The Code of Health and Longevity

I l 8 APPENSTX . cieftts appear to have derived a favourable opinion of die nutritious properties of figs, from obferving that the per- fons whb were appointed to guard the fig-gardens and vineyards, when the fruit was nearly ripe, and who fed iipon hardly any thing elfe for a month or six;weeks, du­ ring that period became remarkably fat. Geese were alfo fed on figs, in order to produce thofe enlarged livers which jconftituted a favourite delicacy ofthe Roman epi­ cures. The fat and fleek appearancewhich the Negroes, and indeed all the domellic animals in the Weft Indies, acquire during the feafon of boiling the fugar, notwith-. Handing the increafed labour they undergo at that pe­ riod, furnifties another proof pf the nutritious properties of faccharine matter. It is a fadl, perhaps not very ge­ nerally known, that, though a dilute folution of fugar very frequently diforders the ftomach, by running into the acetous fermentation, eaten in a dry or folid form, fugar hardly ever difagrees. The governor of a gymn^iium, named Pythagoras, is faid to have been the firft who introduced the ufe of ani­ mal food as part of the athletic regimen, in confequence of having obferved that it produced firmer fielh, and gave more real mufcular ftrength. Of meat, the an­ cient Athletce were reftri£led to the ufe of pork. Galen alTerts, that pork contains more real nutriment than the flefii of any other animal which is ufed as food by man ; this fail, he adds, is decidedly proved by the example of the Athletce, who, if they lived but for one day on any other fpecies of food, found their vigour manifeftly im­ paired the next. The practice of the ancients differs in this refped from that of the modern trainers, who feem univerfally toprefer the ufe of beef and mutton. Per­ haps thefe animals were not brought to fuch perfection, the food of man, in ancient, as they have been in mo- derp