providing him with food, clothing or other physical gratification. What an
enormous advance has taken place. In the case of the painter, his eye and
mind can appreciate a wide range and delicacy of colour. Man has improved
on the crab-apple and the wild strawberry. From a wild grass he has
produced the large-grained nutritious wheat. Vegetables of all kinds have
been greatly improved by long continued cultivation. In tropical and
sub-tropical climates, where wild fruits are more plentiful, high
cultivation is of less importance than in temperate regions. In sparsely
inhabited or wild, temperate and cold regions, in times past, when deer
and other animals were plentiful, and edible fruits few, flesh could be
obtained at less labour; or such intelligence and industry as is required
for the cultivation of fruits, cereals, and other foods scarcely existed.
Flesh almost requires to be cooked to be palatable, certainly this much
improves its flavour. The eating of flesh tends to produce a distaste for
mild vegetable foods, especially if uncooked. In process of time, not only
flesh but vegetable foods, were more and more subjected to cooking and
seasoning, or mixed with the flesh, blood or viscera of the animals
killed. Next, food was manufactured to produce a still greater variety, to
increase the flavour, or less frequently to produce an imagined greater
digestibility or nutritiveness. Man has taken that which seemed most
agreeable, rarely has he been intentionally guided by scientific
principles, by that which is really best. Only of late years can it be
said that there is such a thing as a science of dietetics; although
cookery books innumerable have abounded. Of recent years many diseases
have enormously increased, some even seem to be new. Digestive
disturbances, dental caries, appendicitis, gout, rheumatism, diabetes,
nervous complaints, heart disease, baldness and a host of other diseases
are due, in a great measure, to abuse of food. One of the most learned and
original of scientific men, Professor Elie Metchnikoff, in his remarkable
book on "The Nature of Man," referring to the variety of food and its