AMONG the great temptations which, like the fabulous Sirens of old, try the self-mastery of the individual, we find honey - the chief representative of the "sweetness of the earth." The persuasiveness of this, at once natural and manufactured product, has its basis in the duality of its nature: a sedative sweet, and a penetrating acid - a combination that accounts for its intense cellular impressiveness, and its power to give rise to reactions in the associated nerve-centers, in terms of taste-experiences that amount to veritable gustatory ecstasy.

Honey is the extract from what is called "nectar" - a physiological waste product, which, according to Charles Darwin, is thrown off from the sap and pollen of the flowers, at the end of their fructification process. Chemically analyzed, honey is found to be a very complex substance containing dextro-glucose, laevo-glucose, cane-sugar, mucilage, wax, essential oils, coloring bodies, mineral matters, pollen, manite acid and water.

It is the presence of this manite acid in the honey that demands caution in its use, as it has been physiologically demonstrated that this acid, when brought in touch with nitrogenous substances is found to precipitate the latter into states of alcohol, ammonia and carbonic acid gas - elements which when set free in the system mean nervous intoxication and systemic poisoning. This action of honey upon nitrogen has early been observed, and from time immemorial made to serve certain purposes by different races and types of men. So for instance the old Norse people, by soaking malted grain in solutions of honey brought out a brew called "mjod" - an alcoholic beverage which when indulged in too freely, was capable of producing a profound and lasting intoxication. And as "mjod" is a derivative from the Sanskrit "mead" - a word of corresponding meaning - it is evident that even in Old India, honey was recognized and utilized for its stimulating and intoxicating characteristics. In our own days its power of fermentation is utilized in Abyssinia, Russia, Poland, the Balkan states and Austria, where it continues to form the basis of very intoxicating beverages.

The fact, however, must be recognized that honey receives its more distinct toxic qualities from the nature of the flowers used in its production. In East Nepaul where the fields are covered with Rhododendron the bees turn out a honey which is not only intoxicating but throws the indulgent into a state of stupor resembling the effect of opium. In Brazil the honey drawn from the plant Lechaguano - a red-colored honey - may, if used habitually, produce hallucinations and delirium. In North America the Mountain Laurel has been demonstrated to contain a honey-yielding nectar - a positive toxic element - which may seriously disturb the nervous equlibrium of the consumer.

The old Greek geographer and scribe Herodotus, who lived and wrote in the 4th century before Christ, mentions incidentally that honey, on account of the preservative principie contained in its acid, was used in Egypt as an essential ingredient in the embalming of their dead.

From this it naturally follows that honey should be enjoyed with care and moderation, and always with a view to its medicinal value. The ancients were well aware of the medical properties of honey. Thus in the Materia Medica of the old Greeks, the Romans and the Saxons, honey held a very important place, especially in afflictions of the throat and chest, and in this respect it has by no means outlived its value and usefulness. For being a vigorous stimulant, honey promotes expectoration, and aids nature in breaking up the physiological fungoids, which in catarrhal afflictions cover the mucous lining of the respiratory tract. Its employment is indicated in hoarseness, colds and congestions of the bronchia and lungs. But its dosages, to avoid fermentation, should be taken on an empty stomach and judiciously diluted with hot water, or weak tea or coffee.

Used in connection with starchy or nitrogenous food, honey will give rise to gastric disturbances, - directly or indirectly. Its saccharine element starts processes of fermentation in the starchy part of our foodstuff, while its manite acid breaks up the nitrogenous compounds. The gas, which is always present in weak stomachs after mixtures of honey with meals, is an unmistakable indicator of the presence either of fermentation or decomposition, according to the predominating starchy or nitrogenous character of the food. And it may be stated right here, that the laxative virtue accredited to honey, has its main basis in this very fermentation, as the system, by its constitutional instinct of self-preservation, is compelled to eliminate, through the bowels, the toxins and ptomaines generated by the mixture of honey with food.

It is a common popular belief that honey is a legitimate sweet, and can be used with dietetic safety where other kinds of sugar are regarded as dangerous. Nothing is more delusive. The presence of manite acid in the honey, renders its combination with foodstuffs even more injurious than ordinary cane sugar. For while it may be physiologically legitimate to sweeten incompletely ripened fruit with a complimentary of free sugar, and thus assist a process of ripening, which nature, on account of too little sunshine, warmth and other necessary environments, failed to complete; yet, however, if in this sweetening, other ingrediences than chemically pure sugar are added to the fruit, the latter will change its entire nature in consequence of the complexity of the ensuing chemical reactions. And as honey is a highly complex compound, its combination with fruit means the chemical engagement and eventual precipitation of every element subject to the several affinities.

It is the acidulation of the saccharine matter of the honey which gives rise to its intense sweetness, and at the same time accounts for its great stimulating and invigorating power. But as stimulation has its basis in cellular combustion, and the latter means a wholesale destruction of oxygen, it follows, that unless atmospheric oxygen is in abundance, the indulgence in honey as a daily food - even if the stomach proves strong enough to stand the acid test - must gradually lead to general cellular and nervous breakdown.

And as the liver and kidneys are the stokers, so to speak, of the human body-furnace, on whom it devolves to remove the physiological clinkers, the uric acid and other half-burned material, etc., from the circulation - it follows that it is on these vital functionaries the greater burden of isolating and removing the nutritional excess is placed. In this connection it is significant to observe that the bees prefer the mountainous countries, with an oxygen-laden air, for their field of activity. It is also noticeable that wherever we read of people enjoying honey as a means of nourishment, we always find them to be dwellers of highlands and mountains. Hence, it is readily seen that a food, which may be tolerated and endured by persons mostly engaged in outdoor physical activity - as farming or stock raising - if indulged in by people living in a crowded, oxygen-impoverished city, must mean a serious strain and gradual weakening of their entire metabolism.

In spite of these facts we find individuals living in crowded cities, engaged in indoors work, indulging with seeming immunity in the most concentrated forms of natural and unnatural diet. The immunity, however, as has already been referred to, is a mere sham battle, and simply indicates the powerful resistance of an originally well fortified constitution, equipped with splendid functional resources, which may defy half a lifetime of severe vital stringency before the final grand physiological smash occurs. For immunity to nutritional excess, with its inevitable chemical poisoning - means the emergency call for constitutional reserve forces demanded by the system, in order to subdue a life-threatening attack from external or internal foes - the cancelling of unconstitutional expenditures, so to speak, by a reckless checking out of the very principal of the investment. Every time the system overcomes the natural consequences of an unnatural indulgence, be it smoking, drinking, eating or any form of direct or indirect physiological poisoning - means a foreshortening of the life perspective; the fortification of one vital center by the corresponding weakening of others; the conscription and sacrifice of national energies for the smothering of a local insurrection. The only immunity which has not to be paid back in terms of compound vital interest is that immunity which has its focus and motive in an increase of personal service and usefulness. Vitality has its only safe and enduring compliment in morality; and when in our relation to food we allow ourselves to be gauged, not by palate-tempting, unnatural food mixtures for the mere sake of indulgence, but by an ardent desire to add to our stock of health and worthy citizenship, we shall sooner or later evolve that natural health-instinct which like the ancient Greeks and Romans required no hair-trigger-balanced, common-sense-bewildering standards of physiologically incompatible calories, to make perfect, full-orbed physical and moral manhood, the common heritage of men.

To make honey a safe part of diet, it should be enjoyed only with well toasted rye bread, unsalted butter, nuts or eggs, lettuce and olive oil - and only then twice a week. No milk, meat or fruit in connection with honey.