a state of firmness and compact- results, as when direct debility ness, conjoined with the contractility peculiar to the living, healthy fibre. Without such a condition of the body, the functions of the vital organs cannot be properly performed; the action of the heart in particular, and of the larger arteries, becomes too languid to carry the blood through the innumerable convolutions of the minute or capillary vessels, which permeate the glandular and constitute the lymphatic system, and from the blood of which the secretions are produced, and nutrition and assimilation effected. In such a state of the body, the glands become obstructed, and the brain and nervous system acquire a morbid susceptibility both of internal stimuli and of external impressions; and that condition of the frame which is denominated scrofulous supervenes. In our climate, therefore, the diet of the youth of both sexes should not be of too fluid or of too mild or meagre a nature; but should comprehend a larger proportion of animal matter than would be admissible under other circumstances. Scrofula is, now, certainly less gene ral among the middling and the higher ranks of society than formerly; and this may, in a great measure, be attributed to the custom of feeding boys and girls at school, less on broths, puddings, and similar fluid and farinaceous articles, than was the custom half a century ago. Still, however, puddings and pastry form too large a proportion of the food of youth; and I am disposed to think, that the liberal supply of these, after a substantial meal of animal food, -by producing a tendency to repletion, is nearly as prejudicial, from the indirect debility which was the consequence of their su perseding more proper food. The best diet for youth in this climate, is undoubtedly a mixture of animal and vegetable food, plainly cooked, for dinner; with the usual breakfast and evening meal; adding a larger proportion of milk than is customary. If I were called on to specify the kinds of animal food most suited for growing boys, who can take active exercise, I should certainly name mutton; but as it is good to accustom the stomach to every description of food, beef may be occasionally given; and even the least digestible meats, lamb and veal, should not be altogether prohibited. Every description of poultry and of game are readily digested, when not overroasted: but, in this state, few articles of food disagree so much with the stomachs of the young, producing flatulence, fetid eructations, and other symptoms of indigestion. Fish is less nutritious, less digestible, and more flatulent than animal food, especially the darkcolored fish, such as salmon and mackerel, and, therefore, is less adapted for the ordinary diet of young persons; but there can be no objection to its occasional use. Butter, eggs, and cheese, are not unwholesome, except in peculiar states of the habit, which will be noticed in the next section. Salted meats, in general, are too stimulant for the period of life of which I am treating, though they are less likely to prove hurtful in this climate than in warmer regions. With respect to beverage, the temperament of youth, the natural exhilaration of the animal spirits and the ready excitability of the nervous system, at this age, render wine, porter, ale, and every stimulating liquor, not only superfluous, but highly injurious, even in our climate; and, to employ the language of a venerable, nonagenarian philosopher, Lord Monboddo," to give youth ardent spirit is to anticipate old age, and to rob it of its staff." The drink of boys, therefore, should be confined to water and table beer. So much with regard to the quality of the food; it is equally necessary to attend to the regulation of the quantity, which is too often left to be determined solely by the appetite. In the youth of both sexes, as food is required not only to supply the ordinary detrition of the body, but to prop up the growing frame, a larger quantity, comparatively, is necessary, than in more advanced life; but the keen appetites of the young are apt to carry this beyond the powers of the stomach; and effects, nearly the same as those resulting from improper diet, ensue. When the stomach is overloaded, its digestive powers are diminished; much of the food passes from it without being converted into the pultaceous substance termed chyme, which is essential towards fitting the food to be introduced into the blood; and, therefore, instead of nourishing the body, the surplus aliment, which does not undergo this change, acts as an irritating matter to the intestines, causing various diseased states of them, and even producing obstructions of the mesenteric glands, and consequent atrophy. The appetite in youth should, therefore, be moderated; and, if too long intervals be not interposed between the meals, an under supply is less likely to injure than one that is redundant. This is an error into which parents are very apt to permit boys to fall, on their return from school, during the holidays; and it is, indeed, a frequent source of disease in schoolboys. If climate should influence the quality of diet in youth, the seasons of the year, also, must require a variation of it, both as regards quality and quantity. Thus, in summer, a larger quantity of fluid nutriment is necessary to supply the waste of the liquid part of the blood which is carried off in the form of perspiration : there is, also, a greater tendency, at this season, to febrile states of the body; and, therefore, more farinaceous matter, baked fruits, and subacid aliments, are admis sible. In winter, on the other hand, as the cold, acting on the surface, throws the blood, or rather retains it accumulated, on the interior, a generous and somewhat stimulant diet is necessary, to aid in producing that reaction, without which the blood cannot be diffused over the surface, nor its healthful balance maintained. From the foregoing remarks,,if correct, the following inferences may be deduced:-That the diet best adapted for the state of boyhood and youth, in this climate, is that of an animal kind, and in moderate quantity; and that both the quality and the quantity of the food should be regulated by the seasons of the year. II. Influence of the Habits of Life.-Contingent circumstances modify every general law; and, therefore, however correct may be any set of rules for diet in youth, yet, as the habits of life vary, exceptions must necessarily be admitted to the strict observance of these. Thus, a boy living in the country, enjoying the free use of his limbs, and breathing a pure atmosphere, is much less likely to have his health affected by improprieties in diet, than one residing in a town, occupied, perhaps, in sedentary employments, and breathing a tainted, or, at least, a less pure air. A boy, also, who is at school, whose meals are early and regular, who is roused and excited by the companionship of his fellows, and enjoys the advantages of a playground, is capable of digesting a much coarser and stronger description of aliment than another who is under the parental roof, sharing the delicacies, and conforming to the late hours and irregular habits of home, and suffering from the comparative confinement of such a situation. Parents are not aware of the evils which they are instrumental in entailing on their children, when, with the mistaken view of rendering their holidays more agreeable, they alter the regular habits which have been for some time pursued; permit indulgences which cannot be continued, and which only unfit the stomach for the plain and more wholesome food of school, and produce a feeling of dissatisfaction towards the early and more rational hours to which their return to it must subject them. I have already noticed that butter, eggs, and cheese, are unwholesome in certain states of the habit; I have now to particularise these states to be sluggishness of the bowels, producing constipation, and a tendency to such an over supply of bile as renders this necessary and healthful secretion a cause of fever and of general constitutional disturbance. Exceptions to gen eral rules for diet must also be made, in conformity to the rank of life and previous infantile habits of the individual; but no rank of life, nor any previous habits, can authorise indulgence in the luxuries of the table in boyhood and youth, nor can it be done with impunity III. Influence of the Predisposition to Disease.-If previous habits of life require to be attended to in regulating the diet of youth, much more is it necessary to examine into those conditions of the frame which render one individual more susceptible of some diseases than another, or, to employ the language of medicine, the congenital predisposition to disease. It is not easy to define this state, or to describe the peculiar conformation of body which constitutes it, in any instance; but it is not unfrequently hereditary, descending in families, like resemblance in features and similarity in temper and disposition, and is often evident to the eye of an ordinary observer. Thus we regard a clear, thin, smooth skin, and full blue eyes, fair hair, soft and flaccid flesh, a rosy color of the cheeks, a tumid upper lip, to be indicative of the Scrofulous tendency, or diathesis; a large head, with a state of skin approximating to that already described, unusual quickness of apprehension and precocity of intellect, as denoting great susceptibility to inflammatory affections of the brain and its membranes; a narrow chest, with the breathing easily hurried, and a rapid growth, connected with languor, prognosticative of a tendency to Consumption and other pulmonary diseases; and a peculiar form of the head, evincing, generally, a diminished capa city of the brain, a vague wandering of the eye, a gaping of the mouth, with a stupid expression of features, and an aptitude to gluttony, as presaging the greatest of all evils which can befall the species, a state of Idiocy. When any of these indications are perceptible, much attention is required, so to modify the diet as not to augment the natural tendency to disease, but rather to check it; and by strict care in this particular in early life, it is not impossible that hereditary predispositions, by being kept down in several successive generations, may be gradually weakened and ultimately destroyed. Thus, where there is an evident scrofulous diathesis in a family, a diet calculated to produce tone and to keep up the powers of life, if it does not overexcite the nervous system, is absolutely necessary, and a similar diet is proper where there is either an hereditary or otherwise marked tendency to consumption, provided the disease has not already commenced, whilst this description of food would only operate as fuel to fire, in a habit with an inflammatory tendency. The neglect of these indications in Scotland has been productive of great mischief. The national food, oatmeal porridge, is given, indiscriminately, to all boys; but it is scarcely swallowed by some when it becomes sour on the stomach, causing distension, oppression, and disorder of this organ, so that little or no nutriment is afforded to the body; the boy is thin, pale and bloated in the countenance, the mesenteric glands become obstructed, and either disease is entailed on the manhood of the individual, or he sinks the victim -- of prejudice and mismanagement. This occurs, in many instances, in constitutions of a very different nature; and, yet, this very diet has produced those vigorous bodies and muscular frames, which, animated with courage, and unsubdued by fatigue, have contributed to the extension of British influence, both commercial and military, over every region of the globe. But predispositions to certain diseases are not always obvious; and it is, consequently, necessary in parents to remark the effect of certain descriptions of diet on boys, and either to continue or to avoid them according to their effects. Thus, if a boy, who has the usual allowance of animal food, rapidly acquires obesity of body, with a high color and an increased irritability of habit, with greater irascibility of temper than heretofore, there is much probability that a continuance of the same plan of diet will favor the production of fever, or of inflammatory diseases of the most dangerous character. The proportion of animal food in such a case should be immediately diminished, and the individual confined to a vegetable or farinaceous diet till the overtenacity of the frame is lowered, and the tendency to febrile excitement subdued. In some persons, also, there are peculiarities connected with the nervous system, which render them liable to suffer from the employment of food which is perfectly innocuous to others. This state, which is termed idiosyncrasy by medical writers, can be known only by the effects which follow the use of certain articles of diet; but these, when once their effects have been perceived, should be rigidly avoided in future; for it is impossible to say to what extent the constitution may suffer, from persisting in the use of anything which produces a morbid influence on the frame. Thus shellfish, particularly lobsters and crabs, cause fever, accompanied with nettlerash, in some persons; mushrooms, bitter almonds, and various kinds of spices, produce a similar effect in others; and instances are recorded in which it has resulted from eating a small morsel of the white of egg. When these results occur, the food which produces them is actually a poison to the particular habit on which it thus operates. IV. Influence of Diet on the Intellectual Faculties.-As the period of life now under review is that in which mind is most active and curiosity is awakened; and in which there is an unquenchable thirst for knowledge of every description,-it becomes a question of some importance, whether particular modes of nourishing the body, at this age increasing daily towards the perfection of manhood, be injurious to the developement of intellect? It is unnecessary, for our purpose, to inquire, metaphysically, into the nature of the connexion between mind and body; it is sufficient to know, that many circumstances which affect the corporeal part of our frames influence the functions of the soul; that a perfectly sound mind is incompatible with many diseased conditions of the body; and that, when these states are removed by physical means, the mind recovers its wonted vigor and energy, with the returning health of the body. This connexion between the spiritual and corporeal part of man is now, indeed, so well understood, that no good physician relies solely on the moral management of the insane; but combats the diseased state of habit, in which has originated any mental aberration, by the same remedies that he employs in simple corporeal diseases. If these premises, therefore, be correct, the inference must be admitted, that the mode of dieting youth may have a considerable effect on the developement of mind. In considering this subject, we set out with this remark, that the intention of nourishment in man is certainly not so much to add to the bulk of the body as to fit it for the due performance of the purposes of his creation; and, acquiescing in this truth, in laying down rules for the diet of youth, I should say, in the language of one who, though represented as a glutton and a reveller, yet, in this instance, is made to utter the wisdom of a Solomon, "Care I for the limbs, the thewes, the stature, bulk, and big semblance of a man? give me the spirit, Master Shallow."* How is this to be accomplished, so far as diet is concerned, is the question? have only to determine what is In answering this question, we that state of the body which we denominate health. Perhaps the simplest definition that can be given of health is, that it consists in that condition of the vital organs which is best adapted for the performance of their various functions; and in which these are performed with the least degree of consciousness. tion of the body, the mind, being In this condiperfectly free from attention to Shakspeare, Henry IV, |