Diet
Diet names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below. 1 of them is described by more than one encyclopedia.
Diet a national assembly
Described by 2 of the 6 encyclopedias.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a national assembly. The word is considered a derivation of the Latin dies, a day, having reference to a legislative assembly called to meet on a fixed day. Diet, therefore, is a general term like congress, parliament, convention, legislature. The most noted diet was the great council of lords called by the emperor of Germany. The various sessions were known by the city in which they were held. The Diets of Worms were held in 1495 and 1521. The latter diet was the one, it may be remembered, before which Luther was summoned. The Diet of Augsburg met in 1530. The imperial diets consisted originally of nobles, but, during the fourteenth century, representatives of the free cities were admitted. The diets named above sat in three colleges: (1) the electoral princes; (2) the princes, temporal and spiritual; and (3) representatives from the imperial cities. The colleges deliberated separately. An agreement of all three was necessary before a measure might be presented to the emperor for his approval. The term is now little used. The diet of Switzerland, established in 1803 by Napoleon was superseded in 1848 by the Federal Assembly, consisting of two houses, the Council of the States and the National Council. The Diet of Denmark, consisting of two houses, the Landsthing, or upper house, and the Folkething, or lower house, is known more frequently as the Rigsdag. The Diet of Sweden consisted formerly of four chambers or estates,-nobles, clergy, citizens, and peasants. In 1866 this diet was replaced by a modern parliament, still known, however, as the Diet. The Diet of Norway is known as the Storthing. The Diet of the modern German Empire consists of the Bundesrath and the Reichstag. There is no word to include both houses.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a meeting or assembly of delegates or dignitaries convened and held from day to day for legislative, ecclesiastical, political, or administrative purposes; specifically, the legislative assemblies of the former German Empire, provincial assemblies of Austria-Hungary, the Cantons of Switzerland, etc. The Diet of the German Empire was composed of three colleges: one of electors, one of princes, and one of imperial towns, and began with the edict of Charles IV. in 1356. The best known meetings were those at Nuremberg, 1467, Worms, 1521 (at which Luther was excommunicated), Spires, 1529, and Augsburg, 1530.
Diet a course of eating and drinking
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a course of eating and drinking, especially when followed with reference to hygienic effect. The ideal diet is that which, without burdening the viscera uselessly, furnishes all neces sary nutritive elements, with due consideration for special physiological con. ditions in any given case. No single substance contains all the elements, in their requisite proportions, needed to replace the waste of nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous matter in the daily functions of life, and a mixed diet is therefore necessary. The nature of the food most suitable for a healthy man is dependent in part on general conditions, such as climate and season, and in part upon special conditions of individual habit. The inhabitants of the Arctic regions need large quantities of oleaginous food; those of the tropics live chiefly on starchy products. With increased activity and exertion, as in training, an increase in the nitrogenous foods becomes necessary. In a state of health the quantity rather than the quality of food is the main consideration. Stewed and boiled meats are more difficult to digest than meat cooked by fire alone. The flesh of young animals seems to be more difficult of digestion than that of old; and the flesh of tame than that of wild animals. All sorts of fat meat must be taken in smaller quantities. Hence, also, ham, bacon, and salted meats cannot be eaten in such quantities as the tender flesh of poultry. Fish has the advantage of being easily soluble. All boiled vegetables are in general easy of digestion; raw vegetables and salads are more difficult. Fruit should be taken in the forenoon rather than after a hearty meal. In all diseases attended with fever the stomach loathes animal food, and there is generally an increase of thirst, to quench which cool water, or tepid, or rendered acid, may be freely indulged. Infusions, too, of barley, sage, balm, etc., may be taken. In chronic diseases attended with hectic fever, milk is the proper diet. The best food for infants is, of course, their mother's milk; but when they begin to cut teeth a little animal food, such as soft-boiled eggs, or chicken minced very fine, may be given.
Diet . See Food ; Adulteration
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
. See Food ; Adulteration
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's said in 1910 that the political sense of "diet" was "now little used," and it has faded further: the German Reichstag it described gave way to the Bundestag in 1949, Denmark abolished its upper house, the Landsting, in 1953, and Sweden's Riksdag became a single chamber in 1971 — while Japan, unmentioned here, still calls its parliament the National Diet under the 1947 constitution. On the dietary side, Collier's 1921 account divides food only into "nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous" matter and never mentions vitamins, though the word had been coined in 1912; the isolation and synthesis of vitamins A through K over the following decades, and later work on minerals, fibre and essential fatty acids, transformed the subject. Its ranking of foods by digestibility — wild flesh easier than tame, fruit better before noon than after a meal — is folklore that modern physiology does not support, and the advice to give teething infants minced chicken or soft-boiled eggs runs against current guidance on when and how solids are introduced. The one line that has worn well is that no single substance supplies everything the body needs, so a mixed diet is necessary.
Written for this edition, 2026.