For I have already intimated that Englishmen of the middle classes generally have adopted a diet adapted for a somewhat more northerly latitude than that which they occupy; that their food is mostly richer in fats and proteids than it need be, and that their numerous forms of indigestion and much resulting chronic disease are further necessary consequences of the same error. They indulge, not necessarily in quantity, but in a kind of food generally reputed "simple and wholesome," which nevertheless for them creates a condition of corpulence, not merely inconvenient, but prejudicial to health, and to their prospects of longevity. Such tendencies existing, and especially if the individual does not, or cannot take much exercise, the choice of food, free from fatty constituent, or from fat-producing elements, is a matter of no small importance. Then, again, it is absolutely certain, contrary to the popular belief as this is, that while a good supply of food is essential during the period of growth and active middle life, a diminished supply is desirable in relation to health and prolongation of life during declining years, when physical exertion is small, and the digestive faculty sometimes becomes less powerful also. I shall not regard it as within my province here to dilate largely on this topic, but I desire to point out that the system of "supporting" aged persons, as it is termed, with increased quantities of food and stimulant, is an error of cardinal importance, and, without doubt, tends to shorten, or to embitter life. This erroneous practice ignores the important fact that as age increases, the ability to eliminate food unnecessarily consumed notably diminishes. The functions by which surplus and effete matters are thrown off from the system are less active than in youth and middle age; and the results of over-feeding, which a robust constitution can get rid of without obvious evil, become a source of dangerous embarrassment to the feebler organization of one advanced in years. Hence numerous chronic disorders, often regarded as peculiar to the latter third of life, are to a great extent avoidable. So far from continuing to select the strong nourishment which may have been necessary during the toil and anxieties of thirty years or more of adult energy and activity throughout the prime of life, the elderly man who desires to preserve fair health, and to attain to longevity, should gradually diminish his use of strong nitrogenous and especially of much fatty food. He should substitute a lighter dietary, as he subsides naturally, and more or less gradually, into the class of the sedentary, and adopts the regimen best adapted thereto, hereafter to be considered.*

Englishmen consume too much animal food. Quantity of food to be diminished in advancing years. Serious evils arise from neglect of this course.