Man The Fat Hunter

THE BUFFALOE OR BISON

This animal has been so minutely described by travellers that I have considered it of little importance to enter into the details of its shape and size, and shall therefore omit those descriptions with which I suppose the public to be already acquainted, and try to convey some idea of its peculiarities which probably are not so well known. The vast numbers of these animals which once traversed such an extensive region in Nth. America are fast diminishing. The continual increasing demand for robes in the civilised world has already and is still contributing in no small degree to their destruction, whilst on the other hand the continual increase of wolves and other 4 footed enemies far exceeds that of the Buffaloe when these combined efforts for its destruction is taken into consideration, it will not be doubted for a moment that this noble race of animals, so useful in supplying the wants of man, will at no far distant period become extinct in North America. The Buffaloe is already a stranger, altho so numerous 10 years ago, in that part of the country which is drained by the sources of the Colerado, Bear and Snake Rivers and occupied by the Snake and Bonnack Indians. The flesh of the Buffaloe Cow is considered far superior to that of the domestic Beef and it is so much impregnated with salt that it requires but little seasoning when cooked. All the time, trouble and care bestowed by man upon improving the breed and food of meat cattle seems to be entirely thrown away when we compare those animals in their original state which are reared upon the food supplied them by Nature with the same species when domesticated and fed on cultivated grasses and grains and the fact seems to justify the opinion that Nature will not allow herself to be outdone by art for it is fairly proved to this enlightened age that the rude and untaught savage feasts on better beef and Mutton than the most learned and experienced Agriculturists now if every effect is produced by a cause perhaps I may stumble upon the cause which produces the effect in this instance at any rate I shall attempt it - In the first place, the rutting season of the Buffaloe is regular commencing about the 15th of July when the males and females are fat, and ends about the 15 of Aug. Consequently the females bring forth their young in the latter part of April and the first of May when the grass is most luxuriant and thereby enables the cow to afford the most nourishment for her calf and enables the young to quit the natural nourishment of its dam and feed upon the tender herbage sooner than it would at any other season of the year. Another proof is that when the rutting season commences the strongest healthiest and most vigorous Bulls drive the weaker ones from the cows hence the calves are from the best breed which is thereby kept upon a regular basis. In summer season they generally go to water and drink once in 24 hours but in the winter they seldom get water at all. The cows are fattest in Octr and the Bulls in July The cows retain their flesh in a great measure throughout the winter until the Spring opens and they get at water from whence they become poor in a short time So much for the regularity of their habits and the next point is the food on which they subsist The grass on which the Buffaloe generally feeds is short, firm and of the most nutritious kind. The salts with which the mountain regions is much impregnated are imbibed in a great degree by the vegetation and as there is very little rain in Summer Autumn or winter the grass arrives at maturity and dries in the sun without being wet it is made like hay; in this state it remains throughout the winter and while the spring rains are divesting the old growth of its nutricious qualities they are in the meantime pushing forward the new - The Buffaloe are very particular in their choice of grass always preferring the short of the uplands to that of the luxuriant growth of the fertile alluvial bottoms. Thus they are taught by nature to choose such food as is most palatable and she has also provided that such as is most palatable is the best suited to their condition and that condition the best calculated to supply the wants and necessities of her rude untutored children for whom they were prepared. Thus nature looks with a smile of derision upon the magnified efforts of art to excel her works by a continual breach of her laws The most general mode practiced by the Indians for killing Buffaloe is running upon horseback and shooting them with arrows but it requires a degree of experience for both man and horse to kill them in this manner with any degree of safety particularly in places where the ground is rocky and uneven. The horse that is well trained for this purpose not only watches the ground over which he is running and avoids the holes ditchs and rocks by shortening or extending his leaps but also the animal which he is pursuing in order to prevent being `horned' when tis brot suddenly to bay which is done instantaneously and if the Buffaloe wheel to the right the horse passes as quick as thought to the left behind it and thereby avoids its horns but if the horse in close pursuit wheels on the same side with the Buffaloe he comes directly in contact with its horns and with one stroke the horses entrails are often torn out and his rider thrown headlong to the ground After the Buffaloe is brought to bay the trained horse will immediately commence describing a circle about 10 paces from the animal in which he moves continually in a slow gallop or trot which prevents the raging animal from making a direct bound at him by keeping it continually turning round until it is killed by the rider with arrows or bullets. If a hunter discovers a band of Buffaloe in a place too rough and broken for his horse to run with safety and there is smooth ground nearby he secretly rides on the leward side as near as he can without being discovered he then starts up suddenly without apparently noticing the Buffaloe and gallops in the direction he wishes the band to run the Buffaloe on seeing him run to the plain start in the same direction in order to prevent themselves from being headed and kept from the smooth ground The same course would be pursued if he wished to take them to any particular place in the mountains - One of the hunters first instructions to an inexperienced hand is "run towards the place where you wish the Buffaloe to run but do not close on them behind until they get to that place" for instance if the hunter is to the right the leading Buffaloe keep inclining to the right and if he should fall in behind and crowd upon the rear they would separate in different directions and it would be a mere chance if any took the direction he wished them - When he gets to the plain he gives his horse the rein and darts thro the band selects his victim reins his horse up along side and shoots and if he considers the wound mortal he pulls up the rein the horse knowing his business keeps along galloping with the band until the rider has reloaded when he darts forward upon another Buffaloe as at first A Cow seldom stops at bay before she is wounded and therefore is not so dangerous as a Bull who wheels soon after he is pushed from the band and becomes fatigued whether he is wounded or not. When running over ground where there is rocks holes or gullies the horse must be reined up gradually if he is reined at all there is more accidents happens in running Buffaloes by the riders getting frightened and suddenly checking their horses than any other way. If they come upon a Gully over which the horse can leap by an extra exertion the best plan is to give him the rein and the whip or spur at the same time and fear not for any ditch that a Buffaloe can leap can be cleared with safety by a horse and one too wide for a Buffaloe to clear an experienced rider will generally see in time to check his horse gradually before he gets to it - And now as I have finished my description of the Buffaloe and the manner of killing them I will put a simple question for the reader's solution -

If Kings Princes Nobles and Gentlemen can derive so much sport and Pleasure as they boast of in chasing a fox or simple hare all day? which when they have caught is of little or no benefit to them what pleasure can the Rocky Mountain hunter be expected to derive in running with a well trained horse such a noble and stately animal as the Bison? which when killed is of some service to him. There are men of noble birth noble Estate and noble minds who have attained to a tolerable degree of perfection in fox hunting in Europe and Buffaloe hunting in the Rocky Mountains, and I have heard some of them decide that the points would not bear a comparison if the word Fashion could be stricken from the English language It also requires a considerable degree of practice to approach on foot and kill Buffaloe with a Rifle A person must be well acquainted with the shape and make of the animal and the manner which it is standing in order to direct his aim with certainty - And it also requires experience to enable him choose a fat animal the best looking Buffaloe is not always the fattest and a hunter by constant practice may lay down rules for selecting the fattest when on foot which would be no guide to him when running upon horseback for he is then placed in a different position and one which requires different rules for choosing.

In the next place we must consider the purposes achieved by the class of fats or hydrocarbons in nutrition. Liebig's views with regard to this subject also have been shown to be erroneous. He considered the function of fats to be entirely respiratory, and that by combining with oxygen, admitted into the system in respiration, they were consumed in the production of heat, and that the completeness of this combustion depended on the amount of inspired oxygen. But it has been observed that when an exclusive diet of fat has been taken, there has been less fat metabolised and less oxygen absorbed than in fasting, and also that, in certain circumstances, the whole of the albumen in the food is metabolised in the body, and the fat is appropriated to increase the body-weight ; an inversion of the formerly assumed roles of hydrocarbons and albuminates. From which it would appear that, under certain conditions, fat is split up into simpler bodies with greater difficulty than albumen, and must not, therefore, be regarded as the same easily combustible substance in the organism that it is outside. 

It is not, then, through the direct action of oxygen that the non-nitrogenous foods any more than the nitrogenous ones are split up into simpler products, but by the agency of the cellular tissues, and the oxygen enters into these products "little by little." Indeed, under the influence of fat tissue-waste is lessened, and, therefore, less oxygen is taken into the system ; less oxygen being abstracted from the blood by the products of metabolism. 

We thus see that one of the great purposes served by fat in the food is to diminish albuminous metabolism, and it is, therefore, regarded as an "albumen-sparing" food. "If flesh alone be given, large quantities are required in order that nutrition and waste may balance one another, but if fat be added the demand for flesh is less." (Bauer.) 

But the fats have also an important relation in the body to the production of force and heat, to body-work and body-temperature. While, unlike the albuminates, the metabolism of hydrocarbons is independent of the amount taken in as food, it is notably affected by bodily exercise, which produces little effect on nitrogenous metabolism. The fats, therefore, undoubtedly minister to force-production, and undergo destruction and oxidation in the process ; so that the amount of carbonic acid given off" during exercise is much greater than during rest. 

External temperature also influences the meta- bolism of the hydrocarbons, and therefore the amount of carbonic acid excreted ; the lower the temperature, so long as that of the body itself is maintained, the greater the metabolism of non-nitrogenous foods, and the greater the amount of carbonic acid discharged from the body. This is one of the chief means of regulating the temperature of the body, and keeping it constant. 

When, however, the temperature of the body itself is disturbed, as in fever, then the higher the tempera- ture the greater the waste of the non-nitrogenous, as well as of the nitrogenous, constituents of the body, and the greater the excretion of carbonic acid, as well as of urea. 

It is probably through the nervous system that the exteiThil temperature influences the metabolic processes in the body, and especially through the peripheral sensory nerves.

 It would appear that albuminates and fats are, to a certain extent, opposed to one another in their action on the organism, as the former increase waste and promote oxidation, while the latter have the effect of diminishing them, and this they do prbably by affecting the metabolic activity of the cells of the tissues themselves. It is a matter of common observation that fat animals bear privation of food better than thin ones ; in the latter, their small store of fat is quickly consumed, and then the albumen is rapidly decomposed. It is for the same reason that corpulent persons, even on a very moderate amount of food, are apt to become still more corpulent. 

The influence of fat in the storage of albumen is exemplified by the fact that if 1,500 grammes of lean meat be given alone, it will be wholly decomposed ; but if 100 to 150 grammes of fat be added, then it will yield only 1,422 grammes of waste. It has also been shown that the balance of income and expenditure of albuminates, although the amount taken in the food may be very small, is readily established as soon as one adds a certain quantity of fat. A dog who took daily 1,200 grammes of lean meat was observed to be still losing some of the albuminous constituents of the body ; whereas, with only 500 grammes of flesh and 200 grammes of fat, the nutritive balance was rapidly re-established. The same has been observed in man. Rubncr found that an individual taking daily 1,435 grammes of meat, containing 48.8 grammes of nitrogen, lost by the kidneys 50.8 grammes of nitrogen ; whereas another taking meat and bread containing 23.5 grammes of nitrogen, to which were added 191 grammes of fat, only eliminated 19 grammes of nitrogen on the second day of the diet ; so that a small quantity of albumen, when combined with fat, is sufficient to maintain the albuminous structures of the body. As a practical conclusion from these considerations, we should note, that if we wish to increase the weight of the body and add to its con- stituents, we must not rely on an excess of albu- minates, as these given alone only lead to increased waste ; but if we combine fats with albuminates in proper proportions, an appreciable increase of both the nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous constituents of the body can be maintained for a considerable time. 

We see, then, how a proper use of fat economises the albuminous elements of food and checks the waste of the albuminous tissues. Fat enters into all the tissues. By its decomposition and oxidation it yields muscular force and heat, and it is therefore largely consumed in muscular exercise. By its capacity of being stored up in the body as adipose tissue, it provides a reserve store of force-producing and heat- generating material which can be utilised as required. 

The supporting influence of fat under great muscular fatigue is strongly maintained by Ebstei : and it is stated that the German Emperor, in the war of 1870, recognised this fact by requiring that each soldier should have served out to him daily 250 grammes of fat bacon!

From Artic Passage Book - Page 135 Physical Hardcover:

Captain Frederick A. Barker of the Japan was one of the few whaling men to cry out against the wholesale destruction of the walrus herds of the Bering Sea. In a letter to the Whalemen's Shipping List and Merchants Transcript he warned New England whaling men that the practice "will surely end in the extermination of this race of natives who rely upon these animals alone for their winter's supply of food." 28 If the butchering of the walrus did not cease, the fate of the Eskimo was inevitable: "Already this cruel persecution has been felt along the entire coast, while a wail like that of the Egyptians goes through the length and breadth of the land. There is a famine and relief comes not." 29 Eskimos had often asked Barker why the white men took away their food and left them to starve, and he had no answer to give them. They told him of their joy when the whalemen first began to come among them, and of their growing despair as the hunters began to decimate the walrus. "I have conversed with many intelligent shipmasters upon this subject," wrote Barker, "since I have seen it in its true light and all have expressed their honest conviction that it was wrong, cruel and heartless and the sure death of this inoffensive race." 30 Captains had told Barker that they would be glad to abandon walrus hunting if the ship owners would approve it, "but until the subject was introduced to public notice, they were powerless to act." 31 It would be hard to give up an enterprise that provided 10,000 barrels of oil each season. My advocacy "may seem preposterous and meet with derision and contempt, but let those who deride it see the misery entailed throughout the country by this unjust wrong." 32 

Captain Barker was not the only shipmaster to appeal for an end to the walrus slaughter, but he knew better than to most what was happening to northern natives. Barker had taken his Japan into the Arctic Ocean in 1870 and had made a good catch. Whales were plentiful and the weather was good, so Barker was reluctant to return south through the Bering Strait. As the days grew colder and the shore ice thickened, Barker was forced to give up the chase and work the Japan toward the strait. Unfortunately, he encountered heavy fog which slowed his progress, then a storm which buffeted the Japan for four days. On October 9, 1870, the Japan was off East Cape, Siberia, and in serious trouble. "The gale blew harder, attended by such blinding snow that we could not see half a ship's length." 33 Although Barker had taken in most of his sails, the Japan was racing at breakneck speed before the gale. "Just then, to add to our horror, a huge wave swept over the ship, taking off all our boats and sweeping the decks clean." 34 

The situation was critical. Barker steered for the beach and hoped for the best. An enormous wave hit the Japan and drove it upon the rocky shore. Miraculously, all the men got ashore safely, but their travails were just beginning. The weather was bitterly cold, and clothing and provisions had to be recovered from the disabled ship. Barker and his men struggled through the surf to the ship and back to the shore again and suffered fearful consequences. All were severely frostbitten, and eight of the thirty-man crew died in the effort. Natives came to the mariners' assistance. Barker was dragged out of the breakers, breathless and nearly frozen, loaded onto a sled, and taken to village. "I thought my teeth would freeze off." 35 Barker scrambled out of the sled and tried to run, hoping the exertion would warm him. Instead he fell down as one paralyzed. The natives picked him up and put him on the sled once more. 

In the village the survivors received tender care. "The chief's wife, in whose hut I was," wrote Barker, "pulled off my boots and stockings and placed my frozen feet against her naked borom to restore warmth and animation," 36. With such care the seamen who had not died on the beach recovered. But for the natives "every soul would have perished on the beach... as there was no means at hand of kindling a fire or of helping ourselves one way or the other." 37 

Barker and his men wintered with the Eskimos, They had no choice in the matter as the entire whaling fleet had returned south before the Japan started for Bering Strait, It was during these months that Barker leaned someching of the Eskimos' way of life and became their advocate. Except for a few casks of bread and flour that had washed ashore, the seamen were entirely dependent upon their hosts. The men ate raw walrus meat and blubber that was generally on the ripe side. The whalemen did not relish their diet, but it sustained them. Prejudices against a novel food inhibited Barker for a time. He fasted for three days. "Hunger at last compelled me and, strange as it may appear, it tasted good to me and before I had been there many weeks, I could eat as much raw meat as anyone, the natives excepted." 38 Barker soon understood that the natives were short of food. "I felt like a guilty culprit while eating their food with them, that I have been taking the bread out of their mouths."39 Barker knew and the Eskimos knew that the whalemen's hunting of walrus had reduced the natives to the point of famine, "still they were ready to share all they had with us." 40 Barker resolved to call for a prohibition of walrus hunting when he returned to New Bedford and further resolved that he would never kill another walrus "for those poor people along the coast have nothing else to live upon." 41 

In the summer of 1871 Barker and his men were rescued when the whaling fleet returned. Some recompense was made to the Eskimos for their charity; they were given provisions and equipment from the ships. The natives plight was observed by other captains too. One wrote a letter to the New Bedford Republican Standard to describe the "cruel occupation" of walrus killing. Most of those killed were females which were lanced as they held their nursing offspring in their flippers "uttering the most heartrending and piteous cries."' 42 Many whalemen felt guilty about this butchery, and they had to have very strong stomachs to carry out the bloody job under such circumstances. "But the worst feature of the business is that the natives of the entire Arctic shores, from Cape Thaddeus and the Anadyr Sea to the farthest point north, a shoreline of more than one thousand miles on the west coast, with the large island of St. Lawrence, the smaller ones of Diomede and King's Island, all thickly inhabited are now almost entirely dependent on the walrus for their food, clothings, boots and dwellings." 43 Earlier there were plenty of whales for them, but the whales had been destroyed and driven north. "This is a sad state of things for them." 

Other captains reported that they had seen natives thiry to forty miles from land on the ice, trying desperately to catch a walrus or find a carcass that had been abandoned by the whalemen. "What must the poor creatures do this cold winter, with no whale or walrus?" 45 Such appeals might have been effective eventually, though whether they would have led to a prohibition of walrus killing in time to spare the northern natives from famine is unlikely. But events took an unexpected turn in 1871: The ships which passed through the Bering Strait that season did so for the last time. The entire fleet was caught in the ice near Point Barrow, as the men including the Japan survivors-hunted walrus and whale. Thanks to the Revenue Marine, the seamen were saved, but the ships were lost. This disaster, coming six years after the Shenandoah's destructive cruise, dealt the whaling industry a blow from which it never recovered. But it may have saved the walrus and the northern natives from extinction. It was clear enough to the Bering Sea natives that they had benefited by the loss of the fleet. As an Eskimo or Chukchi of Plover Bay put it to a whaling captain when word of the loss reached Siberia: "Bad. Very bad for you. Good for us. More walrus now." 46

The search of Terror Bay was an extremely difficult one owing to the many long finger-like points that constituted its interig outlines. While only about ten to twelve miles between its bounding capes its contour furnished me with nearly ninety miles of very bad walking, which took seven days to complete. The game (luckily for us) was very plentiful in the neighborhood. On one day alone I saw no less than thirty-four reindeer grazing among the different valleys through which I passed. Colonel Gilder killed five. Without leaving the route of my other duties I killed three. Some had an abundance of substantial food and, better than all, its condition was rapidly improving from the lean stringy quality which characterized our spring supply of venison. 

The Arctic reindeer is an awkward clumsy animal, and when trotting along, unless closely pursued, it goes stumbling over the grough ground in a manner that often leads the amateur hunter, (who perchance has risked a long shot at him) into the belief that his fire has been effective. But the reindeer was the most reliable game in which dependence for regular continuous subsistence can be placed. Without the reindeer my expedition of from nineteen to twenty-two souls and forty to fifty dogs could not have accomplished the journey it did, having only about a month's ration when it started at Camp Daly. I have never enountered a larger band than some three  or four hundred which I saw on the Seroy Lakes, near North Hudson Bay in the autumn of 1878. During the subsequent autumn on King William Land, I saw no less than a thousand in a single day. 

When first thrown wholly upon a diet of reindeer meat, it seems inadequate to properly nourish the system and there is an apparent weakness and inability to perform severe exertive, fatiguing journeys. But this soon passes away in the course of two or three weeks. At first the white man takes to the new diet in too homeopathic a manner, especially if it be raw. However, seal meat which is far more disagreeable with its fishy odor, and bear meat with its strong flavor, seems to have no such a temporary debilitating effect upon the economy. The reindeer are scattered during the spring and summer which is the breeding season, but as the cold weather approaches they herd together in vast bodies. 

Toolooah, my most excellent Innuit hunter, never failed to secure one during every hunt. I knew him to kill seven out of a band of eight reindeer with the eight shots in the magazine of his Winchester before they could get out of range. On ten different occasions he killed two deer at one shot and once three fell at a single discharge. The number of times he dispatched one and wounded others, or wounded two or even three at a single shot, which he afterwards secured, seemed countless.

That he supported an average of nine souls (not counting double that number of dogs dependent upon him for about ten months), coupled with a score of 232 reindeer during that period, besides a number of seal, musk-ox and polar bear, demonstrates his great abilityas a hunter in these inhospitable climes.

On our journey a thorough search was made of that portion of the coast that Frank and Henry had not previously looked over,  but nothing rewarded either our or their labors except an oar found

near the head of Washington Bay. Our trip was also our first continued experience with a raw meat diet and, whenever the weather was sufficiently cold to freeze it into a hard mass, we

found it not altogether unacceptable. Raw versus cooked meat brings up the interesting subject of the different methods of eating by the Innuits, and we no longer considered ourselves aliens in this

foreign land.

Cantani’s dietary regime involved periods of energy restriction, however the German physiologist Wilhelm Ebstein cites Cantani as an authority for the use of pure fat in diabetic diets. In 1892 Ebstein published his comprehensive review of the literature on diet, lifestyle, and diabetes, Über die Lebensweise der Zuckerkranken, which includes the statement that “up to about 200 grams of fat is well tolerated by the majority of diabetics” [7]. Also in 1892, Ebstein’s book on Corpulence and its Treatment on Physiological Principles, which contained brief summaries of his findings on fat and diabetes, was translated into English [8]. In this book and his subsequent work On the Regimen to be Adopted in Cases of Gout Ebstein discussed experimental evidence on the metabolism of protein and the desirability of limiting both protein and carbohydrate, and increasing fat, in the treatment of metabolic diseases [9].

German Txt (Very hard to read)

https://archive.org/stream/diefettleibigkei00ebst/diefettleibigkei00ebst_djvu.txt

English Translation Scanned PDF:

https://dlcs.io/pdf/wellcome/pdf-item/b21050533/0

Ebstein describes Rabbit Starvation:

Page 37:

Notwithstanding the vastly important part played by nitrogenous food in human dietetics, those substances that contain no nutritive ingredients except albumen, as for instance flesh destitute of fat, are not proper food for man. As flesh satisfies his demand for carbon only when it is consumed four times in excess of the quantity required to yield the nitrogen needed for his nourishment, such a course would in the first place be far from economical, seeing that meat is one of the dearest articles of food. And then we should very soon find it impossible to consume every day the 90 oz. of pure flesh required for this purpose.

The dietetic systems of treatment now in vogue are based on an almost exclusively albuminous diet. In 1850 Chambers had already pronounced in favour of this regimen, his system excluding all fat substances such as fat, oil, butter, milk, cream, as well as sugar. Of starch-flour in the form of potatoes and even of bread he remarked, that they should be looked on with the greatest suspicion. He also insisted on a diminished consumption of liquids. 

We thus perceive that strictly speaking Chambers' cure differs in no respect from that, by which Banting grew lean in the hands of his physician Harvey, and which has received the name of the Banting cure from the patient, who has written an account of his malady and curative process. From it's specially operative factor Kisch has named it the "Anti-Fat Cure".

Cantani has gone still more vigourously to work. He bars not only all fats - fat meat, fat fish, cheese (owing to its sebacic acid), but all farinaceous preparations, all saccharine foods, sweet and aromatic fruits. Only when the patient is unable to continue this diet long enough, either through excessive repugnance to meat, or nausea of the stomach, or muscular debility, he combines it with the Harvey-Banting system, which also no doubt anathematises the fats, but allows a certain quantity of carbohydrates. 

    Hence these cures have this in common that both alike to the very utmost exclude fats, which they regard as the chief source of the accumulation of fat in the body.

    Now I will by no means deny that a series of cures does result from the Harvey-Banting and Cantani methods, that is to say, by these means corpulent persons become thin. But on the other hand it must be allowed that: 

Page 44:

Ebstein strongly supports fat for satiety.

"I would now specially insist that the suitable quantity of alimentary fat must not forsooth remove hunger in such a way as to produce dyspeptic symptoms or injure the digestion; and this I dwell upon because the question has already been more than once placed before me by competent colleagues. It is of course a tacit assumption that the fat like all other human aliments, be of unexceptionable quality. The experiments made on persons suffering from fistula in the stomach, have already shown that fat substances disturb the digestion only when they are consumed too abundantly, and I have myself often enough administered with surprising succcess alimentary fat to dyspeptics of the worst type, while limitng their allowance of carbohydrates. But my own numerous experiences have also convinced me, that in the treatment of corpulency fat agrees perfectly well even with those, who had previously regarded it with nausea. I have even noticed a total disappearance of the dyspeptic affections, which the corpulent had hitherto brought upon themselves by an improper diet. The patients preserve a good appetite, which they must learn to moderate by yielding only the actual feeling of hunger. 

The reason of this alleviation of the feeling of hunger with a proper allowance of fat in the diet is due to the circumstance, that fat checks the decomposition of albumen, and that consequently the craving to make good the waste makes itself felt more slowly and less urgently. Precisely because fewer albuminates have been decomposed, fewer require to be replaced. As by the addition of fat to the diet in the same proportion as the decomposition of albumen is diminished, the quantity of nitrogenous refuse from the assimilated substances is also limined, a smaller amount of drink is needed for its removal. Hence in this way thirst as well as hunger becomes appeased. That fats reduce the craving for food was already known to Hippocrates, who remarks in the section dealing with those that wish to become fat or lean: "the dishes must be succelent, for in this way we are easiest sated." Very interesting to me was a communication from Loew, bearing on the point that the use of fat is also effective in checking the craving for liquids. After the consumption of fat in hot climates he always noticed a diminished demand for water; thirst became decidely less irksome.

This property of fat to produce satiety more rapidly, to diminish the craving for food and abate the feeling of thirst, facilitates to an extraordinary degree the introduction of the modified diet. For to the sacrifices which after all must in any case be required of the corpulent, nothing further need be superadded at least in this direction. On the contrary, the permission to enjoy certain succulent things, always of course in moderation, as for instance salmon, pate de foie gras and such like delicacies, reconciles the corpulent gourmet to his sacrifices. These consist in the exclusion of the carbohydrates. Sugar, sweets of all kinds, potatoes in every form I forbid unconditionally. The quantity of bread is limited at most to from 3 to 3.5 oz a day, and of vegetables I allow asparagus, spinach, the various kinds of cabbage and especially the leguminous, whose value as conveyors of albumen, as Voit rightly observes, is known to few. Of meats I exclude none, and the fat in the flesh I do not wish to be avoided, but on the contrary sought after. I permit bacon fat, fat roast pork and mutton, kidney fat, and when no other fat is at hand I recommend marrow to be added to soups. I allow the sauces as well as the vegetables to be made juicy, as did Hippocrates, only for his sesam-oil I substitute butter. 

In spite of all this it would be little to the point to say that I treat the corpulent with fat, whereas I simply vindicate the full claims to which fat is entitled as an article of food. I do not suppose that the corpulent, with who we are practically concerned, will have to consume anything like the quantity of fat that Voit concedes to the working man, or that is allowed to the rank and file of the German imperial army in time of war, say from 7 to 9 oz. daily. I reduce this daily allowance of fat to from 2 to 3.5 oz on an average. The quantity of course changes with the individual relations, nor is it the same for every day. Under the influence of this diet it becomes possible to do with a less quantity of meat. This again I reduce to fully one half or three-fifths of the quantity required in the Banting system, which varies from 13 to 16 oz. a day.