Many authors, both ancient and modern, and many physicians also, recommend, in order to reduce obesity, that the patient should eat a less amount by weight than the body loses. By such means a wasting of all the organs of the body would be simultaneously effected; not only fat, but muscle, nerve, tissue, blood--all must suffer. At the same time these authors universally forbid the use of meat, and permit only an exclusively vegetable diet. Any one, after reading the preceding pages, is competent to judge how great must be the error of these writers, who always end, however, by affirming obesity to be incurable. Incurable, no doubt, it is, by such treatment. But to diminish obesity, without affecting the general health, the patient must feed chiefly upon meat. I say chiefly, because man, being naturally disposed to partake of both animal and vegetable food, cannot live exclusively upon meat without prejudice to his general health. The use of a small quantity of vegetable matter will not prevent the diminution of fat. At a future page the several alimentary substances will be arranged from a chemical point of view, in the order they truly occupy as reducing or inducing obesity. For the present, it may be stated that among alimentary substances, exclusive of meat, those containing the greatest amount of water, such as watery vegetables, sweet fruits, &c., have an especial tendency to develop fat. The result of my own observation, in a great number of cases, is in perfect accordance with the chemical fact, viz., that the chief constituents of fat are also constituents of water. So that although a person should live exclusively upon meat, and at the same time drink a great deal, he would not experience any perceptible reduction of fat. This affords an explanation why many who eat very little, but drink large quantities of water, beer, cider, brandy or wine, labour under obesity. Whoever desires to avoid corpulence must therefore feed chiefly upon meat, partaking very sparingly of any other kind of food, and at the same time should drink but little.