and when they leave off their stimulants they are equally likely to
underfeed themselves. Flesh foods are such stimulants, for it is
possible to intoxicate those quite unaccustomed to them with a large
ration of meat just as well as with a large ration of alcohol. The one
leads to the other, meat leads to alcohol, alcohol to meat. Taking any
stimulant eventually leads to a call for other stimulants.

How are we to tell when a given person is getting enough food, either
natural or partly natural? Medically speaking, there is no difficulty;
there are plenty of guides to the required knowledge, some of them of
great delicacy and extreme accuracy. The trouble generally is that
these guides are not made use of, as the cause of the disaster is not
suspected. A physiologist is not consulted till too late, perhaps till
the disorder in the machinery of life is beyond repair.

Diminishing energy and power, decreasing endurance, slowing
circulation, lessening blood colour, falling temperature, altered
blood pressure, enlarging heart and liver, are some of the most
obvious signs with which the physician is brought into contact in such
cases. But every one of these may, and very often does, pass unnoticed
for quite a long time by those who have had no scientific training.
The public are extremely ignorant on such matters because the natural
sciences have been more neglected in this country in the last fifty
years than anywhere else in Europe, and that is saying a good deal.
Hence diet quacks and all those who trade on the ignorance and
prejudices of the public are having a good time and often employ it in
writing the most appalling rubbish in reference to the important
subject of nutrition.

Being themselves ignorant and without having studied physiology, even