correct one.  I am naturally most anxious to regain some of my lost strength and weight.  I am at present taking bread and butter, cooked fruit, and occasionally an egg, boiled rice, vegetables and a little dried fruit.  No matter how light I make my diet I still suffer after every meal with dilated stomach and irregular working of the heart.  Blood circulation is still bad and constipation is gradually getting worse.  As before stated, I am anxious to succeed with the reformed diet, but I am really at a loss to know which way to proceed to make any progress.  As I was in South Africa twenty years, and only returned to England just before this catarrh set in, is the climate here against my progress, do you think?  I am so sorry to take up so much of your time, but shall be grateful for any help you can give me which will be greatly appreciated.

It is difficult to advise how best to proceed in this case as our correspondent really ought to seek medical advice.  Only in this way can he obtain really satisfactory guidance.  For without knowing the state of his blood and the organs generally it is impossible to advise correctly.  Speaking generally, until salads and casserole-cooked vegetables can be taken freely there can be no possible permanent cure.

In many such cases the best way to train the digestive organs into a healthy state is to keep to a diet consisting chiefly of dextrinised cereals, which must be eaten dry, with some vegetables and as little fresh fruit as possible.  This to be continued until little by little the raw salad vegetables are found to agree; then the rest is easy.

 A diet on the following lines would probably be a good temporary
 measure:—­

 Breakfast.—­One egg lightly boiled, poached or baked, with two
 Granose biscuits and fresh butter, eaten dry.

 Dinner.—­Brusson Jeune bread (one or two rolls) with butter, and
 small helping of vegetables, cooked at first in the orthodox way.

 Supper.—­Plateful of boiled rice (cooked dry in the Indian
 fashion[4]) with a tablespoonful of good malt extract.

No sugar, honey, stewed fruit, or dried fruit should be taken until improvement has set in.  As little fluid as possible should be taken until the stomach has regained more tone and become more normal in size.

 [4] See The Healthy Life Cook Book. 1s. net (post free, 1s. 11/2d.).

 SEVERE DIGESTIVE CATARRH.

Miss S.L.P. writes:—­I should like a little help as to diet.  I have just had an attack of epidemic influenza with throat trouble, so that I feel very much run down and unfit for a diet too depleting in character.  For over four years I have adopted a non-flesh diet on account of a tendency to chronic catarrh of the whole alimentary tract, due to rheumatic tendencies which affect me internally rather than externally.