Aaron David Bernstein

“ A slight quantity of liquor taken at breakfast, makes one feel increased vital activity. The pulse beats quicker, the mind is stirred up, digestion easier, and before the food has been transformed into blood, we feel animated to vigorous bodily activity and motion. The enjoyment of spirit fills the long pause between the meal itself and its change into blood. He who feels exhausted and eats, has yet but satisfied the demands of the stomach, without therewith replenishing his blood. ”

“ Fat, thus to speak, is the spare-money, while flesh is the capital in the body. Fat itself does not make us strong, while flesh does. But where there is no fat, the processes of perspiration and respiration attack our flesh, which, unless abundantly reinforced, begins to disappear rapidly, while our strength begins to decrease more and more. ”

“ Therefore water is essentially necessary to man, although it does not satisfy his appetite; for it serves to liquify our food in the body, and our blood must contain a greater quantity of water than is furnished us by food, although this itself contains much water.
Without water there can be neither digestion nor nutrition, nor formation of blood, nor secretion. Furthermore, it is remarkable that the most active of the human organs, the brain and muscles, contain the most water; we are therefore obliged, although we are aware of its containing no nutritious elements, to call it a nutritive ”

“ We shall take for guide neither the luxurious life of the rich, who, on account of his disordered stomach, constantly tickles his palate with dainties; nor the miserable life of the poor, who, on account of his empty stomach, is bound to find everything palatable. We wish rather to take into consideration the food of that class of people in which the husband works hard to support his family; and where the wife is a good housewife, and cares for the health and strength of her husband and children. ”

“ It is a common observation that animals which take uniform food are very much poorer in mind than those animals that feed upon richer and more various kinds of food. Nay, it has even been proved that the character, the whole nature of an animal may be completely changed by its food. Very properly, therefore, does the genial naturalist, Moleschott, begin his excellent treatise, "Our Articles of Food," with the following words: "Food has made the wild-cat our house-cat;" thus showing that food may completely change the character of an animal, and more, it may even change the animal's body. ”

“ Every housewife that but once in her life hung up clothes to dry, knows full well that air absorbs moisture when passing over, or through, wet objects. If she wishes to dry her clothes very quickly, she will hang them up where there is much wind. And she is perfectly right in maintaining that the wind dries clothes better than the quiet sunshine. ”

“ Yet we must acknowledge that nature herself does this, and that the sun is the only light which shines throughout the solar system; for the light which is seen in the planets is but light received and reflected from the sun. ”

“ The idea that many persons have that wind and weather are two things entirely different, is wrong. Weather is nothing else but a condition of the atmosphere. A cold winter, cold spring, cold summer, and cold autumn, do not mean, as some believe, that the earth, or that part of it on which they live, is colder than usual; for if we dig a hole in the ground, it will be found that neither cold nor warm weather has any influence upon the temperature below the surface of the earth. ”

“ A beverage which has become such a necessity to every nation, is of great importance; and the instinct with which millions and millions of our fellow-men are drawn to its enjoyment, is the best proof that the use of coffee is not hurtful, but advantageous to man; notwithstanding the fact that in some diseases it is forbidden, and that science has not yet succeeded in showing us the real advantage of coffee as a means of food. ”

“ A pound of iron attracts a small body near by; two pounds of iron attract it precisely twice as much; in other words, the greater the weight of an object, the greater the power of attraction it exercises on the objects near by. Hence, if we know the attractive power of a body, we also know its weight. Nay, we would be able to do without scales of any kind in the world, if we were only able to measure accurately the attractive power of every object. ”

“ The poor workman who has accustomed his stomach to perform digestion only through the excitement of a previous stimulant, cannot, even if he knows the miserable condition he is in, abandon this bad habit without almost superhuman efforts.
Working makes him hungry; but his stomach not being able to digest solid food, eating becomes disagreeable to him. His relaxing strength, however, demands support. His vital activity is suppressed; he must have a fresh supply of strength to be able to work and earn his living. To accomplish this, he knows no other means than liquor again! ”

“ He who wishes to preserve his health, must not try to help nature by artificial means; he will only become weak. To illustrate this by an example: it is a well-known fact, that milk contains all the constituent parts of the blood; but if we were to feed a man merely on milk, those organs given him by nature to digest solid food, would weaken to such a degree that he would fall mortally ill. Man is healthy only when he permits nature the free and unlimited exercise of her functions; if he helps nature too much he may kill himself. It is similar with the use of liquor. ”

“ It is this that makes our sky be cloudy or clear; that produces rain and sunshine, snow and hail, refreshing coolness in summer and warmth sometimes in midwinter, as also chilly nights in summer and thaw in winter. In other words, it is more properly the motion of the air, the wind, that produces what we call weather; that is, that changeableness from heat to cold, from dryness to moisture, all of which may be comprised in one name, weather. ”

“ It is, therefore, not surprising to us that a judicious physician will more often prescribe a good vegetable than medicine; and one ought to be thankful to him if he sends people more to the market than to the drug-store. There are, indeed, many diseases successfully cured by such organical remedies, which only nature knows how to prepare. To mention but one remedy, spinage, so highly beneficial to children and young girls of very pale appearance. Their green-sickness takes origin from a want of iron in the blood. ”

“ Ever since the great discovery of the immortal Newton, it has been known that all celestial bodies attract one another, and that this attraction is the greater, the greater the attracting body is. Not only such celestial bodies as the sun, the earth, the moon, the planets, and the fixed stars, but all bodies have this power of attraction ”

“ The pepper itself does not help dissolve food, but excites the salivary glands and the stomach, thus increasing the gastric juice which performs digestion.
If fat has been eaten, the same effect may be produced by a little liquor. Indeed, it is even preferable to spice, inasmuch as it contains ether, which alone is able to dissolve fat.
Thus we have seen that liquor is a kind of medicine. And although every one must strive to do without medicine, still he must not condemn it; he should scorn rather the wantonness which throws itself on the mercy of medicine. ”

“ Ferocious animals that live only on meat and fat, do not get fat; while herbivorous animals fatten excessively, if provided with good mast, consisting of course but of plants. Yet fat is, for all this, by no means superfluous to our body. Man needs it, because it is the fat which chiefly supports his respiration. But the fat that is needed for the body, is formed by man himself; so that but little of it need be eaten, and that little only for the purpose of helping to form new fat from sugar. ”

“ Even in the shade the heat now becomes intolerable. The trees stand immovable; no leaflet stirs. The complete calm becomes unendurable, and causes anxiety. "Always a calm before a storm," say the people, and hasten to seek shelter in their houses—and well! for it is not long before a counter wind commences to blow. ”

“ If, then, we wish to determine the weight of our globe by the weight of that little ball, it is first necessary to know of what our globe consists; whether it contains stones, metals, or things entirely unknown; whether empty cavities, or whether, indeed, the whole earth is nothing but a hollow sphere, on the surface of which we live, and in whose inside there is possibly another world that might be reached by boring through the thick shell. ”

“ Of two like articles of food, the better and more advantageous one to us is that which is digested, or better, converted into blood, the more easily and quickly.
And there is a third truth, which must not be omitted. Let no one for a moment believe, that a great variety of food is something unimportant and indifferent; on the contrary, investigations have shown that uniform food is hurtful, while a constant change is very beneficial to nutrition and health. ”

“ If instead of one sun we should happen to have three, there is no doubt that we should go blind; but seven suns, that is, seven times the light of our brightest days, we could not endure, even if our eyes were closed; the more so, as our eyelids, even when firmly closed, do not protect us from the sun's light entirely. This is a proof of our assertion, that the living beings on the planet Mercury must be differently organized from us. ”

“ In former times, when a man would speak of the rapidity with which light traverses space, most of his hearers thought it to be a scientific exaggeration or a myth. At present, however, when daily opportunity is afforded to admire, for example, the velocity of the electric current in the electro-magnetic telegraph, every one is well convinced of the fact, that there are forces in nature which traverse space with almost inconceivable velocity.
A wire a mile in length, if electrified at one end, becomes in the very instant electrified also at the other end. ”

“ It is therefore best to consider fat and sugar as food belonging together; for the fat is formed in the body from sugar, and the small quantity of fat which we take daily is only to promote the transformation of sugar into fat.
But let no one believe that one must needs actually eat sugar; no, every food that contains starch supplies the place of sugar very well, as starch is changed, when in the body, first to sugar and then to fat. The potato contains starch and serves its purpose well ”

“ Before all other things, man is distinguished by his pursuit and investigation of TRUTH. And hence, when free from needful business and cares, we delight to see, to hear, and to communicate, and consider a knowledge of many admirable and abstruse things necessary to the good conduct and happiness of our lives: whence it is clear that whatsoever is TRUE, simple, and direct, the same is most congenial to our nature as men. ”

“ The animating element in wine is the same as the one in liquor. But it makes man's heart glad; which means as much as, it increases our vital activity; it rouses; it strengthens the weary and him who is exhausted bodily or mentally; it excites the body as well as the mind to move vigorous action. Taken in very small quantity, liquor has the same effect. It is therefore not only good for digestion, but also a prompt remedy for exhaustion. The reanimation, however, produced by the use of stimulants, is by no means a real gain; for he who feels tired and weary is best restored by nature herself. ”

“ Intimately connected with the length of day and night are our seasons, especially summer and winter; for together with the sun's light heat is also called forth. During our long days, therefore, it is very warm with us, for the sun's rays heat the soil. During our short days we experience cold, because the warming light of the sun does not reach our earth directly. For this reason the northern hemisphere enjoys summer while the southern has winter; and vice versâ, when we have mid-winter, people in the other hemisphere are in the midst of summer. ”