Consider for one moment that the food taken from day to day should be plain and simple, and that in quality and quantity it should bear a close relation to the following circumstances or conditions, viz.: (1) to the season and the climate; (2) to the purity of the air habitually breathed; (3) amount of clothing worn; (4) amount of mental and physical labor performed; (5) the existing physical condition as to (_a_) appetite——whether normal or abnormal, as for example, ravenous, fitful or none at all; (_b_) strength——whether full, or exhausted from fatigue: (6) mental state——whether the mind is at ease, or from one or another cause distressed, as with grief, anger,[15] etc.; (7) the natural constitution——whether delicate or robust. How many, let me ask, in any community consider _any_ of these conditions, or are to any extent influenced by them? Not that the question is, after all, as complicated as would at first sight appear; on the contrary, it is very simple, indeed. We have only to clothe ourselves in loose and comfortable garments; keep clean; breathe out-door air——whether we are indoors or out, day and night;[16] lead an active, useful life, rest when tired, never eat without a good relish, nor, as a rule, when there is “gnawing” at the stomach, nor when the body is exhausted with fatigue or the mind in a badly disturbed state. Eat but twice daily and of the simplest and purest food, _i.e._, the cereal grains, vegetables and fruits. Ordinarily, a little animal food——unaccompanied by greasy or stimulating condiments——will not affect a robust person seriously; but it is not essential to health, speaking generally, and in depraved conditions of the system it may be set down as detrimental; although lean beef or mutton, plainly cooked, and served without “seasoning,” is doubtless preferable to bolted flour or impoverished vegetables, whose dissipated salts are mistakenly supposed to be “restored” in the form of artificial salt (see “Saline Starvation.”) [Footnote 15: Few causes are more readily promotive of indigestion than the indulgence of such emotions, and none presents a greater obstacle to the recovery of a consumptive patient than the habitual subjection of the mind to unhappy reflections of whatsoever character. It is especially important for both patient and all who approach him to avoid, so far as possible, every disquieting influence.] [Footnote 16: “Azotized air affects the lungs as the substitution of excrements for nourishing food would affect our digestive organs: corruption sets in; pulmonary phthisis is, in fact, a process of putrefaction.