Cow's milk and wheat flour approach nearest to a balanced ration of all foods as to their nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous proportions. In cows' milk the proportion is one to three, and in wheat flour one to four and one-half. The destruction of the carbohydrates in the body is very complete when eaten in excess, and they do not produce fat like fatty foods taken in excess. This is an important practical point. The carbohydrates are more or less fattening when eaten with albumin and fats, because they check the consumption of albumin and fats and leave more of them to be converted into tissue fats. Eaten alone they are not so fattening. The Chinaman, for example, living mostly on rice, is not usually over-fat. Another practical point: When you have children growing rapidly and using their force in the ceaseless activity of the young, see that they get sufficient proteids in their daily ration.

Thus we see the food value of articles of diet is of the utmost importance, whether we wish to make up a ration for the soldier, the laborer, the professional man, or women or children. Of albuminous matter used as food one-third is excreted as urea. Probably most persons over thirty-five years of age eat too much nitrogenous food, especially those who inherit gout. These gouty, bilious people are usually the strong and healthy, and, as a rule, have ravenous appetites; they live to eat rather than eat to live. They often incline to be good drinkers of wines, spirits, and malt liquors; but, as a rule, much to their disadvantage, are light water-drinkers. If they drank more water the ill effects of a vicious metabolism, of vicious tissue change in nutrition and secretion, would be carried out of the system more generally in the various secretions and excretions.

It is surprising to see how one who has been a free meat-eater can come down to almost a non-nitrogenous diet and enjoy life and feel lighter and better and more contented in every way, provided the excess of nitrogen he had been taking was doing him harm. When one reaches fifty years of age, having escaped the pitfalls of dissipation, and enters upon this stage of life sound in mind and body, it behooves to pay great attention to what one eats and drinks. These remarks apply more particularly to the idle and well-to-do, and to those who do brain-work rather than manual labor. For those working with their hands the all important part is a properly balanced ration and proper preparation. Persons who reach fifty, particularly of the well-to-do class, eat too much, and too often, and take insufficient exercise, and thus grow fat and corpulent, not working off the excess as they did in the earlier and more active periods of life. Especially is this the case with men who retire to enjoy a well-earned competency, and which so often ends in disaster to their health, giving us the object-lesson that it is better to wear out than to rust out. No one should go from an active, busy life to a lazy, useless one. It is never too late to take up some occupation, no difference what, so it gives some rational employment to body and mind. Some study and some practical work in nature is best, - agriculture, horticulture, and such, and what comes out of them and with them. At fifty, remember old age is approaching, and the average man is sick ten days in the year, only being sick four days at twenty. At fifty the blood loses some of its richness and loses in quantity. The blood-vessels enlarge and are not so elastic, and the dangers of atheroma are upon us, causing liability to apoplexy, etc., - the natural way for old people to die. The heart weakens somewhat, probably a provision of nature to reduce the blood-pressure and thus relieve the pressure on the blood-vessels, now becoming weak like the tubes of an old steam-boiler. At sixty a general shrinkage begins, or is well under way, and continues on progressively into extreme old age, accompanied by loss of teeth, weak digestion, causing distention of the stomach and bowels, thus pressing up against the diaphragm and interfering with comfortable and satisfactory respiration. Thus metabolism is interfered with and tissue changes go on; katabolism - retrograde metamorphosis - is active; anabolism - the building up of tissues (the building up of living tissue, the forming of protoplasm, without which there is no life) from nutrient material - is less active. In other words, assimilation becomes less active, and hence the body thrives less and less as age increases. Men and women at fifty should begin to cut down particularly the nitrogen in their diet. At this age one should dine not more than twice a week. Twice a week we may live to eat; five times a week we should eat to live. If we take wine, one wine should suffice. If champagne, it should be very dry. No one should take sweet champagne after fifty years of age. I am speaking of the well-to-do and in good health, not of invalids. The clarets and light burgundies would be better. Port, Madeira, and sherry are the most dangerous of all, in the order here given. Remember, after fifty, avoid alcohol as much as possible, and shade off your tobacco if you use it to excess. As we come to sixty years, it is of still more importance to be careful in diet and to take the proper ration. Hardening of the arteries and its consequences are what we wish to avoid.

Milk or its equivalent becomes more and more an important and proper article of diet. If the appetite is very strong, curb it Do not eat largely and drink generously and then complain that you cannot breathe properly, are uncomfortable. The reason is you cannot digest properly what you have taken. Your diaphragm is pressed against your natural breathing space, and you are in a condition of semi-suffocation. You are laying rapidly the foundation for a miserable old age or early death. The gouty should take particular care not to overeat. Semi-starvation for these people at times is prolongation of comfort in living. After this is gone, what is there in life?