Among the higher classes of society the unrestricted use of the most exciting kinds and preparations of animal food, and the daily use of wine, are the means generally resorted to for the removal of the delicacy thus engendered; but when we consider the real state of the case, no remedy can seem more preposterous. The evil to be corrected is imperfect nutrition, and the want of strength. The imperfect nutrition, however, is caused, not by deficient food, but by impaired powers of digestion and assimilation, and these suffer only because the lungs are denied the free air, the muscles their necessary exertion, the brain its cheerful recreation, and the circulation the healthy stimulus which these united conditions infallibly produce. Instead, therefore, of oppressing a weakened stomach by administering stronger food than it has the power of digesting, the natural way of proceeding would be to prescribe at first a milder and less stimulating diet,--to improve the tone of digestion by fulfilling the conditions above referred to,--and then, in proportion as the stomach was strengthened, to adopt a more nourishing diet, suited to the increased efficiency of all the animal functions. By running counter to this method, and using highly stimulating food improperly, many young people of the wealthier classes incur as much suffering from imperfect nutrition, and the diseases to which it predisposes, as if they were really the victims of an impoverished diet. Dr Clark, after making some very judicious remarks on the influence of bad digestion in inducing the consumptive constitution of body, expresses himself strongly on the evils to which I have just alluded. “Food in excess,” he says, “or of a kind too exciting for the digestive organs, may also induce tubercular cachexia,--a circumstance which is not sufficiently attended to,--I may say, not generally understood, even by medical men; nevertheless, I hold it to be a frequent cause of scrofula, and believe that it produces the same effect on the system as a deficient supply.” “The imperfect digestion and assimilation in the one case, and the inadequate nourishment in the other, being equally injurious: the forms and general characters which the disease assumes may differ, but the ultimate result will be the same in both cases. The adaptation of the food, both in quality and quantity, to the age of the individual, as well as to the powers of the digestive organs, is too little considered; and the evil consequences of this neglect are often evident in the children of the wealthy classes of society, who are allowed an unrestricted use of the most exciting kinds of animal food.”[50]