stands in the drawing-room behind the
window-curtains why, the best and kindest thing you
can do is to let it alone.]

        CORPULENCE BEFORE THE
                      CONQUEST.

THE world has recently been astonished at
the diminution of Mr. Banting's size and weight,
and that which has astonished the world has
probably scandalised the faculty. For thirty
long years had Mr. Banting spent his substance
upon physicians and profited nought, for the
more Mr. Banting made away with the
substance of his purse, the more the substance of
his body increased. At length, under the treatment
of a leech more cunning than all the rest,
Mr. Banting got rid of more than twelve inches
of waist and forty-six pounds of weight.* And
this wonderful result was brought about by no
violent remedies, by no prescriptions hard to
read and harder to pronounce, by no horrible
operation involving chloroform and a plurality
of surgeons. The remedies used were, so to
say, conspicuous by their absence. They were
chiefly bread, milk, and port wine—not
swallowed, but abstained from. There was, it is
true, in addition to these negative remedies, a
certain positive remedy applied, an exquisite
"cordial," such as we may suppose Apollo to
have drunk whenever he got nervous about
middle age, and a waist resembling rather the
swell than the trough of the sea. What this
wonderful "cordial" may be, remains, and is
likely to remain, an engrossing, or, perhaps,
rather an attenuating mystery. It is alkaline,
Mr. Banting tells us, so that any one who may
quaff thereof is in no danger of finding his milk
of human kindness curdled by any acid possessing
terrible and hitherto unknown properties.

* The principles laid down by Mr. Banting were
propounded in Household Words in the year 1857.
They were chiefly derived from a work by Dr.
Dancel, a physician of Paris. The article is
entitled The Art of Unfattening, and will be found at
page 328 of volume xv.

There are physicians who tell us that the type
of disease is changing or changed, and it might
very reasonably be supposed that corpulence is
one among the new phases of disease, if such
new phases really exist. The luxuries of modern
civilisation might be expected to favour the
deposit of adipose tissue, just as coops and high
feeding produce the famous foies gras for the
patés of Strasbourg. But it may be some
consolation to Mr. Banting, and all who are afflicted
as he has been, to know that, if new types of
disease have appeared, corpulence is certainly
not one of them. Fat men have lived in all
ages—at least all historical ages; and the
faculty has apparently been in all ages about as
successful in the cure of obesity as Mr. Banting
found it between the ages of thirty-five and
sixty-five. Falstaff owned to two yards round
the waist, and yet he knew not port wine. If
Falstaff had a weakness, it was for sack, or, in
modern English, sherry, which Mr. Banting says
is allowable. But doctors will differ occasionally.
If the type of disease has changed, it is
not impossible that men's constitutions may
have changed, so that what fattened in Falstaff's
time takes off flesh in ours. Be this as it may,
fat may claim all the respect which is due to
age, and, if we may judge from the nostrums
recommended to diminish it, was considered
rather an encumbrance than an ornament. " In
case that a man be overgrown in stomach," says
the Saxon Leech, who lived before the Conquest,
and prescribed second-hand from Apuleius (he
does not use the word stomach, but we substitute
it for his expression), "seethe then the waybread
largely, and let him eat then of it largely;
then soon will the stomach dwindle." He
prescribes the same herb, too, in a different form:
" If thou then wilt reduce the size of a man's
stomach, then take thou the wort; boil in vinegar;
put then the juice and the wort so boiled
into wine; let him drink then at night fasting."
The very positive statement at the end of the first
prescription is worth noting: "Then soon will the
stomach dwindle." It is evident that very great
success must have attended the Saxon doctor's
practice, because men of science never venture to
predict until they have made sure of a law or laws.
Perhaps Mr. Banting's cordial is waybread?

But the Saxon doctors did not rely on a
solitary remedy. They speak less confidently
of some than of others; but they are not easily
brought to their wits' end. Here is another
prescription: " In case that a man be overwaxen
in stomach, take juice of this wort, which the
Greeks name ????????,and the Italians equisetum
(horsetail), in sweetened wine; give to drink two
draughts. It is confidently believed that it will
heal that ill." The doctors differ again; Mr. Banting's
adviser forbids all saccharine matter, the
Saxon recommends it. This, again, is probably
owing to difference of constitution: " nous avons
changé tout cela," as Molière's doctor said.

The herbarium or pharmacopœia is not yet by
any means exhausted, so far as corpulence is
concerned. " In case a man be overgrown in.
the stomach, take roots of this wort, which the
Greeks name ?????? ?????, and the Romans
hastulæ regia, and also the Engle call woodroffe,
pound with wine, give to drink; soon thou
shalt understand the advantage of this." Wine
again, be it remarked, though the kind of wine
is not specified. Saxon patients certainly had
more agreeable remedies prescribed than the
invalids of our generation. Why are all modern
remedies nasty? Is there any connexion
between truth at the bottom of a well, and health at
the bottom of a very disagreeable cup? This
problem presented itself to us at five years of age,
and has never yet been satisfactorily solved to
our mind at least. " Soon thou shalt understand
the advantage of this," modestly remarks the
medical adviser of our forefathers; and be it
remembered that he was prescribing wine long
before fourteen shilling claret was known, and
before British brandy had come into demand for
the manufacture of port. The advantage of that
prescription may, indeed, be readily understood.