EATING. AT NIGHT.

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 148, 25 June 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

EATING. AT NIGHT.

A- writer in the 'Italia Termale' declares in faA'our of late suppers. He says that many people Avho remain thin and weakly in spite of all precautions in regard to diet, etc., owe the fact largely to habitual abstemiousness at. night. He remarks that physiology teaches us that, in sleeping as in waking, there is a perpetual waste going on in the tissues of the body, and it seems but logical that nourishment should be continuous as Avell. The digestion of the food taken at dinner or in the early evening is finished as a usual thing before or by bedtime, yet the activity of the process of assimilation, etc., continues for hours afterward, and when one retires with an empty stomach the result of this activity is sleeplessness and an undue wasting of the system. All other creatures says the writer, outside of man, are governed by a natural instinct, which leads those having a stomach to en t before lyii-S' down for the night. The infant, guided by the samo instinct, takes the breast frequently in the night as Avell as in the day, and if its stomach is allowed to remain empty too long It shows its discomfort by crying. The digestive organs have no need for repose, provided always that the quantity of nourishment taken Avithin the 24 hours does not go beyond the normal limit. The fact that -the interA'als between meals is short Avorks no inconvenience, but on the contrary tends to the avoidance of feebleness, which Is the natural result of an interval extended to too great a length. Feeble persons, lean and emaciated persons, and above all those suffering from insomnia, owe it to themselves not to retire some light nourishment into the stomach.