These purine bodies taken in excess, it is almost certain, tend to raise blood-pressure and to favour the production of gout and arterio-sclerosis. Much can be done, when these threaten, by reducing the amount of these in our food. There is, except in very extreme cases, no need for an absolute purine-free diet, but the diet should be in that direction and so towards a sensible, liberal vegetarianism. The following table of ordinary foods, showing the purine contents in grains per pound, pint or teacup, is from the _Lancet_, 1906, vol. ii, p. 933, Potts: Sweetbread 70.43 Liver 19.26 Beef Steak 14.45 Salmon 9.13 Chicken 9.06 Loin of Pork 8.48 Veal 8.13 Ham 8.08 Mutton 6.75 Halibut 7.14 Plaice 5.56 Cod 4.07 Beans 4.16 Lentils 4.16 Oatmeal 3.45 Coffee 1.70 Ceylon Tea 1.21 China Tea 0.75 In sclerosis perhaps the chief thing is to avoid the flesh extracts, such as beef-tea, strong meat soups, and rich gravies; for this reason boiled or stewed meats are better than fried or roast. This applies to fish and chicken also; a plain grill is good, but the frying-pan is a danger. Vegetable soups made with bone stock may be taken. Cheese, eggs and milk should supply the greater part of the nitrogenous or protein food. The better sorts of vegetable foods, such as oatmeal, lentils, peas and nuts, will all help to take the place of albuminous animal foods. A certain amount of fat should be taken. A fish and chicken diet contains too little fat and should be perfected by bacon, hot or cold. All the farinaceous foods are good, but the more starchy ones, such as sago, rice and cornflour, are with some people more liable to cause fermentative dyspepsia. As age advances and our teeth fail in power we are apt to slip into the way of eating chiefly soft, well-cooked foods, in which what are known as vitamines are almost destroyed, but they are as essential as ever, and some uncooked fruit, salads and unboiled milk should enter into our diet. When one thinks over the luxurious habits of our predecessors, the enormous amount of food, in excess of body needs, taken at big dinners, one must realize how we and they sinned against the light. The great war has taught most of us, with the exception perhaps of the new rich, how little we can live on and work on with complete efficiency. Economy of food, simplicity of life, mean economy of waste and of expenditure of vital force, and our bitter war experiences should prove to be the path to longer lives, and to lives with a higher standard and greater results.