Essentials of diet, or, Hints on food, in health and disease / by the late E. Harris Ruddock.

  • Ruddock, E. H. (Edward Harris), 1822-1875.
Date:
1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essentials of diet, or, Hints on food, in health and disease / by the late E. Harris Ruddock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    ; and carelessness interpose and frustrate the fulfilment of good intentions and judicious advice. Nevertheless, i: in spite of these drawbacks, health is maintained 1 and, where impaired, is often restored. Still, one can- li not but reflect that robust health would be more y common, recovery more rapid, and mortality more I' diminished if dietetic rules were universally observed, i There is a neglect, and even a positive violation, of 1 instructions against which we must here enter our em- f phatic protest. A physician prescribes certain food just 2 as he prescribes certain medicine. But while the medi- f cine may be honestly given, the food is withheld or I other food is substituted. The patient and the friends ^ of the patient often deceive the physician with refer- 1 ence to diet, and deem the original transgression and t the subsequent deception, quite venial offences which ; it is unnecessary to confess. The consequence is ithat the patient’s recovery is retarded, and the medical man’s treatment is reproached. There are always occurring infractions of dietetic instructions, k of which nothing is known unless the aggravation of i the disease is so obvious as to lead to disclosure of i the indiscretion. / . ... The impossibility of prescribing fixed regulations t for diet will also be evident from a consideration of the I* circumstance that some persons can take what others are obliged to reject. In fact, there is truth in the I saying, “ What is one man’s meat is another man’s j poison.” Even when there is a similar derangement I of the digestive organs some persons can eat with