition that for them, wine, even if diluted with much water, is absolutely hurtful, and who, by giving it up, and by taking pure water, tea, or cider, to which Prof. C. attributes great success in his practice, instead, have got rid of their ailments almost as if by enchantment.

In conclusion, I should like to say a word with regard to salt, this panacea of arthritic persons (persons suffering from arthritis, swelling of the joints, as in gout).

For many years I have been laboring under the wrong impression, that salt is placed on the table merely for the purpose of salting boiled eggs, which the cook cannot salt in advance. Great mistake! The wisdom of nations has discovered that there are people for whom a great quantity of salt is a necessity, and that there are others who would become ill if they were to eat viands that are much salted. The salt cellar is there in order to enable every one to salt his food according to his own requirements. Many people are led by their natural instinct to salt their viands in a proportion to suit them. But there are others, among them, above all, the well bred persons previously mentioned, who treat eating with disdain and for whom the whole attraction of a repast is the charm of conversation, and to them the idea of having recourse to the salt cellar never occurs.

Whether salt is needed in order to add acid to the gastric juice or whether it has an antiseptic action in the digestive channel, I do not know. Certain, however, it is, that it possesses very appreciable laxative qualities, and under its influence those who go to drink the waters at Wiesbaden often see their intestinal functions restored to a surprising degree.

It is just as well, however, and even better, to take one's Vichy at home, and nothing is more simple than to use one's Wiesbaden at home, by using the salt cellar. The cure may then be completed by distributing over a whole year the thirty warm baths which have to be taken during the season at that watering place. The bath at 40° Celsius is a real boon for arthritic persons. The warmer it is, whether salt or not, the better it acts in producing an exuberant perspiration, and the less is one apt to catch cold when leaving it.

The above by no means exhausts the vast subject of dyspepsia and arthritis. But without ignoring the utility of thermal waters, of morning promenades, of dry frictions and gymnastics, the sufferers should, above all, be advised to minutely masticate their food, to limit the amount of liquids at meal time, to use salt, which will by no means increase their thirst; and in certain cases to abstain entirely from alcoholic drinks. Those who observe these rules may with impunity dine out, although those so-called great dinners, where all rules of health are left aside, are absolutely baneful for a great number of the inhabitants of our cities.