But should the
digestion not be in such a typical condition, should the exercise be
oversevere and the victuals deficient, then the waste must be limited
by some arrester of metamorphosis; if it is not, the system suffers,
and the man is what is called 'overworked.'.... Intellectual labor also
exercises the demand for food, and at the same time, unfortunately,
injures the assimilating organs; so that, unless a judicious diet is
employed, waste occurs which cannot be replaced."
Waste, we may be told, is life, and the rapidity of change marks the
activity of the vital processes. True, if each particle consumed is at
once and adequately replaced. Beyond that point, let the balance once
tend to over-consumption, and we approach the confines of decay. Birds
live more and faster than men, and insects probably most of all; yet
many of the latter are ephemeral.
Every-day experience had long pointed to the recurring coincidence,
that, of the annual victims of pulmonary consumption, few were to be
found among the habitual consumers of ardent spirits. Science
volunteered the explanation, that alcohol supplied a hydro-carbonaceous
nutriment similar to that furnished by the cod-liver oil, which,
serving as fuel, spared the wasting of the tissues, just in proportion
to its own consumption and assimilation.
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