THE SOCIAL BOARD.

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who have taken no animal food for more than two years, and their health has been constantly improving.

I would only add upon this point, that it is very undesirable to contract notions, whims, and oddities about eating; or even to think very much about it. Adapt your food to your constitution, employment, and situation; eat prudently of some part of what is set before you, with a thankful heart; live in a natural, rational, common-sense way - and I think you will do pretty well as to this matter.

It may not be superfluous to add, that it is well to spend a few moments before meals in unbending and diverting the mind, and not to go to the table with it oppressed with care or intensely engaged in any study or business. The food should be eaten slowly and should be thoroughly masticated, in order that it may be perfectly permeated by the solvent and gastric juices which are essential to digestion.

Also agreeable company and conversation at table helps to promote digestion, and to give a healthy tone to the secretions. A meal taken in solitude, especially if the mind is in an unsocial or an oppressed mood, will not do you half the good that it would if taken in a cheerful and social manHence Providence has constituted the social board; and instead of ordaining that the husband should first take his own meal in selfish solitude,

ner.

and then the wife, and then the children if anything remains, as the heathen do, he has instructed them to come together around the same board, to participate socially of his gifts with happy hearts. "For thou shalt eat the labor of thine hands; happy shalt thou be, and it shall be well with thee. Thy wife shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thine house; thy children like olive plants round about thy table."

When

As to the quantity to be eaten, if a man is in perfect health, his appetite is the best guide. But the stomach is so frequently more or less in a morbid state, that this guide must be followed with some caution. Most people eat too much. you have eaten so much as to feel oppressed, heavy, dull, you may know that you have transgressed. Be careful next time. People should always leave off eating at the point when they feel refreshed, and can go directly to their business or study, not only with unabated but with increased vigor and delight. How many almost spoil their afternoons by their dinners!

DRINK. If you subsist upon a vegetable diet, you will require less drink than if you take much animal food. The former keeps the system cool and even in its temperament; the latter tends to a febrile action, which creates thirst. Most people drink too much. A morbid thirst may be pro

THE BEST DRINK.

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duced by over-drinking, as well as a morbid appetite by over-eating.

The best drink beyond a question, both at meals and at all other times, is pure cold water. The water should be perfectly pure, fresh, and cold. The colder the better; only take the less. It is best to use ice-water, if convenient, through the whole year. It should be taken in small quantities; for it is quite a stimulant and a tonic, although of a kind which does not produce any reaction when taken with due moderation. Milk may be taken at meals in connection with water, if desired; or a tumbler of pure milk may be substituted for it to advantage.

Coffee and green tea are powerful narcotic stimulants and tend strongly to undermine the tone of the stomach, produce dyspepsia, induce dejection of spirits, affect the brain, &c. Like the little book in the apocalyptic vision, their primary effect is highly delightful, but their secondary effect is sad. The same is true in a far more limited extent of black tea. Chocolate and cocoa are a fine beverage, when taken weak and well diluted with milk, having the evil tendencies of tea and coffee in a much slighter degree, though sometimes producing heaviness. Some take a dish of hot water ⚫ seasoned with sugar and milk. This is a delicious cordial to those who love it, and probably the best of all drinks excepting pure water. But all warm

drinks tend to debilitate the stomach and impair digestion. If you should adopt the plan of taking with your meals only pure cold water or milk, you would in a short time acquire a simplicity and purity of taste, which would render it the most delicious of all drinks; and you would find a reward also in a keener relish for your food, and in more uniform health and spirits. A gentleman who abandoned entirely the use of coffee and tea three years since, observed a few days ago that he never till recently knew the luxury of pure cold

water.

If, however, you are accustomed to the use of tea and coffee, and are in good health, you will not probably be persuaded to relinquish them and embark in the cold water experiment. Be advised then to use them very sparingly. Take no more than one or two dishes at the most, well diluted with cream or milk. You may thus perhaps be able to indulge them without much if any injury.

As to wines, beers, cordials, cider, and all fermented and alcoholic drinks, the more intelligent physicians are agreed that it is best for health, as a general rule, to abstain entirely from their use.

Tobacco is one of the most pernicious and filthy of all the weeds that grow upon the earth. To almost and perhaps every person of an unvitiated taste, it is offensive in a high degree. It cannot be habitually used, in any form, without injury to

health; nor often, without endangering a man's neatness, and in various ways rendering him a nuisance to those about him.

MEDICINE. It is to be hoped and expected, that if you live according to the above directions you will enjoy perfect and constant health, so as seldom or never to require any medical treatment. Should your system at any time become a little deranged, you may generally effect a cure by omitting a meal or living lighter than usual for a few days. This gives the absorbents time to fetch up their arrears, and thus restore the lost balance in the system.

But if your disease is of a serious character, and you are in doubt what to do, have immediate recourse to a scientific and skillful physician. Never trifle with your health by putting it in the power of ignorant quacks. You often hear a great noise about the wonderful cures of quacks; but remember that the dew and the rain, which most safely and effectually resuscitate the drooping vegetation, are silent and noiseless. It is characteristic of quacks that they have no modesty. The few instances of cure which they effect, or rather which take place in despite of them, are trumpted loudly; while the scores and hundreds which they kill, are hid away in the earth and forgotten.

The surgical and medical cure of the body, however, involves several departments, and a man