JF Ptak Science Books LLC Post 146
Here’s a pair of somewhat-suspect publications, written by Bernarr Macfaddon, which taken separately would seem perfectly fine according to their times, but together, well, they just won’t “do”. The problem is that not only is their exterior and interior design identical, and that they were both printed in 1936, and that they both had 48 pages, but they both used the same photographic illustrations preaching and instructing opposite results. (Both pamphlets were published in NYC, and were received by the
Library of Congress Copyright Deposit section on 22 May 1936, and were
given copyright deposit control numbers of 205,406 and 205,407,
respectively, or irrespectively, as the case might be.) They are not the same book, exactly, but reading them side by side for about 15 minutes makes me think that one book is the anti-book of the other. It might not make for good thinking, but it does make for fast writing.
I’d include a category here for books-and-their-exact-opposites, but I’m not sure how many more entries like this stunner that there can be.
Each is entertaining in unintended ways, and have a number of blatantly hidden gems: for example, in the GAIN book, we are faced with a subject heading of BATHING AND UNDERWEIGHT, and are told that “another cause of underweight not infrequently met with…is the injudicious use of water in bathing”. Within 200 words of each other we are also told that “eyestrain taxes the energy” and causes underweight, as does “sexual over-indulgence” because of “over stimulation of certain of the glands of internal secretion”. Part of the author’s recommendations for weight-gaining foods as part of his program include bananas, white bread, butter, cornstarch pudding, cream, egg yolks, hominy, white macaroni, whole milk, oatmeal, pop corn, white potatoes, prunes, white rice, white corn, and tapioca custard. Basically, if its white, its right.
On the “Surplus Flesh Can Be Reduced” side of the Reducing Book’s anti-book we find that although fat is “an enemy of beauty” and “causes more friction as you pass through life”, it can also give back, as it also may “develop keener mentalities due to physical inactivity”. (Does that mean that skinnier people are less intelligent?) The author contradicts himself almost immediately, saying that ”the mind tends to become as sluggish as his body, and often he cannot defend himself mentally…he is slow in his mind as in body”. This all seems to be because the brain is “more or less” overwhelmed by “an excess of food elements” coursing their ways through the body. Macfaddon’s sub-chapter heading on page 7 screams “FAT PERSONS TO BLAME FOR OBESITY and then, on page 10, and even more National Inquirish FAT CANNOT EVAPORATE THROUGH THE SKIN. There’s much more, but since there’s a time limit on dealing with these sorts of nonsensical nostrums, we’ll stop right here.
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