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	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

To the Editor: Excerpts from an English manual of home medicine in 1892.¹ Plus ça change?

A moderate amount of fat is one of the signs of health . . . in excess (it) becomes not only burdensome and unsightly, but a real and serious evil. . . . It is said that hereditary tendency exercises a marked influence in the production of corpulence, and . . . race, again, is an important element in the question: the Americans are remarkable for their thinness, and the Arabs are almost destitute of fat; whilst on the other hand Europeans, and more especially the English and Dutch, are proverbial for the fullness of their figures.

Mr Banting's widely read "Letter on Corpulence" . . . tells us that for years he struggled in vain against constantly augmenting fatness [Banting is described as being aged 66 years, about 5'5" and 202 lb in . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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