J.-F. Dancel

“ Some physicians, and many of the laity, think that repeated bleedings tend to the development of fat. For my part, the fact is indisputable, both theoretically and as the result of experience. Bleeding removes a portion of the blood, which is flesh in a fluid state, having for its object not only the nutrition of the several organs, but also the stimulation of the heart's movements, and thus the maintenance of life. Taking a little blood, is taking a little of that which maintains life, and is therefore a weakening of every organ of the body. ”

“ In fine, obesity is not always a disease, because it does not always cause suffering; but it ought, nevertheless, not to be neglected, because life cannot be of long duration under such circumstances, and may terminate suddenly at any moment. ”

“ It is no longer necessary to be acquainted with all the organs, both in a state of health and of disease; the extent of territory to be explored is reduced. The fashion at the present day is, that a physician of this school should know only how to treat the diseases of one particular organ, and rarely of two; that he should be, in fact, a specialist. But are not the principal organs of the body, for the most part, mutually dependent on each other, and all of them subject to a general consensus? ”

“ The principal constituents of fat, therefore, are carbon and hydrogen. Again, chemistry teaches that all food not consisting of flesh, such as vegetables, farinacea, sugars, &c., resemble fat, being chiefly composed of carbon and hydrogen; and, still more, that fat exists, already formed, in some vegetable substances, as oil of olives, oil of nuts, and oleaginous seeds. If, therefore, we introduce into the system substances rich in carbon and hydrogen, we must make fat as inevitably as the bee makes honey from its elements contained in the flowers. ”

“ Medical authors assert that food has a most important bearing in the production of corpulence. They forbid the use of meat, and recommend watery vegetables, such as spinage, sorrel, salad, fruit, &c., and for beverage water; and at the same time they direct the patient to eat as little as possible. These instructions, like too many others, are given because they are asked, and that in every disease, curable or incurable, the physician is bound to offer some advice. Medical men themselves put no faith in them, since they pronounce obesity to be incurable. ”

“ For the development of obesity, there must exist a certain predisposition. We meet with many who do all in their power to grow fat, and who still remain thin, because, no doubt, they possess some peculiarity of organization which prevents the development of fat.
Obesity may be hereditary; that is to say, the father or the mother may transmit to their children a peculiar formation, having a tendency to make fat. From certain physiological conditions, we may recognize at an early age a natural tendency on the part of some persons to become corpulent. ”

“ Superabundance of fat prevents an infantry officer from following his regiment—a cavalry officer from being long on horseback; and thus both are alike compelled to retire from the service. The operatic artiste, whose voice or personal beauty had been hitherto a mine of wealth to the theatre, falls into indigence, because an excessive development of fat now embarrasses the lungs or destroys her personal charms.
Every one engaged in intellectual pursuits will say that since he has increased in fat he finds that he cannot work so easily as he did when he was thin. ”

“ The clerk in his office is ever complaining of the efforts he is obliged to make to resist an overwhelming drowsiness which interferes with his calculating powers, rendering him unable to compose a letter, or even to copy one. Obesity, in fact, lessens both physical and moral activity, and unfits man for the ordinary business of life.
It was in conformity with this opinion, no doubt, that the Romans at one time, wishing to have no drones among them, banished those of their fellow citizens who laboured under an excessive development of fat. ”

“ All medical writers agree that want of sufficient exercise—as by lying too much in bed, riding in a carriage, &c.—is favourable to the development of obesity. The explanation is simple. We are all cognizant of the fact, that the body is sustained chiefly by means of food; but we also know that the atmosphere by which we are surrounded, plays an important part in the nourishment of the body. ”

“ Nor is the conclusion to be drawn, that in order to diminish corpulence, an exclusive meat diet is absolutely necessary. Man is omnivorous; that is to say, he partakes of everything entering into the composition of ordinary alimentation; but, for the purposes of my system, azotized substances should constitute, though not exclusively, his principal food.
Large quantities both of animal and vegetable substances compose the ordinary diet of man. According to some philosophers, man should live on flesh only; while others maintain that man is by nature a vegetable feeder. ”

“ Sir,—Having read your book on the treatment of obesity, I wish to ask if you will undertake my case, although living at a distance of three hundred miles from Paris. I am fifty years of age, and possessed of a vigorous constitution. Since I have retired from business, now ten years ago, I have steadily increased in corpulence; my present weight being one hundred and eighty-nine pounds. I am troubled with an affection of the heart, shortness of breath, and my legs swell, especially when not taking much exercise on foot. I am not fond of walking, since it induces great fatigue. ”

“ I begged to be acknowledged by the Academy as the first who had established the fact that, in order to reduce corpulence without interfering with the general health, it is necessary to live chiefly upon meat, avoiding an excess of vegetable and aqueous food, or of any of which the basis is carbon or hydrogen.
These chemical principles are founded upon facts—upon observation. As I have said, carnivorous animals are never fat, because they feed upon a substance rich in nitrogen—flesh; which flesh makes flesh, and very little fat. ”

“ And when we reflect that the venous circulation is carried on by means of a vital power which has to overcome the force of gravity, causing the blood to flow from below upwards, from the feet towards the heart, we can readily understand how easily any slight obstruction in the liver may give rise to serious consequences, while on the other hand it will be manifest, that the liver being freed from its excess of fat, the venous circulation will be re-established, and those troublesome affections alluded to, therewith got rid of. ”

“ Nuns in their cloistered convents, prisoners in jails often grow fat in spite of their wretched food, because the air they breathe being deficient in oxygen, withdraws but a small portion of the carbon from the system, the remainder going to the formation of fat. It is when the human body has attained its full growth, and especially in the decline of life, that fat in excess begins to be developed. I am of opinion that want of exercise is one of its principal causes. With increasing age the step becomes more guarded, and a repugnance is felt for all bodily exertion. ”

“ It is a well established fact that many fat persons are troubled with skin diseases, which resist every treatment, and a cure is effected only when, from some cause or other, the person has become thin. Would it be wrong to say that in such cases the disease of the skin is due to its over distension by fat, causing a partial stagnation of venous blood and serous fluid? ”

“ Most naturalists, however, are agreed that the human species is omnivorous; that is to say, [117] can live both upon vegetable and animal matter. A certain proof, in my opinion, that such is the case, is to be found in the fact that man is provided with the two kinds of teeth, the one appertaining especially to carnivorous, and the other to herbivorous animals.
It is remarkable that man, in his present state of civilization, does not instinctively recognize the kind of food which is beneficial or prejudicial to his well-being. Experience alone teaches him what is good or bad. ”

“ So that although a person should live exclusively upon meat, and at the same time drink a great deal, he would not experience any perceptible reduction of fat. This affords an explanation why many who eat very little, but drink large quantities of water, beer, cider, brandy or wine, labour under obesity. Whoever desires to avoid corpulence must therefore feed chiefly upon meat, partaking very sparingly of any other kind of food, and at the same time should drink but little. ”

“ Why, that every physician so engaged thinks, and most conscientiously, that the patient before him labours under that particular disease to which he particularly devotes his attention. This is perfectly natural. The mind of man is so formed, that it is narrowed, and loses its powers of comparison and of judgment, whenever it is concentrated and brought to bear solely upon one subject, one single object. Man is no longer capable of reasoning upon a science or an art, when he puts it out of sight as a whole, in order to devote himself entirely to one of its parts ”

“ In all cases, so detrimental a change is much to be regretted; but for ladies mingling in the fashionable spheres of life, it is to be borne only when such a condition can be shewn to be utterly beyond all hope of relief. ”

“ Many authors, both ancient and modern, and many physicians also, recommend, in order to reduce obesity, that the patient should eat a less amount by weight than the body loses. By such means a wasting of all the organs of the body would be simultaneously effected; not only fat, but muscle, nerve, tissue, blood—all must suffer. ”

“ If a supply of fat, equal in combining proportion with the alkali ingested, be supplied by means of food to the body, the action of the alkali upon the previously deposited fat constituting the obesity, must be null. For the speedy reduction of obesity, therefore, the food must contain a less than ordinary amount of the elements of fat, by making it to consist chiefly of meat, and bringing about a reduction of the superabundant fat by means of alkalis, which should be administered in every variety of form, in order not to induce a sense of disgust on the part of the patient. ”

“ It is an important fact, and one which I have noticed throughout twenty-five years of medical practice, that wherever I have been called to a case of apoplexy occurring in a fat person, death has ensued in spite of every care both on my part and of the other physicians summoned together with myself to attend the case. Bleedings, repeated three or four times in the course of twenty-four hours, leeches applied to the temples, mustard poultices, blisters—everything has failed to prevent a fatal termination. ”

“ Even plants lose their fertility by excess of fat. A plant growing in a cultivated soil where it finds a superabundance of food becomes sterile, because the stamens are transformed into petals, causing double flowers.
The rule is, in order that a woman should be capable of conception, that she should be regular—that is to say, that she should lose each month a certain quantity of blood. Now it is asserted by medical men that, in general, those women who are thin, and who are almost without exception fertile, lose much more blood than fat women. ”

“ When the system of medicine founded by Borelli was in vogue, called the "Iatro Mathematical," it would certainly have been acknowledged that a superabundance of fat, when developed in the human body, could interfere with the vital organs in the performance of their functions, and thus be the cause of much disturbance and of many diseases. ”

“ The incessant desire for sleep, the somnolence with which fat people are tormented, is sufficient proof of the correctness of the assertion.
The experience of all medical men goes to shew that when persons of obesity are attacked by any acute form of disease, they succumb more easily than those possessing an ordinary embonpoint. Death usually occurs in such cases unattended with great suffering. Destruction goes on so quietly and imperceptibly, that the physician becomes aware of it only when it is too late to grapple with it. ”

“ The human skin is capable of great extension. It may be distended to four times its size, yet is not endowed with much elasticity. On this account we may notice, in very fat persons, rolls of fat about the neck, back, buttocks, arms and pubis. The epidermis, which constitutes the external layer of the skin, is but slightly capable of extension. When distended beyond a certain point, it tears, and produces those white streaks which are to be seen on the abdomen of pregnant women, or of those who have borne children, and also of those who have laboured under severe dropsical ascites. ”

“ A very strong infusion of coffee, more particularly when taken upon an empty stomach, is powerfully anti-obesic in its effects.
It has been alleged that coffee must be nutritious, because labourers are enabled to support life upon a small amount of solid food when supplied with an abundance of coffee. Now the fact is, that coffee has all the properties of tea, and, like it, prevents waste of tissue, thereby economizing food to the utmost, and enabling the labourer to do a large amount of bodily work with a comparatively slight expenditure of the organized tissues of the living body. ”

“ Those who believe as I do, that an excessive development of fat may induce and sustain a generally diseased condition of body, will readily admit that the diminution of excessive obesity is the only rational means of cure in such a case. ”

“ A young lady under my care, who was enormously fat, acknowledged that she lived exclusively on pastry and sweetmeats, and drank nothing but champagne. A change both of food and beverage effected a speedy cure. In some cases this wine gives rise to indigestion, owing to the large amount of free carbonic acid gas which it contains, acting injuriously upon the nerves which are distributed to the stomach.
A strong infusion of tea is one of those beverages having a tendency to oppose the formation of fat; it is nevertheless nutritious, inasmuch as it prevents the disintegration of tissue. ”

“ It has been said not to constitute a disease: that it is a normal condition: that it is a condition intermediate between health and disease: that a fat person is predisposed to disease.
For my part I cannot comprehend a condition between health and disease, with corpulence; and if such do exist it is attended with those infirmities and serious inconveniences already mentioned. Predisposition to disease and morbid tendency are, in the case of persons labouring under obesity, the precursors of serous or sanguineous apoplexy, obstructions, &c. ”