One of the greatest sins against the body is overeating. The intemperate indulgence in alcoholic liquors, is, unquestionably, a great evil. It fills thousands of graves, and ruins thousands of homes, annually. But the evil of alcoholic intemperance is at nothing when compared to the evil of overeating. The habit of overeating is almost universal. Hardly a home exists that is not made unhappy, to a greater or less extent, by this habit. Hardly a life has been wrecked in health that this evil has not played an important part in causing the wreckage? In fact the evil of alcoholic intemperance itself, is largely caused by overeating. The stomach becomes overloaded; the mass refuses to digest - it ferments, and there is a desire for something, the victim hardly knows what - anything to rid the stomach of its vile contents. Alcohol affords this temporary relief. It spurs up the organs to increased activity, as they endeavor to quickly eliminate the poison, and when alcoholic liquors are taken under these abnormal conditions, it may actually be a natural appetite and productive of benefit instead of evil, for the evil that will result from the undigested mass of fermenting food if it remains in the stomach for a great length of time might be as great or greater than that resulting from the use of liquor.

There has been so much preaching on alcoholic intemperance that whenever one speaks of intemperance he is supposed to refer only to this evil. But it is time these narrow-minded temperance advocates were awakened - it is time for them to realize that the real cause of alcoholic intemperance is intemperance in eating; and never until this is understood and made plain to the victims and the classes that are to furnish other victims, will anything of importance be accomplished towards stamping out the alcohol curse. Intemperance begins at the family table, and it is perfectly natural, perfectly logical, for it to drift to the corner saloon.

Overeating permanently distends the walls of the stomach, and lessens their muscular vigor. It often actually strains these muscles permanently, and the churning process so necessary to perfect digestion, which the muscles involuntarily perform, cannot be properly accomplished. They become weakened just as would a muscle in the arm if unduly strained, or overworked. Their efficacy lessens under these circumstances to a similar degree. It would be well for every reader to remember that the entire digestive process is brought about largely by involuntary muscular action, and when the muscles are unnaturally strained as they are where the stomach is habitually overloaded, all the muscles are weakened and their functions greatly impaired, and in the end destroyed.

"There are two ways of putting a limit to a meal - to eating. One - the wrong one - comes in the shape of a protest on the part of a too full stomach while the appetite is yet ravenous. The right one comes naturally from a perfectly satisfied feeling - a ceasing of desire for anything more, no matter how alluring to the palate - before the stomach is overburdened. The former is evidence of glut, or gluttony, and the latter is Nature's way, for which there is every desired reward." - Horace Fletcher.

The gastric and various other juices, so necessary in the stomach's perfect work of digestion, are not supplied in sufficient quantities, nor of proper strength, when overeating is habitually indulged in. This naturally causes serious complications, for which every remedy known to medical science has been prescribed without avail, unless the causes of the condition were discovered, and removed.

Thus, you can readily perceive that these two results of overeating - the weakening of all the belt of muscles about the stomach and other vital organs that carry on involuntarily the very necessary work in connection with the digestive process, and the lessening in quantity and quality of the digestive juices - would seriously interfere with general nutrition. Not only is the quantity that could be secreted by the various glands of absorption lessened, but the quality of the secretion is poor. Every part of the nourishment absorbed under such circumstances is filled with impurities and foreign matter that the natural depurating organs have difficulty in elminating, and the result is these impurities finally permeate every part of the entire body.

The presence of these impurities is manifested in various forms. Medical science has thousands of names for diseases that are nothing more than efforts on the part of the functional system to discharge superfluous and harmful impurities that have been brought into the body. Eruptions, boils and all skin diseases are the results of nothing but impurities being discharged through the skin. Rheumatism, pneumonia, fevers, headaches, neuralgia, etc., are nothing but impurities overburdening some particular part of the body, and the crying out of muscles and nerves against their existence; and in nearly every case whatever the so-called disease, or its nature, these impurities are present in the system primarily because food was taken into the stomach in excess of the body's needs, and beyond the powers of the digestive organs.

"It is generally supposed that if a man has an unusually large day's work to perform, he must eat an unusually large breakfast and a proportionately large dinner. This is certainly an error. Large demands upon either the muscular or the nervous system for the time being detract from the power to digest. The stomach requires nervous energy to enable it to perform its function. If the nervous forces are otherwise engaged or used, they cannot be utilized in digestion. Hence it follows, theoretically, at least, that instead of giving the digestive organs an extra task in preparation for an extra effort, they should be required to perform less than the ordinary amount of labor. Experience as well as theory supports this view. Sir Isaac Newton, when employed in his most arduous labors, lived upon bread and water, and fasted for long intervals. General Elliot, the famous defender of Gibraltar, is said to have subsisted for a number of days on a litle boiled rice. The wonderful L'homme Serpent of Paris, always fasted for twelve hours before attempting to perform his marvelous feats of agility. This plan not only secures a higher degree of efficiency in the effort made, but prevents, in great degree, the injury liable to result from excessive exertion.

When required to overwork for a succession of days, we have found that we were not only able to perform much more work, but to do it with less effort at the time, and less exhaustion afterward, when taking a greatly reduced quantity of food than when attempting to do the same work and still taking the usual quantity of food. I have no doubt that a neglect of this precaution is a not frequent cause of many of the sudden deaths of which we so often receive accounts, especially among politicians and public men. Overloading the stomach and overworking the brain at the same time is exceedingly dangerous. The man who overworks mentally must be temperate; he must exercise the greatest moderation in his eating, and must totally discard all stimulants and narcotics. A great share of the cases of apoplexy occur when the stomach is full. The increased clearness of intellect which results from abstemiousness will repay one for all the self-denial practised." - J. H. Kellogg, M.D.

The continued strain on the digestive apparatus caused by overeating not only weakens the general digestive powers, but the entire muscular and nervous system as well, as it suffers severely in consequence of this. That "tired feeling" is always present. You never have any energy - all your enthusiasm seems to have disappeared. The impure condition of the blood would naturally cause this, but the fact that all the energies are spent in the endeavor to right the digestive disorders, to rid the stomach of the loads that are continually being forced upon it, no doubt does much to influence this condition.

"Gluttony imposes upon the body a quantity of matter which is underdone; that is, underprepared; so that only a small portion of it is suitable for nutrition, leaving the greater part to ferment within the channels and strain the intestines until they are contused and weakened.

"Such is the impetuosity of uncultivated or perverted human tendencies that the desire for acquisition, sometimes called greed, impels one to swallow one mouthful of food to take in another, without ever dreaming that the very last contribution of taste to the last remnant of a delicious morsel is like the last flicker of a candle, more brilliant than any of the preceding ones. In eating, the last taste is more perfectly in possession of the solution, is better than all the other stages of the process. It is the choicest and sweetest expression of the incident, as related to each mouthful. Then why not court it and obey, thereby, Nature's first law of health?" - Horace Fletcher.

The brain, also, suffers intensely. It is almost impossible to do brain work with any degree of satisfaction. There seems to be no connection between your thoughts. The power of concentrating the mind upon any subject entirely disappears.

Another unfortunate result of overeating is the entire disappearance of a normal appetite. One cannot tell by the appetite what the system mostly needs. He or she simply eats until a feeling of fullness indicates that the stomach is crammed to its capacity, as a packing case, and that it is time to cease, instead of eating until hunger has been appeased. As explained in a previous chapter, eating, without appetite, is an outrage against the stomach. The victim of overeating always eats without appetite. He may have a desire for something - anything to relieve his unsatisfactory feelings - but a normal craving for food needed to nourish the body, he really never experiences.

These victims of overeating are sometimes thin, even to emaciation. They so overcrowd their digestive organs that really every particle of vital energy is used to rid themselves of the never-ending supply. Others assume chronically a bloated appearance, though the skin looks rough and unwholesome in appearance and color. Many victims of this vice will say "I never overeat. Why, I hardly eat anything - I have no appetite - I merely eat enough to keep up my strength."

The one who loads his stomach to its fullest capacity is not so great a sinner as he who merely eats under the idiotic idea that he is keeping up his strength. When one loads the stomach to repletion he usually eats with appetite, the food is invited, but the "eat-to-keep-up-my-strength" idiot never allows his stomach to prepare for food, never gives it sufficient rest that it may develop an appetite, and under these circumstances indulgence in the smallest possible quantity of food would be overeating.