Letter on corpulence, addressed to the public ... Reprinted from the 3d London ed. With a review of the work from Blackwood's magazine, and an article on corpulency & leanness from Harper's Weekly by Banting William 1797-1878 & Roman Anton 1828-1903

Author:Banting, William, 1797-1878 & Roman, Anton, 1828-1903
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Obesity
Publisher: San Francisco, A. Roman
Published: 1865-11-20T05:00:00+00:00

BANTING ON CoIilTLKNCi;.

men in the position of Mr. Bunting, who. we believe, has retired into private life after a successful business career, are not expected to rival Leotard, or to pit themselves in athletic contests against hairy-houghed Donald of the Isles. As a deer-stalker, it may be that he would not win distinction—for it is hard work even for light-weights to scramble up conies or crawl on their bellies through moss-hags and water-channels for hours, before they can get the glimpse of an antler,—but man)' a country gentleman, compared with whom Mr. Banting at his biggest would have been but as a fatted calf to a full-grown bull, can take, with the utmost case, a long day's exercise through stubble and turnips, and bring home his twenty brace of partridges, with a due complement of hares, without a symptom of bodily fatigue. Mr. Banting seems to labor under the hallucination that he was at least as heavy as Falstaff; we, on the contrary, have a shrewd suspicion that Hamlet would have beaten him in the scales.

It is, of course, in the option of all who are dissatisfied with their present condition to essay to alter it. Lean men may wish to become fatter, and fat men may wish to become leaner ; but so long as their health remains unimpaired, they are not lit subjects for the doctor. We have no doubt that the eminent professional gentlemen whom Mr. Banting consulted took that view of the matter : and having ascertained that there was in reality no disease to be cured, gave him, by way of humoring a slight hypochondriac affection, a few simple precepts for the maintenance of a health which in reality required no improvement. Probably they opined that the burden of his fleshwasno greater than he could bear witli ease ; and certainly, under the circumstances, there was no call upon them what-

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