"No man ever ate too little," declared Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes. Surfeiting has destroyed more lives than starving. For everyone who suffers from underfeeding there are ninety and nine who suffer from gluttony. The markets of the world are glutted with foods of all kinds, as they never were before in the world's history. Their abundance, tempting variety and comparative cheapness, coupled with the many means employed to whip up an over-stimulated and sated appetite to "fresh indulgence in the tempting, but life-withering concoctions of extravagant cooking, with its embalmed preserves, alcoholized liquids, crystallized fruits, frozen creams, aniline dyed dainties, and the constantly increasing nondescript menaces known as pies, puddings and French pastries--there is certainly a tremendous need for instructing the people in what not to eat."

Many people are like clams--mostly liver and stomach; or, perhaps I should say they are like worms--all gut. Dr. E. E. Keeler says in Here's How Health Happens: "The stomach according to the clam and some other people, is a bag of an indefinite expansive capacity useful to hold any old thing that the palate may enjoy and as much of the commodity as may be obtained." We are lured to our doom by our appetites; yet, surely we cannot take every appetite and any and every association for normal. "Accustom your appetite to obey reason with willingness," advised Plutarch.

The philosophers of antiquity prided themselves on their frugal habits, which ranked, next to godliness in their estimation. Lycurgus, the Spartan, was more fearful of excess in the quantity rather than excess in the quality of the food of his countrymen.

Here in this country intemperate eating is one of our universal faults. Almost all of us are guilty of it, not merely occasionally, but habitually and almost uniformly, from the cradle to the grave. Even the sick are urged to eat, in many instances to gorge themselves, in spite of the loudest warnings and strongest protests of nature.

Habits of eating are usually acquired in infancy and are cultivated, nourished and developed throughout childhood and youth. They do not tend to correct themselves spontaneously. They continue with us as imperious masters, calling as loudly as ever for gratification. A dyspeptic, eating three to six rneals a day, is always craving food; though overeating he is literally starving to death. It would be an astounding revelation to many doctors and dyspeptics to watch a fast in such cases and see how quickly the abnormal appetite rights itself and how rapidly the nutritive processes improve.

We teach, hire, bribe, coax, tempt and coerce our children into overeating from the very day of their birth. Helpless infants are stuffed until nature is compelled to get rid of the excess by drooling, vomiting, diarrhea, excessive urination and, finally by febrile and eruptive processes. We coax them to eat more and more and deliberately cultivate gluttony in them. At school they are fed milk and candy between meals. The result is that we are among the greatest eaters in the world. Wm. J. Bryan is our national idol.

Gluttonous indulgence in reckless food-mixtures has produced more disease and suffering than strong drink. The immediate effects of gluttony may be masked by a good digestion, but ultimately it is fatal to strength and manhood and results in premature death. Many are lured to their doom by their appetites.

Gluttony, especially the common overindulgence in incongruous food mixtures, leads to gastro-intestinal fermentation and putrefaction, with the resulting poisoning from this source. This leads to the destruction of the body's reserves which are designed for the preservation of health and strength until a ripe old age is attained.

Temperate eaters have good digestion and are never aware that they have stomachs, while heavy eaters are always faint, thirsty, bloated, troubled with acidity, eruptions, diarrhea, constipation or some other disorder of the digestive system. Hoggishness causes all kinds of disorders that we attempt to remedy by various kinds of magic, but continue to practice the hoggish eating.

I strongly suspect John F. Flood, Secretary of the Pittsburgh Health Club, of being the author of the statement that "A man makes a perambulating sewer of himself and regularly carries about with him a mass of putrefying flesh and fermenting starches, etc., and then when he gets the jim-jams, we talk about mental attitude. Gosh! It's thrilling to hear them spout! * * * Unfortunately, they will do anything but give up their physical bad habits, especially those of atrocious eating. * * * Now let us go into the silence, place our hands on our knees, be still and believe ourselves well. That vicious mixture of meat, potatoes, bread, butter, coffee, pie, candy will then sweetly digest. Keep a sweet disposition, Pollyanna yourself and everything will come out all right in the best of all worlds. * * *

"Someone whispers: 'Oh, I don't care, the going into the silence and accompanying bunk, pardon me, the accompanying soothing syrups, help me.'"

I am convinced that the habit of eating denatured foods is a chief cause of over eating. These foods do not completely nourish the body and, therefore, do not satisfy the demands of hunger, unless consumed in large quantities. Great variety at a meal also overstimulates the sense of taste and leads to over eating. Spices and condiments have the same effect. It is really difficult to overeat when one is eating unseasoned foods.

"Sunk into the degenerating grip of gluttony, their mental attitudes become transposed into its corresponding physical attitude--that of the groveling swine. Every individual who is a slave under his appetite,--be he vegetarian, fruitarian or carnivorian--who eats for the mere sake of appetite and sensuous indulgence, is a glutton in his nature, an egotist in his motive and a swine in his attitude.

"While gluttony may give rise to an appearance of health and strength in the rounded out tissues, it will never produce the firm, strong, wiry, enduring energies of the individual who submits his system to the strengthening and beautifying discipline of self-control and refined dietetic reserve."

It is time for us to learn that we are not "in tune with the Infinite" so long as we are regularly transgressing any of the laws of life. Nature does not sanction any form of intemperance. A league of temperate eaters would certainly find a large field for reform.

Health and serviceability demand that an organism shall possess all that is necessary but no more. Redundancy beyond a reasonable reserve for emergency, is unwholesome and becomes an impediment to physiological efficiency. Moderation is a symbiotic virtue. Ruskin stressed his contention that the increase of both honor and beauty is habitually on the side of restraint. This goes for restraint in eating too.

Exuberance of nutriment, as of many other good things, is more often a curse than a blessing. Overfeeding on "rich" foods wears out the vital powers through over-stimulation, overworking the digestive organs, the heart, the endocrine system, and the emunctories, by the strain placed on them and gives rise to intoxication through the poisons which these foods generate.

Much poisoning in infusorians has been found to be due to intensive nourishment. It needs only a short fast to restore the animals to youth. In higher animals, also, "brief hunger has a beneficial effect." Bees easily become debauched by a surfeit of food and render themselves liable to "disease." A reduction of surfeit is essential to the most vigorous manifestations of vitality.

The fact that the organism is unable to exist without the vital purifier, the cortex of the suparenal glands, should convince us of the harmfulness of overeating with its resulting intoxication. Excess is fatal to healthy action.

Over-feeding of invalids in an effort to give them health and strength is still a popular procedure. How often do we see this fail. How frequently, indeed, do we see increases of strength and gains in weight follow upon a reduction of surfeit. Many invalids will be killed outright by over-feeding who would recover if fed barely enough food to sustain the most essential vital activities while resting. I nave watched more than one invalid, whose life was despaired of, gradually grow stronger and finally recover, while being fed a starvation diet. Overfeeding of such patients accounts for many needless deaths each year.