“Instead of trying to keep up the strength, as it is termed, by loading the stomach with food, the exhausted brain-worker should rather lean toward abstinence from food, and especially toward abstinence from alcoholic liquors.[21] The feeling of muscular weakness and lassitude, which I have already had occasion to mention as frequently coming on about two hours after meals, is not uncommonly met with in persons belonging to the upper classes who are well fed and have little exercise. It is perhaps seen in its most marked form in young women or girls who have left school, and who, having no definite occupation in life, are indisposed to any exercise, either bodily or mental. I am led to look upon this condition as one of poisoning, both on account of the time of its occurrence, during the absorption of digestive products, and by reason of the peculiar symptoms——viz., a curious weight in the legs and arms, the patient describing them as feeling like lumps of lead. These symptoms so much resemble the effect which would be produced by a poison like curare, that one could hardly help attributing them to the action of a depressant or paralyzer of motor nerves or centers. The recent researches of Ludwig and Schmidt-Mühlheim render it exceedingly probable that peptones are the poisonous agents in these cases; and an observation which I have made seems to confirm this conclusion, for I found that the weakness and languor were less after meals consisting of farinaceous food only. My observations, however, are not sufficiently extensive to absolutely convince me that they are entirely absent after meals of this sort, so that possibly the poisoning by peptones, although one cause of the languor, is not to be looked upon as the only cause.”[22] [Footnote 21: See chapter on Coffee.] [Footnote 22: “Indigestion as a Cause of Nervous Depression.” By T. Lauder Brunton. M.D., F.R.S., in _Practitioner_.] I am able to vouch for a number of cases of consumption, and marasmus, in which, under tonic treatment and frequent meals, the patients were steadily declining, but which yielded, finally, to the influence of the one-meal-a-day system: comparative rest of the diseased alimentary organs, and consequent improvement in the digestive and assimilative functions proved the needed “stimulant.” The Boston _Journal of Chemistry_, of February, 1882, gives the history of a well-authenticated case, of an old man of 70 years, who had been declining with pulmonary consumption for three years, and who was pronounced incurable, who was made convalescent by a voluntary and absolute fast of 43 days——taking water freely, however, during the time——and, following this with the “bread and fruit” diet, was restored to health. Let us contrast this method of _restoring_ the nutritive organs with that of “curing” them by medication: