A carefully regulated diet has, in numberless cases, proved one of the best, if not the very best, correctives of disease.- Doctor Shepard.

"All that a man hath will he give for his life."

Difficult as it is to select a dietary for the well, it is even more difficult to decide upon the proper articles of food for the sick or the convalescent; for the thought of the housekeeper in general is concentrated on feeding the well and not the sick. Diet for the sick should be modified by the nature of the disease; hence it needs be under the personal supervision of a practitioner who believes in the curative power of dietetics. The physician should know how to cook and prepare the food that he orders for his patient; for a properly trained nurse is not always at hand to cook, or superintend the cooking of a patient's meals, and many a housekeeper or "good, plain cook" is ignorant of the first principles involved in making properly a cup of gruel or broth, or in toasting a slice of bread.

It is not our purpose to repeat here directions or recipes that have been given in other parts of this volume, for "what will make a sick man well will also keep him well," but to refer simply to some dishes that may be safely used to supply nutrition under certain circumstances or conditions of health. A patient recovering from illness is often in so weak and precarious a condition that the slightest indiscretion in diet may put off the day of recovery weeks, even, if it do not prove fatal.

When a new dish is allowed by the attending physician, only a small service or portion should be given at first, and the effects should be carefully noted; for nowhere are thought and judgment more needed than in selecting food for the sick, or for young children, and in the feeding of both the same rules are to be observed.

Regularity In Feeding

It has come to be well known that medicines are to be given at stated intervals; it is just as essential to present food at stated periods. Regularity in feeding is conducive to welfare of both sick and well. "The stomach is a good servant: let his hours of repose be unbroken."

The Precautions

Those who are fastidious in respect to food while well are doubly so when ill, and the china and other accessories should be of the choicest at hand. Scrupulous cleanliness should be observed in the minutest particulars. Food should never be tasted in the presence of an invalid, and he should feel beyond suspicion that the fork or spoon presented him has not been negligently handled. The patient who insisted that she be allowed with her own hand to throw into a common receptacle all broths, gruels, etc., left in the cups simply wished to assure herself against the return of those items after they had been left standing uncovered.

The fundamental principles involved in feeding the sick have been tersely expressed by one skilled in the medicinal art as follows:

1st. The avoidance of all articles that disagree with the existing condition of the patient.

2nd. The giving of the food best adapted to relieve the digestive organs of unnecessary labor and at the same time maintain nutrition.

3rd. For certain special diseases there are classes of food that possess distinctly curative value, as fresh fruits and vegetables for scurvy, fats and oils in tuberculosis, and pineapple juice in catarrhal affections of throat and alimentary canal.