Pale, Thin People

Sweet Snake-Oil Dept.: I found this pamphlet in my attic while re-wiring and insulating. It's undated, but there's a companion piece at the end from the NY Times from 1894, and as far as I can tell from the Times piece, it was passed off as a legit news story. (It was also referenced in the Charlotte Medical Journal from 1895.) Has dietary science really improved since then? I'm going to contemplate that over lunch. Note: It's lengthy, but they sure wrote convincing copy back in the day! 

                                                                      

PALE, THIN PEOPLE

• Simply suffer from want of nourishment.
• If you are thin, it is because the food you eat does not digest properly.
• It is not healthy to be too thin. It is better to be hearty and fat.
• If your food doesn't digest properly, what can you do? You must change your diet.
• To get fat you must eat less fat and more starch, for fat and oils are indigestible.
• Starch is the only healthy fattening food

PASKOLA is starch food artificially digested; treated by science, the way nature treats it in your digestive organs.

PASKOLA forms fat without giving your digestion any work. It is a delicious, healthy pure food.

It is a food that will make you bright and rosy and healthy and fat, without the use of drugs or medicines.

PLUMP PEOPLE AND THIN ONES

What Makes the Difference?

What makes some people plump and fleshy and others thin and bony? Is the human body run and shaped in an invisible mould? And what strange effects this difference produces. Beauty always demands curves – it never allows angles. A woman may be thin and graceful but not thin and beautiful. With men the question of flesh, artistically speaking, is of less importance; yet it may be of great consequence in other respects. Too much fat is a burden – too little is also a serious disadvantage. How can we strike the golden mean? if, indeed, we can strike it at all. With the Turks fat is the standard of beauty, and with all nations a reasonable amount of it is the measure of health – in animals and in men. But the tendency seems to be the wrong way just now. There is a vast number of gaunt, pale, thin people; people manifestly under the proper size and weight. Many of them are actually emaciated yet not markedly suffering from recognizable disease. Most of them eat heartily – some of them voraciously. Still they remain thin – sometimes repulsively so. Commonly they are also very touchy and sensitive. They have nerves; they are full of nerves. They catch cold easily; they are upset by trifles; they lack force and courage. While not necessarily ill at any particular time they are the ready victims of disease, and fall in multitudes before any epidemic. They provide consumption with most of its subjects.

Now, if they eat why don’t they grow fleshy? Why do they continue pale, thin and feeble? Because they do not digest and assimilate their food. Indeed their meals more often work harm than good. The torpid and disordered stomach cannot do the work imposed on it. The contents ferment and putrefy and scatter poisonous acids all through the body, setting up gout, rheumatism, bronchitis, consumption and profound nervous maladies. The system grows feverish. Often there is nausea and vomiting; a sour fluid rises into the throat ; there is distress after eating, deadness and distention of the abdomen, giddiness, bad breath, hot flushes followed by creeping chills; yellow eyes and skin: languor and weariness not relieved by rest; aching of the back and limbs; great hunger alternating with a loathing of food; anxiety and mental depression; shortness of breath, and variable nervous affections.

Nature needs help. So much is plain. But how can we help her? We must do her work for her for a time. We must supply the body with some perfect food which will not require any digestive labor on the part of the stomach. Can we do that?

Until recently this auxiliary was sought among oils and other fatty products, especially cod liver oil. But these things failed for the reason that they are incapable of forming real and solid tissue. The false flesh they produce melts away more quickly than it comes. It gives no strength, no warmth. Millions of thin, pale, anemic, consumptive persons remember the delusive hopes of recovery they were led to indulge by the advertisements of these fat-and-oil compounds or emulsions; and how their air castles faded into gray disappointments.

No; the fats and oils won’t do. Experience proves that. The only reliable remedy is not a drug but a food, prepared from certain fruits rich in starch, and pre-digested so as to require for the present no digestive action; a food capable of being at once absorbed into the blood and building up the body without putting a strain on the enfeebled digestive organs.

This is wonderfully done by the new preparation called Paskola, which is made on the correct scientific theory. When eaten (for it is a food, not a drug), it immediately becomes a flesh-building, life-giving element in the blood. An increase of vitality, vigor and weight is felt at once, and the symptoms of the previous depressed, devitalized state pass away.

Yet Paskola, while a true food, needs to be used for a short time only. It gives Nature power to put herself to rights and then its work is done. The point is that it soon enables the stomach to digest any food, even strong meats. Then the patient may follow his appetite and consult his palate alone.

Under the nourishing power of Paskola the hectic flush soon leaves the consumptive’s cheek, the skin assumes the hue of health, the night sweats cease, the cough dies away, and the emaciation is lost under a coating of solid, warm and normal flesh.

Physicians already report brilliant results produced by Paskola in the digestive torpor characteristic of all febrile diseases, and employ it in the place of stimulants – the old treatment. The patient’s stomach at once absorbs Paskola, which keeps up his strength until the disease is vanquished. Its usefulness in this direction is beyond estimate.

Of late years pale, thin people, of both sexes, have come to be an increasing majority in this country. Young persons grow tall and slender, without breadth, or stamina, and perish as fast as they grow. The statistics of the throat and lung hospitals tell the story of their fate. They are born with brains and nerves, but without the most important arrangement of all – a competent digestive system. The doctors keep them going on stimulants for a while, and then they die.

It is all such as these that Paskola is destined to save. They don’t need medicines, nor travel, nor change of scene. They need food and the power to digest and appropriate it to the body’s constant needs. That power Paskola gives.

Why should multitudes of men and women either die young or be invalids all their days? Once the reason was – there was no means to prevent it. Now there is.

And this new and rational road to health will reward all who set foot upon it.

THE FATNESS OF HEALTH

How to Attain It

It you are getting thin you are sick, though you may not know it.

If you are losing weight steadily, there is something wrong about you that needs looking to.

If you have always been thin, it doesn’t follow that you are sick, but that you might be healthier.

You might be fat and plump, and strong, and hearty.

You cannot be strong if you’re thin.

Thinness isn’t necessarily a sign of sickness (unless you commence to get thin and keep getting thinner), but it’s a sign that you are in danger of being sick. It’s a sign that if you get sick it may be hard for you to get well; that the least chill may cause a cold, the least cold become something worse. A sign that out of a small ailment may come gout, rheumatism, diabetes, consumption, rickets or scrofula, and many other sad diseases, which might have been prevented by healthy fatness.

Try, then, to be healthy and fat. It’s not difficult. If you know how, the trying is both easy and pleasant.

In a few words, getting fat consists in eating proper food, food that contains the proper nourishment, food that digests easily.

Till a few years ago, doctors, as well as ordinary people, had a great many funny notions about the stomach; about how food was digested, and about what became of it after it was digested.
No one knew any better; no one had studied right. Not until some eminent men gave the subject their special attention, did we get any real knowledge.

Most people (and many doctors) still think that everything you take into your mouth is digested in your stomach. This is wrong.

The only foods that are directly digested in the stomach are the albumens, and these, while important, are, if anything, the least important of the foods we digest.

To understand how to get fat, you must try to remember the following explanations:

All the foods we eat belong to one of the four following divisions:

1. The Starches;
2. The Fats;
3. The Albumens;
4. The Salts.

The salts undergo no digestion at all, so we will not speak of them further.

The starches and the fat of the body are sometimes called fuel foods, because they supply our energy, our motive power. We burn them up in our daily life as the engine burns coal. Our fat is our reserve fuel. The starches, well-digested, make us fat.

The albumens are used in our body for the repair of worn out tissue, of which a small portion goes to waste every day.

The starches, then, form the fuel for our engine, the albumens repair the wear of the machinery. With a good engine we need more fuel than repair material.

So unless you do hard labor, you need little albumen but always plenty of starch.

Thin people often have better appetites than fat people, may even eat more; but still they don’t get fat. What is the reason?

The reason is generally bad digestion. Indigestion has of late years been proved to be the cause of a great proportion of all our diseases.

Indigestion can be cured without drugs, by eating proper food properly. Curing indigestion means getting normal fat.

You probably know what foods contain starch. If you want to get fat, these are the foods to eat.

If you want to know which of these to eat, consult your palate. Do you like it? Does it agree with you?

If not, don’t eat it.

The old idea was, that to get fat you must eat fat. Fat meat, fat oils, cod liver oil. This is wrong.

Starchy foods will make you fatter than oily foods. You could live without oily foods altogether, if you wished.

Starchy foods are generally more easily digested than oily foods, hence are better for people who wish to get fat. If people are too fat they should not eat starchy foods. All doctors admit this.

Paskola is a starchy food. Its use will enable you to get fat, when all the starch and fat foods you eat do not help you. The reason for this is that it is already digested before you take it.

Paskola saves your digestive organs from having to work. When it reaches the intestines it is absorbed at once.

We said that getting fat consisted in eating proper food, food that would digest easily. Paskola is that food.

For a thin person, the certainty of getting fat depends almost entirely upon Paskola.

Most people eat enough in their daily meals to become fat, but the fattening food is not digested. It merely passes through the system. Thin people can see why it is they need a food that is already digested.

The old doctors told their patients, if they suffered from dyspepsia, that drugs would cure them; that drugs would help them to get fat.

Even now many of them recommend pepsin and cod liver oil.

Pepsin won’t digest starches or fats. It only digests albumen (lean meat, white of eggs, cheese, etc.).

Albumens are not fattening. If they don’t agree with you, don’t eat too much of them. Then you won’t need pepsin.

Modern science has discovered that starchy food is the food for thin people. Paskola is the outcome of the most modern discoveries of modern science. It is the best starch food. It is composed of the finest and most nourishing flours, artificially digested.

Paskola is pleasant to the taste. No cooking or other preparation is necessary. It contain no drugs or medicine. It has simply been digested by being treated with the substances which, in a healthy man, are used by nature to digest starch foods.

Paskola is nothing but natural food.

Consumption is wasting away and losing flesh. It is but one of the many diseases we suffer from, caused by bad digestion.

Bad digestion can be cured, the consumptive can gain flesh and strength, and this will help the doctor to cure the disease.

The way to do it is for the consumptive to take Paskola. Paskola will make anyone fat; even a consumptive.

Fatness, happiness and health. They all go together. How seldom do we see a fat unhappy person!

On the other hand the unhappy thin people; the dyspeptic, the consumptive, the nervous invalid. Why can they not all be fat? They would look so different. They would feel so different.

They could be fat if they tried. They could even be well if they tried.

The way to get well would be to get fat; the, way to get fat would be to take Paskola.

Paskola is for sale by all reputable druggists.

Paskola will be found far more effective in cases of consumption than any of the malt preparations or the cod liver oil emulsions. The eating of fats and oils does not make
people fleshy.

The following interesting letter is from a highly educated
and observing lady and is worthy of a careful reading.

To the Pre-Digested Food Co., New York.

Dear Sirs: – I commenced taking Paskola three months ago. I have gained thirty-five pounds. When I commenced taking it I weighed 98 lbs. The first week I fancied I had gained one pound, but I could not feel certain because a change in my dress; but after the first week there could be no doubt. The gain has been steady and constant. With this gain in flesh there has come a decided improvement in my general health. I had been running down for five or six years, gradually growing weaker and thinner, month by month, until I was reduced to a mere skeleton weighing, as I said before, only 98 pounds. I had had a good appetite until within a year, when it failed, but, since taking the Paskola, my appetite has returned and I eat with a good relish and my food seems to do me good. During the last year of my illness I had a bad cough with some expectoration, but that has disappeared and I do not now have that “shortness of breath.” Indeed I feel as if there was something in life worth living for. It was generally supposed that I was dying of consumption, but it is evident that the doctors were mistaken in this respect. I think I may say that I consider myself perfectly well in every respect. I am still taking the Food, but I discontinued the Tablets after the first month as my bowels had become regular. Do you think it advisable to continue the Food much longer? It is not disagreeable for me to take it; on the contrary, I rather like it; but I do not want to incur the expense if not absolutely necessary.

Very truly yours.
HARRIET SAYLES,
123 West 28th Street.

                                                                                                                                     

(From the New York Times, May 9, 1894:)

SCIENCE HAS DONE IT!

How Food Is Artificially Digested Before Being Eaten

A Wonderful Process – It Is Revolutionizing Modern Living and
Certain to Advance the Condition of the Nation

But a short time ago some eminent scientists made a great discovery. They discovered that fats and oils didn't fatten thin people. Everything seems simple after some one else has found it out. If we had thought, we would have remembered that for ages doctors have forbidden starch foods to people who wanted to get thin. It follows they ought to recommend starch foods to people who want to get fat. Nobody knows why they didn't do so, nobody knows why they don't all do so now. But they are learning. More are recommending it every day. They are beginning to believe in Paskola, because Paskola is a starch food.

It has long been known that starch food is the most natural food for man Of the four chief chemical divisions of human food, viz., starches, fats, albumens and salts, starch is the most important, fats the least important.

If we had only starch we could do without fatty food. We would die if we tried to do without starch foods.

Many people are dying to-day because their digestive organs cannot digest starch food. They eat plenty of starch, but they can't digest it. They keep thin. They keep getting thinner. There is but one hope for them: Paskola.

One reason that Paskola will help then is because it is a pure starch food.

Another reason is because it is a pre-digested food.

Nothing but starch food will ever make you fat, strong and hearty. Meat or albuminous food  merely repairs waste tissues. But even if it were pre-digested, it would not make you fat.

Fat food cannot be pre-digested, but even if it could, it would not make you fat.

Paskola is only a pure starch predigested food combined with natural vegetable ferments which aid the digestion of other food.

Paskola is the only starch fond which will make a confirmed thin person fat. Paskola creates an appetite for other foods and helps your stomach to digest them. It also tones up and gives strength to the feeble stomach.

The old, old notion about fats and oil and fatty foods making a person fat is fast fading away. The most eminent scientists and medical men have long since ceased to believe in it. The rank and file of the profession are fast following their example.

Even if fatty food could make people strong and fat, all the good it would do would be to well people, for it is only well people's stomachs that can stand it. Well people don't need food that will make them fat. They are generally fat already. If they weren't fat, they wouldn't be well.

It is just thin people who need food that will make them fat whose stomachs can't stand fatty food. We can't fight Nature. Thin sick people have a very general and decided aversion to fats and oils. That ought to be sufficient proof to us that fat is not what they need to make them well.

Even the thinnest and sickest people like Paskola.

They like other starch food, too. They probably eat a good deal of starch food. Nature allows them to do so. They have no decided aversion to it. This is proof that starch food is a good food.

The reason that the food thin people eat does not make them fat is simply that they do not digest it. They are sick, and that is the sickness they suffer from. Most dyspeptics cannot even retain starch food on their stomachs. It ferments and forms a noxious gas. They are in the unhappy state of needing starch food so badly that they are slowly dying for the want of it, and yet they cannot digest it. The most delicate stomach can retain Paskola.

The great difference between ordinary good starch food and Paskola is that Paskola is pre-digested. Paskola would make you fat if you hadn't a stomach. With a stomach, no matter how sick it may be, Paskola makes you fat all the quicker. Paskola is superseding Cod Liver Oil, because it is pleasant to the taste and is far more effective in its operation.

A pamphlet giving full particulars respecting Paskola will be sent on application to the Pre-Digested Food Co., 30 Reade St., N. Y. City.