Carnivore Diet

[This is the full wiki page  about this man, but the only interesting part is the last sentence]

Sir George Reresby Sitwell, 4th Baronet (27 January 1860 – 9 July 1943) was a British antiquarian writer and Conservative politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1885 and 1895.

Biography

Sitwell was born in London, the son of Sir Sitwell Reresby Sitwell, 3rd Baronet and his wife Louisa Lucy Hutchinson, daughter of the Hon. Henry Hely Hutchinson. His father died in 1862 and he succeeded to the baronetcy at the age of two. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. He was a lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Yeoman Cavalry.[1]

Sitwell contested Scarborough seven times, losing twice in 1884. He was elected Member of Parliament for the constituency at the 1885 general election, but lost it at the 1886 general election. After regaining the seat in the 1892 general election, he lost it again in the 1895 general election.[2]

A keen antiquarian, Sitwell worked on the Sacheverell papers, and wrote a biography of his ancestor, William Sacheverell and published The Letters of the Sitwells and Sacheverells. His collection of books and papers are said to have filled seven sitting-rooms at the family house, Renishaw Hall, in Derbyshire. He researched genealogy and heraldry, and was a keen designer of gardens (he studied garden design in Italy).[3]

In 1909 he purchased the Castello di Montegufoni, near Florence, then a wreck inhabited by three hundred peasants.[4] Over the next three decades he restored it to its original design, commissioned the Italian painter Gino Severini to paint the murals,[5] and took up permanent residence there in 1925, writing to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to explain that taxes had forced him to settle in Italy.[4]

He remained in Italy at the outbreak of war, but in 1942 moved to Switzerland and died at Locarno at the age of 83. He held his baronetcy for 81 years 89 days, longer than all his three predecessors, and one of the longest times anyone has held a baronetcy in England.

Sitwell married, in 1886, Ida Emily Augusta Denison, daughter of William Henry Forester Denison (later 1st Earl of Londesborough). In 1915 he refused to pay off her many creditors, and saw her prosecuted and imprisoned at Holloway for three months. He was succeeded by his elder son Osbert, who described him vividly in his five-volume autobiography. Sir George's other two children were the writers Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell.[4]

Sitwell was known for his eccentric behaviour.[6] He banned electricity in his household well into the 1940s and made his guests use candles.[6] He deliberately mislabelled his self-medication to stop anyone else using it. Sitwell lived on an exclusive diet of roasted chicken.[6]

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Researches_on_the_Nature_and_Treatment_o/DBQDAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1

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Dietary for the diabetic:

May Eat:

Butcher's meat of all kinds, except liver.

Ham, bacon.

Poultry.

Game.

Fish.

Animal soups.

Eggs, cheese, cream, butter.

Greens, spinach, lettuce, nuts sparingly.

Must avoid Eating:

Sugar, bread, Rice, Potatoes, Cauliflower, peas, broccoli, and many more.

Banting accounted all of his unsuccessful fasts, diets, spa and exercise regimens in his past. His previously unsuccessful attempts had been on the advice of various medical experts. He then described the dietary change which finally had worked for him, following the advice of another medical expert. "My kind and valued medical adviser is not a doctor for obesity, but stands on the pinnacle of fame in the treatment of another malady, which, as he well knows, is frequently induced by [corpulence]." (p24) His own diet was four meals per day, consisting of meat, greens, fruits, and dry wine. The emphasis was on avoiding sugar, saccharine matter, starch, beer, milk and butter. ([Wikipedia]

 I have felt some difficulty in deciding on the proper and best course of action. At one time I thought the Editor of the Lancet would kindly publish a letter from me on the subject, but further reflection led me to doubt whether an insignificant individual would be noticed without some special introduction. In the April number of the Cornhill Magazine I read with much interest an article on the subject-defining tolerably well the effects, but offering no tangible remedy, or even positive solution of the problem-“What is the Cause of Obesity?’’ I was pleased with the article as a whole, but objected to some portions, and had prepared a letter to the Editor of that Magazine offering my experience on the subject, but again it struck me that an unknown individual like myself would have but little prospect of notice; so I finally resolved to publish and circulate this Pamphlet, with no other reason, motive, or expectation than an earnest desire to help those who happen to be afflicted as I was, for that corpulence is remediable I am well convinced, and shall be delighted if I can induce others to think so. The object I have in view impels me to enter into minute particulars as well as general observations, and to revert to bygone years, in order to show that I have spared no pains nor expense to accomplish the great end of stopping and curing obesity. 

I am now nearly 66 years of age, about 5 feet 5 inches in stature, and, in August last (1862), weighed 202 Ibs., which I think it right to name, because the article in the Cornhill Magazine presumes that a certain stature and age should bear ordinarily a certain weight, and I am quite of that opinion. I now weigh 167 lbs., showing a diminution of something like 1 Ib. per week since August, and having now very nearly attained the happy medium, I have perfect confidence that a few more weeks will fully accomplish the object for which I have laboured for the last thirty years, in vain, until it pleased Almighty Providence to direct me into the right and proper channel-the “tramway,” so to speak-of happy, comfortable existence. 

Few men have led a more active life-bodily or mentally-from a constitutional anxiety for regularity, precision, and order, during fifty years’ business career, from which I have now retired, so that my corpulence and subsequent obesity was not through neglect of necessary bodily activity, nor from excessive eating, drinking, or self-indulgence of any kind, except that I partook of the simple aliments of bread, milk, butter, beer, sugar, and potatoes more freely than my aged nature required, and hence, as I believe, the generation of the parasite, detrimental to comfort if not really to health. I will not presume to descant on the bodily structural tissues, so fully Canvassed in the Cornhill Magazine, nor how they are supported and renovated, having no mind or power to enter into those questions, which properly belong to the wise heads of the faculty. None of my family on the side of either parent had any tendency to corpulence, and from my earliest years I had an inexpressible dread of such a calamity, so, when I was between thirty and forty years of age, finding a tendency to it creeping upon me, I consulted an eminent surgeon, now long deceased,-a kind personal friend,-who recommended increased bodily exertion before my ordinary daily labours began, and thought rowing an excellent plan. I had the command of a good, heavy, safe boat, lived near the river, and adopted it for a couple of hours in the early morning. It is true I gained muscular vigour, but with it a prodigious appetite, which I was compelled to indulge, aid consequently increased in weight, until my kind old friend advised me to forsake the exercise. 

He soon afterwards died, and, as the tendency to corpulence remained, I consulted other high orthodox authorities (never any inferior adviser). but all in vain. I have tried sea air and bathing in various localities, with much walking exercise; taken gallons of physic and liquor potasse, advisedly and abundantly; riding on horseback; the waters and climate of Leamington many times, as well as those of Cheltenham and Harrogate frequently; have lived upon sixpence a-day, so to speak, and earned it, if bodily labour may be so construed; and have spared no trouble nor expense in consultations with the best authorities in the land, giving each and all a fair time for experiment, without any permanent remedy, as the evil still gradually increased. 

I am under obligations to most of those advisors for the pains and interest they took in my case; but only to one for an effectual remedy. When a corpulent man eats, drinks, and sleeps well, has no pain to complain of, and no particular organic disease, the judgment of able men seems paralyzed,-for I have been generally informed that corpulence is one of the natural results of increasing years; indeed, one of the ablest authorities as a physician in the land told me he had gained 1 Ib. in weight every year since he attained manhood, and was not surprised at my condition, but advised more bodily exercise-vapour-baths and shampooing, in addition to the medicine given. Yet the evil still increased, aid, like the parasite of barnacles on a ship, if it did not destroy the structure, it obstructed its fair, comfortable progress in the path of life. I have been in dock, perhaps twenty times in as many years, for the reduction of this disease, and with little good effect-none lasting. Any one so afflicted is often subject to public remark, and though in conscience he may care little about it, I am confident no man labouring under obesity can be quite insensible to the sneers and remarks of the cruel and injudicious in public assemblies, public vehicles, or the ordinary street traffic; nor to the annoyance of finding no adequate space in a public assembly if he should seek amusement or need refreshment, and therefore he naturally keeps away as much as possible from places where he is likely to be made the object of the taunts and remarks of others. I am as regardless of public remark as most men, but I have felt these difficulties and therefore avoided such circumscribed accommodation and notice, and by that means have been deprived of many advantages to health and comfort. 

Although no very great size or weight, still I could not stoop to tie my shoe, so to speak, nor attend to the little offices humanity requires without considerable pain and difficulty, which only the corpulent can understand; I have been compelled to go down stairs slowly backwards, to save the jarr of increased weight upon the ankle and knee joints, and been obliged to puff and blow with every slight exertion, particularly that of going up stairs. I have spared no pains to remedy this by low living (moderation and light food was generally prescribed, but I had no direct bill of fare to know what was really intended), and that, consequently, brought the system into a low impoverished state, without decreasing corpulence, caused many obnoxious boils to appear, and two rather formidable carbuncles, for which I was ably operated upon and fed into increased obesity. 

At this juncture (about three years back) Turkish baths became the fashion, and I was advised to adopt them as a remedy. With the first few I found immense benefit in power and elasticity for walking exercise; so, believing I had found the “philosopher’s stone,” pursued them three times a-week till I had taken fifty, then less frequently (as I began to fancy, with some reason, that so many weakened my constitution) till I had taken ninety, but never succeeded in losing more than 6 Ibs. weight during the whole course, and I gave up the plan as worthless; though I have full belief in their cleansing properties, and their value in colds, rheumatism, and many other ailments. 

I then fancied increasing obesity materially affected a slight umbilical rupture, if it did not cause it, and that another bodily ailment to which I had been subject was also augmented. This led me to other medical advisers, to whom I am also indebted for much kind consideration, though, unfortunately, they failed in relieving me. At last finding my sight failing and my hearing greatly impaired, I consulted in August last an eminent aural surgeon, who made light of the case, looked into my ears, sponged them internally, and blistered the outside, without the slightest benefit, neither inquiring into any of my bodily ailments, which he probably thought unnecessary, nor affording me even time to name them. I was not at all satisfied, but on the contrary was in a worse plight than when I went to him; however he soon after left town for his annual holiday, which proved the greatest possible blessing to me, because it compelled me to seek other assistance, and, happily, I found the right man, who unhesitatingly said he believed my ailments were caused principally by corpulence, and prescribed a certain diet,-no medicine, beyond a morning cordial as a corrective,-with immense effect and advantage both to my hearing and the decrease of my corpulency. 

For the sake of argument and illustration I will presume that certain articles of ordinary diet, however beneficial in youth, are prejudicial in advanced life, like beans to a horse, whose common ordinary food is hay and corn. It may be useful food occasionally, under peculiar circumstances, but detrimental as a constancy. I will, therefore, adopt the analogy, and call such food human beans. The items from which I was advised to abstain as much as possible were:

-Bread, butter, milk, sugar, beer, and potatoes, which had been the main (and, I thought, innocent) elements of my existence, or at all events they had for many years been adopted freely. 

These, said my excellent adviser, contain starch and saccharine matter, tending to create fat, and should be avoided altogether. At the first blush it seemed to me that I had little left to live upon, but my kind friend soon showed me there was ample, and I was only too happy to give the plan a fair trial, and, within a very few days, found immense benefit from it. It may better elucidate the dietary plan if I describe generally what I have sanction to take, and that man must be an extraordinary person who would desire a better table:

- For breakfast, I take four or five ounces of beef, mutton, kidneys, broiled fish, bacon, or cold meat of any kind except pork; a large cup of tea (without milk or sugar), a little biscuit, or one ounce of dry toast. 

For dinner, Five or six ounces of any fish except salmon, any meat except pork, any vegetable except potato, one ounce of dry toast, fruit out of a pudding, ‘any kind of poultry or game, and two or three glasses of good claret, sherry, or Madeira-Champagne, Port and Beer forbidden. 

For tea, Two or three ounces of fruit, a rusk or two, and a cup of tea willlout milk or sugar. 

For supper, Three or four ounces of meat or fish, similar to dinner, with a glass or two of claret. 

For nightcap, if required, A tumbler of grog -(gin, whisky, or brandy, without sugar) -or a glass or two of claret or sherry.

 This plan leads to an excellent night’s rest, with from six to eight hours’ sound sleep. The dry toast or rusk may have a table spoonful of spirit to soften it, which will prove acceptable. Perhaps I did not wholly escape starchy or saccharine matter, but scrupulously avoided those beans, such as milk, sugar, beer, butter, & c., which were known to contain them. 

On rising in the morning I take a table spoonful of a special corrective cordial, which may be called the Balm of life, in a wine-glass of water, a most grateful draught, as it seems to carry away all the dregs left in the stomach after digestion, but is not aperient; then I take about 5 or 6 ounces solid and 8 of liquid for breakfast; 8 ounces of solid and 8 of liquid for dinner; 3 ounces of solid and 8 of liquid for tea; 4 ounces of solid and 6 of liquid for supper, and the grog afterwards, if I please. I am not, however, strictly limited to any quantity at either meal, so that the nature of the food is rigidly adhered to. 

Experience has taught me to believe that these human beans are the most insidious enemies man, with a tendency to corpulence in advanced life, can possess, though eminently friendly to youth. He may very prudently mount guard against such an enemy if he is not a fool to himself, and I fervently hope this truthful unvarnished tale may lead him to make a trial of my plan, which I sincerely recommend to public notice,-not with any ambitious motive, but in sincere good faith to help my fellow-creatures to obtain the marvellous blessings I have found within the short period of a few months. 

I do not recommend every corpulent man to rush headlong into such a change of diet, (certainly not), but to act advisedly and after full consideration with a physician. 

My former dietary table was bread and milk for breakfast, or a pint of tea with plenty of milk and sugar, and buttered toast; meat, beer, much bread (of which I was always very fond) and pastry for dinner, the meal of tea similar to that of breakfast, and generally a fruit tart or bread and milk for supper. I had little comfort and far less sound sleep. 

It certainly appears to me that my present dietary table is far superior to the former-more luxurious and liberal, independent of its blessed effect-but when it is proved to be more healthful, comparisons are simply ridiculous, and I can hardly imagine any man, even in sound health, would choose the former, even if it were not an enemy; but, when it is shown to be, as in my case, inimical both to health and comfort, I can hardly conceive there is any man who would not willingly avoid it. I can conscientiously assert I never lived so well as under the new plan of dietary, which I should have formerly thought a dangerous extravagant trespass upon health; I am very much better, bodily and mentally, and pleased to believe that I hold the reins of health and comfort in my own hands, and, though at sixty-five years of age, I cannot expect to remain free from some coming natural infirmity that all flesh is heir to, I cannot at the present time complain of one. It is simply mhculous, and I am thankful to Almighty Providence for directing me, through an extraordinary chance, to the care of a man who could Work such a change in so short a time. 

Oh! that the faculty would look deeper into and make themselves better acquainted with the crying evil of obesity-that dreadful tormenting parasite on health and comfort. Their fellow men might not descend into early premature graves, as I believe many do, from what is termed apoplexy, and certainly would not, during their sojourn on earth, endure so much bodily and consequently mental infirmity. 

Corpulence, though giving no actual pain, as it appears to me, must naturally press with undue violence upon the bodily viscera, driving one part upon another, and stopping the free action of all. I am sure it did in my particular case, and the result of my experience is briefly as follows:

- I have not felt so well as now for the last twenty years. 

Have suffered no inconvenience whatever in the probational remedy. 

Am reduced many inches in bulk, and 35 Ibs. in weight in thirty-eight weeks. 

Come down stairs forward naturally, with perfect ease.

 Go up stairs and take ordinary exercise freely, without the slightest inconvenience. 

Can perform every necessary office for myself. 

The umbilical rupture is greatly ameliorated, and my sight is restored-my hearing improved. 

My other bodily ailments are ameliorated; indeed, almost past into matter of history. 

I have placed a thank-offering of $50 in the hands of my kind medical adviser for distribution amongst his favourite hospitals, after gladly paying his usual fees, and still remain under overwhelming obligations for his care and attention, which I can never hope to repay. Most thankful to Almighty Providence for mercies received, and determined to press the case into public notice as a token of gratitude. 

I have the pleasure to afford, in conclusion, a satisfactory confinnation of my report, in stating that a corpulent friend of mine, who, like myself, is possessed of a generally sound constitution, was labouring under frequent palpitations of the heart and sensations of fainting, was, at my instigation, induced to place himself in the hands of my medical adviser, with the same gradual beneficial results. He is at present under the same ordeal, auld in eight weeks has profited even more largely than I did ill that short period; he has lost the palpitations, and is becoming, so to speak, a new made man-thankful to me for advising, and grateful to the eminent counsellor to whom I referred him-and he looks forward with good hope to a perfect cure. 

I am fully persuaded that hundreds. if not thousands, of our fellow men might profit equally by a similar course; but, constitutions not being all alike, a different course of treatment may be advisable for the removal of so tormenting an affliction. 

My kind and valued medical adviser is not a doctor for obesity, but stands on the pinnacle of fame in the treatment of another malady, which, as he well knows, is frequently induced by the disease of which I am speaking, and I most sincerely trust most of my corpulent friends (and there are thousands of corpulent people whom I dare not so rank) may be led into my tramroad. To any such I am prepared to offer the further key of knowledge by naming the man. It might seem invidious to do so now, but I shall only be too happy, if applied to by letter in good faith, or if any doubt should exist as to the correctness of this statement. 

WILLIAM BANTING, 

Sen., Late of No. 27, 

St. James’s Street, Piccadilly, Now of No. 4, The Terrace, Kensington 

May, 1863 

The next case is that of a lady who also suffers from diabetes by excess. Before coining to me she had been under a gentleman connected with one of the City Hospitals, who treated her according to what has been hitherto considered the orthodox principles of restricted diet, upon which treatment she had thriven so well that when she walked into my consulting-room I never dreamt that she came to talk about herself, but imagined she came about the health of another patient with whom she had been to see me a short time previously. She looked, in fact, the very picture of health ; being plump, hale, and rosy. Like many patients in her position of life, she thoroughly understood the nature of her disease, and criticised the opinions of our first authorities on the subject in a manner which somewhat surprised me — especially when she finished by saying she had come to put herself under my care, not for the purpose of being dieted, but for the purpose of being able to live without being dieted. She was tired, she said, of gluten bread, etc., and wanted to live like other people. She had brains enough to see that dieting kept down the sugar, not by cujing the disease, but merely by stopping the supply, and that as soon as she gave up the restricted diet, back came all the disagreeable symptoms. On analysing the urine I found she was in as good a condition as restricted diet could make her; the quantity of urine passed was moderate, of a specific gravity of 1030, and the amount of sugar comparatively trifling, — 310 grains. 

Diagnosing the case to be one of diabetes by excess, I honestly told her that although her case was one of the most favourable as far as longevity was concerned, it was one of the least satisfactory kind to put on ordinary diet. At the same time adding, that the treatment must, in the first place, be entirely experimental, it being impossible to say what remedy would most successfully allow her to dispense with dieting. The case so closely resembled the preceding in its general characters, that I ventured on the same line of treatment, and, as will be seen by the subjoined table, with a favourable result. The sugar gradually diminished, until at length, after seven months' treatment, the saccharine matter had entirely disappeared from the urine. Being too sanguine as to the result, in an unlucky moment I consented to the patient's throwing aside the restricted diet, and whether this was done too suddenly or not I cannot say, but certain it is, that before a month was over, the urine con- tained as much, and even more sugar than when iirst I took the case in hand. One very remarkable peculiarity of this case is the very Large amount of urea passed by the patient. A large quantity  of urea is common to all diabetic cases, and especially to those on animal diet. Regarding the cause of the high percentage of urea in diabetes, the Rev. S. Ilaughton (a) remarks that it comes from the excessive decomposition of protein substance which takes place in this disease, quite independent of the amount of bodily work done. In a series of observations on two cases in XJniversity College Hospital, Ringer(b) arrived at the following conclusions : — 1st. That after the influence of food on the urine has entirely disappeared, a constant ratio is maintained between the sugar and urea. 2nd. That after a purely non-amylaceous and non-saccharine meal both the sugar and urea are increased, but that during this increase the same ratio between them is observed. This ratio being 1 of urea to 2-2 of sugar. 3rd. That under both these circumstances the sugar could only be derived from the nitrogeneous elements of the body, and, therefore, that some such ratio might, on a priori grounds, have been expected.

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On the 9th June, after a "hyas wa-wa” (big talk) with the Indians, Brown at length succeeded in hiring a canoe, and, putting the larger part of the stuff therein, sent it up the Cowichan River in charge of one white man of our party and several Indians. The larger part of us proceeded by land direct to the village of Somenos, where we found several large lodges, or “ rancheries,” as they are termed in the colony. The natives were drying fish and clams on strings hanging from the rafters of their dwellings, and were by no means anxious to engage in our service. There were two reasons for this reluctance, which was one of the main drawbacks of our journey. The first was simply that they lived so easily, getting salmon, deer, and beaver meat in abundance, and consequently were indifferent to anything but extremely high pay. The second and main reason was fear of surrounding tribes, especially those of the west coast, who were accustomed occasionally to kidnap ‘‘ unprotected males,’’ and carry them off as slaves.