Litchfield Enquirer

"Journal of Health."—We have received the first number of a neat octavo sheet, published in Philadelphia, under the above title. It is "conducted by an association of physicians," to be published semi-monthly, at the price of $1.25 per year—to form at the close of the year a volume of 400 pages. It is well printed, on good paper, and nearly the whole of the matter is original—written with spirit—and we should suppose calculated to do much good. The editors assert that it will be on all occasions opposed to empiricism; and that it will be divested of all professional language and details. We subjoin one short article entire, as a specimen of the manner of their treating a subject.

Animal and Vegetable Food. It is amusing to hear a nervous female, whose daily exercise consists in going up and down stairs two or three times a day and shopping once a week, complain that she cannot preserve her strength unless she eats freely of some kind of meat and takes her twice daily potations of strong coffee, to say nothing of porter, or wine sangaree. The same opinion prevails among all classes of our community—A child (in the arms) cannot, it is thought, thrive unless it have a leg of a chicken, or a piece of bacon in its fist to suck: a boy or girl going to school must be gorged with the most substantial aliment at dinner and perhaps little less at breakfast and supper. The child is crying and screaming every hour in the day—has, after a while, convulsions,—or obstinate diseases of the skin, or dropsy of the brain. The little personage going to school complains of headache, is fretful and unhappy, and becomes pale and feeble.—The doctor is next consulted on the best means of restoring strength to the dear creature, that has lost its appetite, and can eat nothing but a little cake, or custard, or at most some at broth. Should he tell the fond mother the unpalatable truth; and desire her to suspend the system of stuffing, and allow her child, for sole food, a little bread and milk diluted with water, and daily exercise in the open air, she will be heard in a tone of mingled astonishment and reproach, why doctor, would you starve my child! For the information of all such misguided persons we would beg leave to state that the large majority of mankind do not eat any animal food, or so sparingly, and at such long intervals that it cannot be said to form their nourishment. Millions in Asia are sustained by rice alone, with perhaps a little vegetable oil, for seasoning. In Italy, and southern Europe generally, bread made of the flour of wheat or Indian corn, with lettuce and the like mixed with oil, constitutes the food of the most robust part of its population.—The Lazzaroni of Naples, with forms so active and finely proportioned cannot even calculate on this much; coarse bread and potatoes, is their chief reliance: their drink of luxury is a glass of reed water slightly acidulated. Hundreds of thousands, we might say millions, of Irish do not see flesh meat or fish from one week's end to the other. Potatoes and oat meal are their articles of food; if milk can be added it is thought luxury: yet where shall we find a more healthy and robust population, or one more enduring of bodily fatigue, and exhibiting more mental vivacity? What a contrast between these people and the inhabitants of the extreme north, the timid Laplanders, Esquimaux, Samoiedes, whose food is almost entirely animal!