Health and Temperance

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 14, 1889

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 15, No. 39.

Health and Temperance.

FRUIT AND DIARRHŒA.

THE superstition that fruits are prolific sources of diarrhœa in summer is largely outgrown. Mr. E. S. Hyatt, however, writes a word on this subject in the Dietetic Reformer which is very interesting. He says:—

"At this time of the year, deaths from diarrhœa are frequent, and the outcry against fruit is loud; for fruit in particular is charged with being a principal cause of this mortality. But people will eat fruit and will not be frightened out of doing so. Is the charge, then, true? The public do not seem to be aware that fruit is a food, not merely a medicine or a luxury—a food, too, upon which it is possible to live entirely, and with the highest degree of health and strength. It is not unknown among us for individuals to live on fruit for months at a time, and get through an incredible amount of both sedentary and physical work. I have myself tested it in a small way by walking from Liverpool through Chester, Hereford, Ross, Gloucester, down to Bath, thence to London, and back through Bedford, Leicester, Derby, Buxton, and Manchester, to Liverpool, a distance of about 500 miles, being an average of 35 miles a day for fifteen days, in hot weather, without taking anything to eat or drink except raw fruit. During this time I was three nights without going to bed, two of which were in succession, making three days and two nights tramping at a spell. And yet I did not feel jaded, but fresh, so much so that the last day's walk (from Manchester to Liverpool) I did right off without a rest. It was from the confinement of an office, and more than ordinarily sedentary habits. I ask, therefore, must there not be more nourishment, and that of the best kind, in fruit, than it generally takes credit for."