Genre:

Miscellaneous, Serial

Subjects:

Ethnography, Libraries, Reading, Health, Nutrition

    Reports that the 'library of the Indian rajahs [...] would require a hundred camels to remove'. Continues: 'A rajah, a friend of learning, requested a scientific man to select the substance of every book, and to compile a more portable library: he accordingly made extracts, forming not more than ten camels' loads. Another King thinking it still too voluminous, commissioned a Bramin to make further abridgements, and he reduced the whole library to four maxims'. Lists the four maxims, the third of which is: 'The only means of preserving health, that most precious blessing, is to eat when the appetite requires, and to give over before it is completely satisfied'. (327)