Another popular error, almost universally accepted, is that fruits are highly nutritious; as a matter of fact they consist almost wholly of water, and of materials that are utterly indigestible. The latter substances pass through the alimentary tract, therefore, in much the same condition that they enter and serve no better purpose than to promote, somewhat, activity in the bowels. Nevertheless the writer does not wish to be misunderstood as advocating total abstinence from such a palatable class of foods; no harm results in most people if they only take perfectly ripe and fresh fruits in moderation now and then; and these should be always eaten after meals rather than before. The fruits that contain comparatively little acid are, as a rule, more wholesome than those that are rich in substance of this kind. For example, perfectly fresh and ripe figs or peaches may be taken by most persons with impunity if they be eaten after meals, and at intervals of at least two or three days. Acid fruits, particularly lemons, seem to be peculiarly unwholesome; apples are prone to cause trouble and can rarely be eaten without ill effects, however mellow and palatable they may be. It sometimes happens that persons take grape-fruit with less harm than others. Closely akin to fruits in their deleterious action on the digestive apparatus are sours in any form whatever. Women, especially, indulge freely and at irregular hours in foods containing much vinegar, lemon-juice, etc.,--usually in the form of pickles or salads. In healthy persons, in moderation, foods of this character perhaps produce no appreciable trouble, but nothing is more thoroughly established than that they act harmfully on the general run of dyspeptics, such as most of us are to a greater or less degree after thirty years of age. This leads to the remark that here, as in everything else, we must regard individual peculiarities--it being true that one person can eat without ill effects what may produce decided disturbances in others, or suffer from excess when moderation would entail no ill-effects. CHAPTER X DRINKS--PROPER AND HARMFUL