Food in Health and Disease. By T. Burney Yeo. (Cassell
and Co.) —Health is always an interesting subject, even to the naturally strong and vigorous, and to a great many of us it is liable to become too interesting. Since the English have developed a propensity for crowding together and forming gigantic communities, the science of health has entered on a new and difficult phase. The note which runs through Dr. Burney Yeo's book is that of protest at the absence of physiological knowledge which pervades all classes. It is hard to make most people believe that as the opportunities and desire for food generated by the faster living and greater nervous waste increase, so also does the power of working off superabundant food diminish. We have yet to learn how the populations of cities are to arrange their diet. Dr. Burney Yeo's remarks on alcohol, coffee, and tea will doubtless excite most interest, as the attitude he takes up with regard to them is strictly impartial, and is therefore rather favourable than other- wise. School diet provokes some very strong comments, especially that of girls' schools. To say that "it is a rare exception for a girl to return home in full health after two or three years of English boarding-school life," is a strong assertion, but very few will deny it. French schoolgirls are better fed, if we may trust the evidence given.
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