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Title: The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition

Author: A. W. Duncan

Release date: March 2, 2005 [eBook #15237]
Most recently updated: December 14, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHEMISTRY
OF FOOD AND NUTRITION ***

E-text prepared by Feòrag NicBhrìde, Richard Prairie,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

The Chemistry Of Food and
Nutrition
BY

A. W. DUNCAN, F.C.S.
ANALYTICAL CHEMIST.

MANCHESTER THE VEGETARIAN SOCIETY

1905

PREFACE.

The first edition of 1884 contained but 5 pages of type; the second of 1898, 14
pages. Only by conciseness has it been possible to give even a summary of the
principles of dietetics within the limit or this pamphlet. Should there appear in
places an abruptness or incompleteness of treatment, these limitations must be
my excuse.

Those who wish to thoroughly study the science of food are referred to the
standard work, "Food and Dietetics," by Dr. R. Hutchison (E. Arnold, 16s.).
The effects of purin bodies in producing illness has been patiently and
thoroughly worked out by Dr. Alexander Haig. Students are referred to his
"Uric Acid, an epitome of the subject" (J. & A. Churchhill, 1904, 2s.6d.), or to
his larger work on "Uric Acid." An able scientific summary of investigations
on purins, their chemical and pathological properties, and the quantities in
foods will be found in "The Purin Bodies of Food Stuffs," by Dr. I. Walker
Hall (Sherratt & Hughes, Manchester, 1903, 4s.6d.). The U.S. Department of
Agriculture has made a large number of elaborate researches on food and
nutrition. My thanks are due to Mr. Albert Broadbent, the Secretary of the
Vegetarian Society, for placing some of their bulletins in my hands, and for
suggestions and help. He has also written several useful popular booklets on
food of a very practical character, at from a penny to threepence each.

Popular literature abounds in unsound statements on food. It is unfortunate that
many ardent workers in the cause of health are lacking in scientific knowledge,
especially of physiology and chemistry. By their immature and sweeping
statements from the platform and press, they often bring discredit on a good
cause. Matters of health must be primarily based on experience and we must
bear in mind that each person can at the most have full knowledge of himself
alone, and to a less degree of his family and intimates. The general rules of
health are applicable to all alike, but not in their details. Owing to individual
imperfections of constitution, difference of temperament and environment,
there is danger when one man attempts to measure others by his own standard.

For the opinions here expressed I only must be held responsible, and not the
Society publishing the pamphlet.

Vegetarians, generally, place the humane as the highest reason for their
practice, though the determining cause of the change from a flesh diet has been
in most cases bad health.

A vegetarian may be defined as one who abstains from all animals as food. The
term animal is used in its proper scientific sense (comprising insects, molluscs,
crustaceans, fish, etc.). Animal products are not excluded, though they are not
considered really necessary. They are looked upon as a great convenience,
whilst free from nearly all the objections appertaining to flesh food.

A.W.D.

The Chemistry of Food and Nutrition
By A.W. Duncan, F.C.S.

We may define a food to be any substance which will repair the functional
waste of the body, increase its growth, or maintain the heat, muscular, and
nervous energy. In its most comprehensive sense, the oxygen of the air is a
food; as although it is admitted by the lungs, it passes into the blood, and there
re-acts upon the other food which has passed through the stomach. It is usual,
however, to restrict the term food to such nutriment as enters the body by the
intestinal canal. Water is often spoken of as being distinct from food, but for
this there is no sufficient reason.

Many popular writers have divided foods into flesh-formers, heat-givers, and
bone-formers. Although attractive from its simplicity, this classification will
not bear criticism. Flesh-formers are also heat-givers. Only a portion of the
mineral matter goes to form bone.

Class I.—Inorganic Compounds.
Sub-class 1. Water. 2. Mineral Matter or Salts.

Class II—Organic Compounds.
1. Non-Nitrogeneous or Ternary Compounds. a Carbohydrates.
b Oils. c Organic Acids.
2. Nitrogenous Compounds. a Proteids. b Osseids.

Class III.—Non-Nutritives, Food Adjuncts and Drugs.
Essential Oils, Alkaloids, Extractives, Alcohol, &c.

These last are not strictly foods, if we keep to the definition already given; but
they are consumed with the true foods or nutrients, comprised in the other two
classes, and cannot well be excluded from consideration.

Water forms an essential part of all the tissues of the body. It is the solvent and
carrier of other substances.

Mineral Matter or Salts, is left as an ash when food is thoroughly burnt. The
most important salts are calcium phosphate, carbonate and fluoride, sodium
chloride, potassium phosphate and chloride, and compounds of magnesium,
iron and silicon.

Mineral matter is quite as necessary for plant as for animal life, and is
therefore present in all food, except in the case of some highly-prepared ones,
such as sugar, starch and oil. Children require a good proportion of calcium
phosphate for the growth of their bones, whilst adults require less. The outer
part of the grain of cereals is the richest in mineral constituents, white flour
and rice are deficient. Wheatmeal and oatmeal are especially recommended for
the quantity of phosphates and other salts contained in them. Mineral matter is
necessary not only for the bones but for every tissue of the body.

When haricots are cooked, the liquid is often thrown away, and the beans
served nearly dry, or with parsley or other sauce. Not only is the food less tasty
but important saline constituents are lost. The author has made the following
experiments:—German whole lentils, Egyptian split red lentils and medium
haricot beans were soaked all night (16 hours) in just sufficient cold water to
keep them covered. The water was poured off and evaporated, the residue
heated in the steam-oven to perfect dryness and weighed. After pouring off the
water, the haricots were boiled in more water until thoroughly cooked, the
liquid being kept as low as possible. The liquid was poured off as clear as
possible, from the haricots, evaporated and dried. The ash was taken in each
case, and the alkalinity of the water-soluble ash was calculated as potash
(K2O). The quantity of water which could be poured off was with the German
lentils, half as much more than the original weight of the pulse; not quite as
much could be poured off the others.

G. Lentils. E. Lentils. Haricots. Cooked H.
Proportion of liquid 1.5 1.25 1.20 —
Soluble dry matter 0.97 3.38 1.43 7.66 per cent.
Ash 0.16 0.40 0.28 1.26 " "
Alkalinity as K2O 0.02 0.082 0.084 0.21 " "

The loss on soaking in cold water, unless the water is preserved, is seen to be
considerable. The split lentils, having had the protecting skin removed, lose
most. In every case the ash contained a good deal of phosphate and lime.

Potatoes are rich in important potash salts; by boiling a large quantity is lost,
by steaming less and by baking in the skins, scarcely any. The flavour is also
much better after baking.

The usual addition of common salt (sodium-chloride) to boiled potatoes is no
proper substitute for the loss of their natural saline constituents. Natural and
properly cooked foods are so rich in sodium chloride and other salts that the
addition of common salt is unnecessary. An excess of the latter excites thirst
and spoils the natural flavour of the food. It is the custom, especially in
restaurants, to add a large quantity of salt to pulse, savoury food, potatoes and
soups. Bakers' brown bread is usually very salt, and sometimes white is also.
In some persons much salt causes irritation of the skin, and the writer has
knowledge of the salt food of vegetarian restaurants causing or increasing
dandruff. As a rule, fondness for salt is an acquired taste, and after its
discontinuance for a time, food thus flavoured becomes unpalatable.

Organic Compounds are formed by living organisms (a few can also be
produced by chemical means). They are entirely decomposed by combustion.

The Non-Nitrogenous Organic Compounds are commonly called carbon
compounds or heat-producers, but these terms are also descriptive of the
nitrogenous compounds. These contain carbon, hydrogen and oxygen only, and
furnish by their oxidation or combustion in the body the necessary heat,
muscular and nervous energy. The final product of their combustion is water
and carbon dioxide (carbonic acid gas).

The Carbohydrates comprise starch, sugar, gum, mucilage, pectose,
glycogen, &c.; cellulose and woody fibre are carbohydrates, but are little
capable of digestion. They contain hydrogen and oxygen in the proportion to
form water, the carbon alone being available to produce heat by combustion.
Starch is the most widely distributed food. It is insoluble in water, but when
cooked is readily digested and absorbed by the body. Starch is readily
converted into sugar, whether in plants or animals, during digestion. There are
many kinds of sugar, such as grape, cane and milk sugars.

The Oils and Fats consist of the same elements as the carbohydrates, but the
hydrogen is in larger quantity than is necessary to form water, and this surplus
is available for the production of energy. During their combustion in the body
they produce nearly two-and-a-quarter times (4 : 8.9 = 2.225) as much heat as

the carbohydrates; but if eaten in more than small quantities, they are not
easily digested, a portion passing away by the intestines. The fat in the body is
not solely dependent upon the quantity consumed as food, as an animal may
become quite fat on food containing none. A moderate quantity favours
digestion and the bodily health. In cold weather more should be taken. In the
Arctic regions the Esquimaux consume enormous quantities. Nuts are
generally rich in oil. Oatmeal contains more than any of the other cereals (27
analyses gave from 8 to 12.3 per cent.)

The most esteemed and dearest oil is Almond. What is called Peach-kernel oil
(Oleum Amygdalæ Persicæ), but which in commerce includes the oil obtained
from plum and apricot stones, is almost as tasteless and useful, whilst it is
considerably cheaper. It is a very agreeable and useful food. It is often added
to, as an adulterant, or substituted for the true Almond oil. The best qualities of
Olive oil are much esteemed, though they are not as agreeable to English taste
as the oil previously mentioned. The best qualities are termed Virgin, Extra
Sublime and Sublime. Any that has been exposed for more than a short time to
the light and heat of a shop window should be rejected, as the flavour is
affected. It should be kept in a cool place. Not only does it vary much in
freedom from acid and rancidity, but is frequently adulterated. Two other
cheaper oils deserve mention. The "cold-drawn" Arachis oil (pea-nut or earth-
nut oil) has a pleasant flavour, resembling that of kidney beans. The "cold-
drawn" Sesamé oil has an agreeable taste, and is considered equal to Olive oil
for edible purposes. The best qualities are rather difficult to obtain; those
usually sold being much inferior to Peach-kernel and Olive oils. Cotton-seed
oil is the cheapest of the edible ones. Salad oil, not sold under any descriptive
name, is usually refined Cotton-seed oil, with perhaps a little Olive oil to
impart a richer flavour.

The solid fats sold as butter and lard substitutes, consist of deodorised
cocoanut oil, and they are excellent for cooking purposes. It is claimed that
biscuits, &c., made from them may be kept for a much longer period, without
showing any trace of rancidity, than if butter or lard had been used. They are
also to be had agreeably flavoured by admixture with almond, walnut, &c.,
"cream."

The better quality oils are quite as wholesome as the best fresh butter, and
better than most butter as sold. Bread can be dipped into the oil, or a little solid
vegetable fat spread on it. The author prefers to pour a little Peach-kernel oil

upon some ground walnut kernels (or other ground nuts in themselves rich in
oil), mix with a knife to a suitable consistency and spread upon the bread.
Pine-kernels are very oily, and can be used in pastry in the place of butter or
lard.

Whenever oils are mentioned, without a prefix, the fixed or fatty oils are
always understood. The volatile or essential oils are a distinct class.
Occasionally, the fixed oils are called hydrocarbons, but hydrocarbon oils are
quite different and consist of carbon and hydrogen alone. Of these, petroleum
is incapable of digestion, whilst others are poisonous.

Vegetable Acids are composed of the same three elements and undergo
combustion into the same compounds as the carbohydrates. They rouse the
appetite, stimulate digestion, and finally form carbonates in combination with
the alkalies, thus increasing the alkalinity of the blood. The chief vegetable
acids are: malic acid, in the apple, pear, cherry, &c.; citric acid, in the lemon,
lime, orange, gooseberry, cranberry, strawberry, raspberry, &c.; tartaric acid, in
the grape, pineapple, &c.

Some place these under Class III. or food adjuncts. Oxalic acid (except when
in the insoluble state of calcium oxalate), and several other acids are
poisonous.

Proteids or Albuminoids are frequently termed flesh-formers. They are
composed of nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and a small quantity of
sulphur, and are extremely complex bodies. Their chief function is to form
flesh in the body; but without previously forming it, they may be transformed
into fat or merely give rise to heat. They form the essential part of every living
cell.

Proteids are excreted from the body as water, carbon dioxide, urea, uric acid,
sulphates, &c.

The principal proteids of animal origin have their corresponding proteids in the
vegetable kingdom. Some kinds, whether of animal or vegetable origin, are
more easily digested than others. They have the same physiological value from
whichever kingdom they are derived.

The Osseids comprise ossein, gelatin, cartilage, &c., from bone, skin, and
connective issue. They approach the proteids in composition, but unlike them
they cannot form flesh or fulfil the same purpose in nutrition. Some food
chemists wish to call the osseids, albuminoids; what were formerly termed
albuminoids to be always spoken of as proteids only.

Jellies are of little use as food; not only is this because of the low nutritive
value of gelatin, but also on account of the small quantity which is mixed with
a large proportion of water.

The Vegetable Kingdom is the prime source of all organic food; water, and to
a slight extent salts, form the only food that animals can derive directly from
the inorganic kingdom. When man consumes animal food—a sheep for
example—he is only consuming a portion of the food which that sheep
obtained from grass, clover, turnips, &c. All the proteids of the flesh once
existed as proteids in the vegetables; some in exactly the same chemical form.

Flesh contains no starch or sugar, but a small quantity of glycogen. The fat in
an animal is derived from the carbohydrates, the fats and the proteids of the
vegetables consumed. The soil that produced the herbage, grain and roots
consumed by cattle, in most cases could have produced food capable of direct
utilisation by man. By passing the product of the soil through animals there is
an enormous economic loss, as the greater part of that food is dissipated in
maintaining the life and growth; little remains as flesh when the animal is
delivered into the hands of the butcher. Some imagine that flesh food is more
easily converted into flesh and blood in our bodies and is consequently more
valuable than similar constituents in vegetables, but such is not the case. Fat,
whether from flesh or from vegetables is digested in the same manner. The
proteids of flesh, like those of vegetables, are converted into peptone by the
digestive juices—taking the form of a perfectly diffusible liquid—otherwise
they could not be absorbed and utilised by the body. Thus the products of
digestion of both animal and vegetable proteids and fats are the same.
Formerly, proteid matter was looked upon as the most valuable part of the
food, and a large proportion was thought necessary for hard work. It was
thought to be required, not only for the construction of the muscle substance,
but to be utilised in proportion to muscular exertion. These views are now
known to be wrong. A comparatively small quantity of proteid matter, such as
is easily obtained from vegetable food, is ample for the general needs of the
body. Increased muscular exertion requires but a slight increase of this food

constituent. It is the carbohydrates, or carbohydrates and fats that should be
eaten in larger quantity, as these are the main source of muscular energy. The
fact that animals, capable of the most prolonged and powerful exertion, thrive
on vegetables of comparatively low proteid value, and that millions of the
strongest races have subsisted on what most Englishmen would consider a
meagre vegetarian diet, should have been sufficient evidence against the earlier
view.

A comparison of flesh and vegetable food, shows in flesh an excessive
quantity of proteid matter, a very small quantity of glycogen (the animal
equivalent of starch and sugar) and a variable quantity of fat. Vegetable food
differs much, but as a rule it contains a much smaller quantity of proteid
matter, a large proportion of starch and sugar and a small quantity of fat. Some
vegetable foods, particularly nuts, contain much fat.

Investigation of the digestive processes has shown that the carbohydrates and
fats entail little strain on the system; their ultimate products are water and
carbon dioxide, which are easily disposed of. The changes which the proteids
undergo in the body are very complicated. There is ample provision in the
body for their digestion, metabolism, and final rejection, when taken in
moderate quantity, as is the case in a dietary of vegetables. The proteids in the
human body, after fulfilling their purpose, are in part expelled in the same way
as the carbohydrates; but the principal part, including all the nitrogen, is
expelled by the kidneys in the form of urea (a very soluble substance), and a
small quantity of uric acid in the form of quadurates.

There is reciprocity between the teeth and digestive organs of animals and
their natural food. The grasses, leaves, &c., which are consumed by the
herbivora, contain a large proportion of cellulose and woody tissue.
Consequently, the food is bulky; it is but slowly disintegrated and the
nutritious matter liberated and digested. The cellulose appears but slightly
acted upon by the digestive juices. The herbivora possess capacious stomachs
and the intestines are very long. The carnivora have simpler digestive organs
and short intestines. Even they consume substances which leave much
indigestible residue, such as skin, ligaments and bones, but civilised man,
when living on a flesh dietary removes as much of such things as possible. The
monkeys, apes, and man (comprised in the order Primates have a digestive
canal intermediate in complexity and in length to the herbivora and carnivora.
A certain quantity of indigestible matter is necessary for exciting peristaltic

action of the bowels. The carnivora with their short intestinal canal need the
least, the frugivora more, and the herbivora a much larger quantity. The
consumption by man of what is commonly called concentrated food is the
cause of the constipation to which flesh-eating nations are subject. Most of the
pills and other nostrums which are used in enormous quantities contain aloes
or other drugs which stimulate the action of the intestines.

Highly manufactured foods, from which as much as possible of the non-
nutritious matter has been removed is often advocated, generally by those
interested in its sale. Such food would be advantageous only if it were possible
to remove or modify a great part of our digestive canal (we are omitting from
consideration certain diseased conditions, when such foods may be useful).
The eminent physiologist and bacteriologist, Elie Metchnikoff, has given it as
his opinion that much of man's digestive organs is not only useless but often
productive of derangement and disease. In several cases where it has been
necessary, in consequence of serious disease, to remove the entire stomach or a
large part of the intestines, the digestive functions have been perfectly
performed. It is not that our organs are at fault, but our habits of life differ
from that of our progenitors. In past times, when a simple dietary in which
flesh food formed little or no part, and to-day, in those countries where one
wholly or nearly all derived from vegetable sources and simply prepared is the
rule, diseases of the digestive organs are rare. The Englishman going to a
tropical country and partaking largely of flesh and alcohol, suffers from
disease of the liver and other organs, to which the natives and the few of his
own countrymen, living in accordance with natural laws are strangers.

Indigestible Matter—Food is never entirely digested. As a reason against
confining ourselves solely to vegetable food, it has been stated that such is less
perfectly digested than animal food and that it therefore throws more work on
the digestive organs. It is also urged that on this account a greater quantity of
vegetable food is required. We have shown elsewhere that, on the contrary,
vegetarians are satisfied with a smaller amount of food. Man requires a small
quantity of woody fibre or cellulose in his food to stimulate intestinal action
and prevent constipation.

It is difficult to determine how much of a food is unassimilated in the body.
This is for the reason of the intestinal refuse consisting not only of undigested
food, but also of residues of the digestive juices, mucus and epithelial debris.

These latter have been shown to amount to from one-third to one-half of the
whole of the fæces, which is much more than had previously been supposed.

John Goodfellow has shown that of very coarse wholemeal bread quite 14 per
cent. was undigested, whilst bread made from ordinary grade wholemeal
showed 12.5 per cent. Such a method of analysis was adopted as it was
believed would exclude other than the food waste. The experiments were made
on a person who was eating nothing but the bread. It seems probable that a
smaller proportion would have remained unassimilated had the bread not
formed the sole food. It is advisable that wheatmeal he ground as finely as
possible, the coarse is not only to a less extent assimilated but apt to irritate the
bowels. Notwithstanding that fine white bread gave only 4.2 per cent. and a
coarse white bread 4.9 per cent. of waste, a fine wheatmeal bread is more
economical as the same quantity of wheat produces a greater weight of flour
richer in proteid and mineral matter. From a large number of experiments with
man, it has been calculated that of proteids there is digested when animal food
is eaten 98 per cent., from cereals and sugars 8 per cent., from vegetables and
fruits 80 per cent. The difference between the proportions digested of the other
food constituents was much less. Although there is here a theoretical advantage
in favour of animal food, there are other considerations of far more importance
than a little undigestible waste. The main question is one of health. In some
dietary experiments of a girl aged 7, living upon a fruit diet, of whom we have
given some particulars elsewhere, Professor Jaffa gives the following
particulars. During the ten days trial the percentages absorbed were proteids
82.5, fat 86.9, nitrogen free extract 96, crude fibre 80, ash 5.7, heat of
combustion in calories 86.7. He says, "generally speaking, the food was quite
thoroughly assimilated, the coefficients of digestibility being about the same as
are found in an ordinary mixed diet. It is interesting to note that 80 per cent. of
the crude fibre appeared to be digested. The results of a number of foreign
experiments on the digestibility of crude fibre by man are from 30 to 91.4 per
cent., the former value being from mixed wheat and rye, and the latter in a diet
made of rice, vegetables and meat."

NOTES ON THE TABLE OF ANALYSIS.—Under calories are shown kilo-
calories per pound of food. In the analysis marked U the crude fibre or
cellulose is included with the carbo-hydrate, the figures being those given in
Atwater's table. He has found that from 30 to 91 per cent. of the crude fibre
was digested, according to the kind of food. The term fibre or cellulose in
analytical tables is not a very definite one. It depends upon the details of the
method of analysis. In the analyses other than U, the cellulose is excluded in
calculating the calories. Nutrient ratio is the proportion of the sum of the
carbo-hydrate and fat, compared with the proteid as 1. The fat has first been
multiplied by 2.225 to bring it to the same nutrient value as the carbo-hydrate.

U indicates that the analyses are taken from the United States Department of
Agriculture Experimental Station, Bulletin 28, the tests being chiefly made by
Dr. W.O. Atwater, or under his direction. They are average analyses of several
samples. The refuse consists of such parts as are rejected in preparing the food;
the outer leaves, skin, stalk, seeds, &c., of vegetables; the shell of eggs; the
bone, &c., of meat. E, indicates that the edible portion only of the food has
been analysed, and under refuse, in brackets, is shown the quantity rejected
before the analysis was made.

There is considerable variation in the same kind of food, according to the
variety of seed and conditions of growth &c., especially is this the case with
wheat and flour; whenever it has been possible the average of the analyses of
many samples have been given. The method of analysis has not always been
uniform, frequently the cellulose is included with the carbo-hydrates, and the
proteid sometimes includes a very appreciable quantity of non-proteid
nitrogenous matter. This is the case in the analysis of the mushrooms. G.—
Analyses are by John Goodfellow; it will be noticed that the wheatmeal bread
is not made from the same flour as the whole-meal. D.—B. Dyer, average of
19 fine and coarse oatmeals. S, from U.S. Cons. Reports, 1899. C.—A.H.
Church. The walnut kernels are in the dried condition as purchased; originally
of the same composition as shewn in the fresh kernels. C.D.—Cavendish or
Figi variety of banana, analysis by D.W.M. Doherty, N.S. Wales. P.—A.
Petermann, U.S. Cons. Banana flour, musca paradisiaca variety. This is widely
used in Central America. The flour is from the unripe fruit, and contains starch
45.7 per cent.; on ripening the starch is converted into sugar. K.—Konig, mean
of 90 analysis. Milk:—Average of many thousand analyses of the pure. Butter.

—Made without salt. L, from the "Lancet," 1903, I, p. 72. Oysters at 2/6 per
dozen. The 8.09 per cent. includes 0.91 glycogen (animal starch). The shell
was of course excluded, also the liquid in the shell. Apples.—The refuse
includes seeds, skin, &c., and such edible portion as is wasted in cutting them
away; the analysis was made on the rest.

Cookery.—Flesh is easier to digest raw. A few, on the advice of their doctors,
eat minced raw flesh, raw beef juice and even fresh warm blood. Such practice
is abhorrent to every person of refinement. Cooking lessens the offensive
appearance and qualities of flesh and changes the flavour; thorough cooking
also destroys any parasites that may be present. Raw flesh is more stimulating
to the animal passions, and excites ferocity in both man and animals. If the old
argument was valid, that as flesh is much nearer in composition and quality to
our own flesh and tissues, it is therefore our best food, we do wrong in
coagulating the albuminoids, hardening the muscle substance and scorching it
by cooking.

Fruits when ripe and in good condition are best eaten raw; cooking spoils the
flavour. Food requiring mastication and encouraging insalivation is the best.
Food is frequently made too sloppy or liquid, and is eaten too hot, thus
favouring indigestion and decay of the teeth. The cereals and pulses can only
with difficulty be eaten raw. When cooked in water the starch granules swell
and break up, the plant cells are ruptured, the fibres are separated and the
nutritious matter rendered easy of digestion. The flavour is greatly improved.
Cooking increases our range and variety of food. The civilised races use it to
excess and over-season their dishes, favouring over-eating.

If baking powders are used they should only be of the best makes. They should
be composed of sodium bicarbonate and tartaric acid, in such correct
proportions that upon the addition of water only sodium tartrate and carbon
dioxide (carbonic acid) should result. Some powders contain an excess of
sodium bicarbonate. Self-raising flours should be avoided. They are commonly
composed of—in addition to sodium bicarbonate—acid calcium phosphate,
calcium superphosphate and calcium sulphate. Common baking powders often
consist of the same ingredients, and sometimes also of magnesia and alum.
These are often made and sold by ignorant men, whose sole object is to make
money. Calcium superphosphate and acid calcium phosphate very frequently
contain arsenic, and as the cheap commercial qualities are often used there is
danger in this direction. A good formula for baking powder is, tartaric acid 8

ozs., sodium bicarbonate 9 ozs., rice flour 10 to 20 ozs. The last is added to
baking powders to improve the keeping quality and to add bulk. The
ingredients must be first carefully dried, the sodium bicarbonate at not too high
a temperature or it decomposes, and then thoroughly mixed; this must be
preserved in well closed and dry bottles. Another formula, which is slow rising
and well adapted for pastry, is sodium bicarbonate 4 ozs., cream of tartar 9
ozs., rice flour about 14 ozs. Custard powders consist of starch, colouring and
flavouring. Egg powders are similar to baking powders but contain yellow
colouring. Little objection can be taken to them if they are coloured with
saffron; turmeric would do if it were not that it gives a slightly unpleasant
taste. Artificial colouring matters or coal tar derivatives are much used, several
of these are distinctly poisonous.

Drinks.—It is better not to drink during eating, or insalivation may be
interfered with; a drink is better taken at the end of a meal. The practice of
washing down food with hot tea is bad. The refreshing nature of a cup of hot
tea, coffee, or cocoa is to a very great extent due to the warmth of the water.
The benefit is felt at once, before the alkaloid can enter the blood stream and
stimulate the nerve centres. Hot water, not too hot to cause congestion of the
mucous membrane, is one of the best drinks. When the purity of the water
supply is doubtful, there is advantage in first bringing it to the boil, as
pathogenic bacteria are destroyed. Some find it beneficial to drink a cup of hot
water the first thing in the morning; this cleanses the stomach from any
accumulation of mucus.

If fruit, succulent vegetables, or cooked food, containing much water be freely
used, and there be little perspiration, it is possible to do without drinking; but
there is danger of taking insufficient water to hold freely in solution the waste
products excreted by the body.

Aerated drinks, except a very few of the best, and non-alcoholic beers and
wines, are generally unwholesome, from their containing preservatives,
foaming powders, artificial flavourings, &c.

Stimulants.—Tea and coffee contain an alkaloid theine, besides volatile oils,
tannin, &c. Cocoa contains the milder alkaloid, theobromine. They stimulate
the heart and nervous systems; tea and coffee have also a diuretic effect.
Formerly they were erroneously thought to lessen tissue waste. These
alkaloids, being purins, are open to the general objections named elsewhere.

Stimulants do not impart energy or force of any kind, but only call forth
reserve strength by exciting the heart, nervous system, &c., to increased
activity. This is followed by a depression which is as great, generally greater,
than the previous stimulation. Except, perhaps, as an occasional medicine,
stimulants, should be avoided. Analysis of cocoa shows a good proportion of
proteids and a very large quantity of fat. The claim that it is a valuable and
nutritious food would only be true if it could be eaten in such quantities as are
other foods (bread, fruits, &c.). Were this attempted, poisoning would result
from the large quantity of alkaloid. The food value of half a spoonful or
thereabouts of cocoa is insignificant. Certain much advertised cocoa mixtures
are ridiculous in their pretentions, unscientific in preparation, and often
injurious.

Cereals.—The most valuable is wheat, from its proteid being chiefly in the
form known as gluten. From its tenacity, gluten enables a much better loaf to
be produced from wheat than from any other cereal. The outer part of the grain
is the richest in mineral matter and proteid. Wheatmeal bread shows a
considerably higher proteid value than white. A large proportion of the proteid
in the outer coats of the wheat berry is, however, not digested, and in some
experiments the waste has been enough to quite nullify its seeming advantage
over white bread. Coarsely ground, sharp branny particles in bread irritate the
intestines, and cause excessive waste of nutriment; but finely ground
wheatmeal is free from this objection, and is beneficial in preventing
constipation. The comparative value of white and brown bread has been much
discussed; it depends both on the quality of the bread and the condition of the
digestive organs. Experiments on the digestion of bread and other things, have
often been made on persons unaccustomed to such foods, or the foods have
been given in excessive quantity. To those accustomed to it good wheatmeal
bread is much pleasanter, more satisfying, and better flavoured than white;
indeed, the latter is described as insipid. Most bakers' bread is of unsatisfactory
quality. Flour and bread contain very little fat, the absence of which is
considered a defect. This is remedied by the addition of butter, fat or oil, or by
nuts, &c., which are rich in oil. These may be mixed with the flour prior to
cooking, or used afterwards.

Oats contain a substance called avenin, apparently an alkaloid, which has an
irritating action; the quantity is variable. It is to this that the so-called heating
effect of oatmeal on some persons is due.

Prepared Cereals or Breakfast Foods.—Analyses were made of 34 of these
cereal preparations by Weems and Ellis (Iowa State College Agricultural
Bulletin, 1904). They report that the foods possess no nutritive value in excess
of ordinary food materials; that the claim made for many pre-digested foods
are valueless, and no reliance can be placed on the statement that they are
remedies for any disease.

Oatmeal and other cereals are sold in packets as being partially cooked. We do
not doubt that they have been subjected to a dry heat, but this has scarcely any
effect on their starch and other constituents. The difference is a mechanical
one. In rolled oats the grains are so cracked and broken, that on boiling with
water, the water readily penetrates and more quickly cooks them throughout.
There are other prepared cereal foods, but we doubt whether they are
thoroughly cooked after the short boiling directed on the labels. They are a
great convenience where it is difficult to get the time necessary for cooking the
ordinary cereals. Coarsely ground wheat is too irritating when made into
porridge, but there are some granulated wheats sold in packets, which are quite
suitable. The Ralston breakfast food is excellent. They are rich in the
phosphates and salts, found in the outer part of the grain. One cereal
preparation called Grape Nuts, has had its starch converted into maltose and
dextrin (maltose being a sugar), by a scientific application of the diastase of
the grain. It is consequently easier of digestion and requires no cooking. It is
beneficial for some forms of indigestion. There are several competing foods of
less merit, the starch being less perfectly changed; one at least of which is
objectionably salt. Properly cooked starch is readily digested by healthy
persons, and for them malted food is of no special value.

Pulse, or Legumes, includes haricots and other beans, peas and lentils. The
proteid contained is that variety known as legumin, which is either the same,
or is closely allied, to the casein of milk and cheese. Pulse is very rich in
proteid, the dried kinds in general use, contain 24 or 25 per cent. The richest is
the soy-bean, which is used in China and Japan, it contains 35 per cent.,
besides 19 per cent. of fat. Pulse requires thorough cooking, haricots taking the
longest time. Split lentils are cooked sooner, and are better digested; this is
chiefly due to the removal of the skins. The haricots, bought from small
grocers who have a slow sale, are often old, and will not cook tender. Pulse is
best adapted to the labouring classes; the sedentary should eat it sparingly, it is
liable to cause flatulence or accumulation of gas in the intestines, and
constipation. Haricots are easier to digest when mashed and mixed with other

food. Pulse was formerly stated to leave much undigested residue. Recent
experiments have shown that it is satisfactorily digested under favourable
conditions. Strümpell found beans in their skins to leave a large proportion of
proteid matter unabsorbed. Lentil meal mixed with other food was digested in
a perfectly satisfactory manner. Another experimenter (Rubner) found that
when even the very large quantity of 1-1/8 pound of dried split peas per day
were eaten, only 17 per cent. of proteid matter was unabsorbed, which
compares very well with the 11 per cent. of proteid left from a macaroni diet,
with which the same man was fed at another time. Had a reasonable quantity
of peas been eaten per day, the quantity undigested would probably have
differed little from that of other foods.

Nuts are, as a rule, very rich in oil and contain a fair proportion of proteid;
when well masticated they are a very valuable food. Walnuts are one of the
best, and the kernels can be purchased shelled, thus avoiding much trouble.
They can be finely ground in a nut-mill and used for several purposes, mixed
in the proportion of about two ounces to the pound of wheatmeal they produce
a rich flavoured bread. They can also he used in sweet cakes and in rich
puddings to increase their food value, lightness and taste. Pine kernels being
very oily, can be used with flour in the place of lard or butter.

Fruits are generally looked upon as luxuries, rather than as food capable of
supplying a meal or a substantial part of one. They are usually eaten only when
the appetite has been appeased by what is considered more substantial fare.
Fresh fruits contain a larger proportion of water than nearly all other raw
foods, and consequently the proportion of nourishment is small; but we must
not despise them on this account. Milk contains as much or more water.
Certain foods which in the raw state contain very little water, such as the
pulses and cereals when cooked absorb a very large quantity; this is
particularly the case in making porridge. Cabbage, cauliflower, Spanish onions
and turnips, after cooking contain even 97 per cent. of water. Roast beef
contains on an average 48 per cent., and cooked round steak with fat removed
63 per cent. of water. It is customary at meal times to drink water, tea, coffee,
beer, wine, &c. When a meal contains any considerable quantity of fresh fruits
there need be no desire to drink. Notwithstanding that fruits contain so much
water, a dietary consisting of fruits with nuts, to which may be added bread
and vegetables, will contain less water than the total quantity usually
consumed by a person taking the more customary highly cooked and seasoned
foods. An advantage is that the water in fruits is in a wholesome condition, free

from the pollution often met with in the water used for drinking purposes. Raw
fruits favour mastication, with its consequent advantages, whilst cooked and
soft food discourages it. Plums and what are termed stone fruits, if eaten in
more than very small quantities, are apt to disagree. Persons with good
digestions can take fruit with bread, biscuits and with uncooked foods without
any inconvenience. Fruit is more likely to disagree when taken in conjunction
with elaborately cooked foods. Many cannot take fruit, especially if it be acid,
at the same time as cereal or starchy substances, and the difficulty is said to be
greater at the morning's meal. If the indigestion produced is due to the acid of
the fruit preventing the saliva acting on the starch, scientific principles would
direct that the fruit be eaten quite towards the end of the meal. The same
consideration condemns the use of mint sauce, cucumber and vinegar, or
pickles, with potatoes and bread, or even mint sauce with green peas. Bananas
are an exception, as not interfering with the digestion of starch. Bananas are
generally eaten in an unripe condition, white and somewhat mealy; they should
be kept until the starch has been converted into sugar, when they are both more
pleasant and wholesome. Nuts and fruit go well together. For a portable meal,
stoned raisins or other dried fruit and walnut kernels or other nuts are
excellent.

What has been called a defect in most fruits, is the fact that the proteid is small
in proportion to the other constituents. This has been too much dwelt upon,
owing to the prevailing exaggerated idea of the quantity of proteid required.
The tomato contains a large proportion, though the water is very high.
Bananas, grapes and strawberries contain to each part of proteid from 10 to 12
parts of other solid nutritive constituents (any oil being calculated into starch
equivalents); this is termed the nutritive ratio. Although this may seem a small
proportion of proteid, there are reasons for believing that it is sufficient. Taking
the average of 29 analyses of American apples, a nutritive ratio of 33 was
obtained. If it were suggested that life should be sustained on apples alone, this
small quantity of proteid would be an insurmountable difficulty. As the
addition of nuts or other nutritious food sufficiently increases the proteid, no
objection can with justice be made against the use of fruit. A study of our teeth,
digestive organs and general structure, and of comparative anatomy, points to
fruits, nuts and succulent vegetables as our original diet.

The potash and other salts of the organic acids in fruits tend to keep the blood
properly alkaline. Where there is a tendency to the deposition of uric acid in
the body, they hinder its formation. Citric, tartaric, malic and other organic

acids exist in fruits in combination with potash and other bases, as well as in
the free state. The free acids in fruits, when eaten, combine with the alkalies in
the intestinal tract, and are absorbed by the body and pass into the blood, not
as acids, but as neutral salts. Here they are converted into potassium carbonate
or some other carbonate. Fruit acids never make the blood acid but the reverse.
Fruit salts and acids are antiscorbutic. Fruits have often proved of the greatest
benefit in illness. What is known as the grape cure has been productive of
much good. Lemons and oranges have also been of great benefit. Strawberries
have been craved for and have proved of the greatest advantage in some
extreme cases of illness when more concentrated food could not be endured.
Fruit is coming into greater use, especially owing to its better distribution and
lessened cost. Fruit is not as cheap as it should be, as it can be produced in
great abundance at little cost, and with comparatively little labour. The price
paid by the public greatly exceeds the real cost of production. A very large
proportion, often the greater part of the cost to the consumer, goes in railway
and other rates and in middle-men's profits. It is commonly cheaper to bring
fruit from over the sea, including land carriage on either side, than it is to
transport English produce from one part of our country to another. English
homegrown fruit would be cheaper were it not for the difficulty of buying
suitable land at a reasonable price, and the cost of transit. For the production of
prime fruit there is a lack of sufficient intelligence, of scientific culture and co-
operation.

Vegetables—using the name in its popular sense—contain valuable saline
constituents or salts. By the usual method of cooking a large proportion of the
salts is lost. It is better to steam than to boil them. The fibrous portion of
vegetables is not all digested, but it is useful in stimulating the peristaltic
action of the bowels and lessening any tendency to constipation. Vegetables
are more especially useful to non-vegetarians to correct the defects of their
other food.

The potato belongs to a poisonous order—the Solanacæ. There is a little
alkaloid in the skin, but this is lost in the cooking. The eyes and sprouting
portions contain the most and should be cut out.

Fungi.—There are about a hundred edible species in this country, but many of
the fungi are poisonous, some intensely so. It can scarcely be expected that
these lowly organised plants, differing so much in their manner of growth from
the green or chlorophyll bearing plants, can be particularly nourishing. It is

only the fructifying part, which appears above the ground, that is generally
eaten. It is of very rapid growth. Of 9 edible fungi of 4 species, obtained in the
Belgrade market, the average amount of water was 89.3 per cent., leaving only
10.7 per cent. of solid matter; the average of fat was 0.55 per cent. The food
value of fungi has been greatly over-rated. In most of the analyses given in
text-books and elsewhere, the total nitrogen has been multiplied by 6.25 and
the result expressed as proteid. The amount of nitrogen in a form useless for
the purpose of nutrition is about a third of the whole. Of the remainder or
proteid nitrogen, it is said much is not assimilated, sometimes quite half,
owing to the somewhat indigestible character of the fungi. An analysis of the
common mushroom gave proteids 2.2 per cent., amides (useless nitrogenous
compounds) 1.3 per cent., and water 93.7 per cent. The fungi are of inferior
nutritive value to many fresh vegetables and are much more expensive. Their
chief value is as a flavouring.

Milk and Eggs are permissible in a vegetarian dietary, and as a rule,
vegetarians use them. Eggs, with the exception of such as are unfertile, are of
course alive; but they have no conscious existence, and cannot be said to suffer
any pain on being killed and eaten. An objection to their use as food is, that on
an egg and poultry farm, the superfluous male birds are killed, and as the hens
become unprofitable layers they are also killed. A similar humane objection
applies to the use of cow's milk by man. The calves are deprived of part of
their natural food, the deficiency being perhaps made up by unnatural
farinaceous milk substitutes. Many of the calves, especially the bull calves, are
killed, thus leaving all the milk for human use. When cows cease to yield
sufficient milk they too are slaughtered. Milch cows are commonly kept in
unhealthy houses, deprived of exercise and pure air, crowded together, with
filthy evil smelling floors reeking with their excrements, tended by uncleanly
people. With no exercise and a rich stimulating diet they produce more milk;
but it is no matter for surprise that tuberculosis is common amongst them.
When the lesions of tubercle (consumption) are localised and not excessive,
the rest of the carcase is passed by veterinary surgeons as fit for food; were it
otherwise, enormous quantities of meat would be destroyed. As butcher's meat
is seldom officially inspected, but a very small part is judged by the butchers
as too bad for food. In mitigation it may be said that poultry lead a happy
existence and their death is, or should be, quickly produced with but little pain,
probably less pain than if left to die from natural causes. The same cannot be
said of cattle and sheep when the time arrives for their transport to the
slaughter man's. It is argued by vegetarians who take milk and animal products

that they are not responsible for the death of the animals, as they do not eat
their flesh. As vegetarians profit by conditions in which the slaughtering of the
animals is a part, they cannot be altogether exonerated. Cow's milk is prone to
absorb bad odours, and it forms a most suitable breeding or nutrient medium
for most species of bacteria which may accidentally get therein. By means of
milk many epidemics have been spread, of scarlet fever, diphtheria, cholera,
and typhoid. Occasionally milk contains tubercle bacilli from the cows
themselves. By boiling, all bacteria, except a few which may be left out of
consideration, are destroyed. Such a temperature, however, renders the milk
less digestible and wholesome for infants. By heating to 160° F. or 170° F. for
a few minutes, such pathogenic germs as are at all likely to be in milk
(tubercle, typhoid, diphtheria, &c.) are killed, and the value of the milk is but
little affected: this is called Pasteurising. It was until quite recently a common
practice to add boric acid, formaldehyde and other preservatives; this has
injured the vitality and caused the death of many infants. They have not yet
gone quite out of use.

For infants the only satisfactory food is that of a healthy mother. On account of
physical defects in the mother, or often for merely selfish reasons, the infant is
deprived of its natural food. Many attempts have been made to bring cow's
milk to approximately the same composition as human milk. It can be done by
adding water, milk sugar and cream of known composition, in certain
proportions. Great difficulties are met with when this is put into practice. The
simplest method is that of Professor Soxhlet. The proper quantity of milk sugar
is added, but instead of adding the right quantity of cream or fat—a very
difficult thing to do—the equivalent quantity of extra milk sugar is used.
Although not theoretically satisfactory, in practice it answers very well. We
have found it to agree very well with infants. To cow's milk of pure average
quality, add half its volume of water containing 12.3 per cent. of milk sugar;
or, what amounts to the same thing, to a pint of cow's milk add one and a
quarter ounce of milk sugar and half-a-pint of water. It is preferable to
Pasteurise by placing the bottle of milk in a vessel of water. This water is to be
heated until the milk shows a temperature of about 75° C. or 165° F., but must
not exceed 80° C. or a change in the albumen of the milk takes place which
affects its digestibility. Keep at this temperature for about ten minutes. If not
required at once, a plug of cotton wool should be placed in the neck of the
bottle, and it should be kept in a cold place until required. Professor Soxhlet
does not advise the addition of lime water. The proteids are not of the same
composition as in human milk (the calf being a ruminating animal)—and it is a

common plan to add water or barley water to milk until it is so watered down
that it cannot curdle into tough curds. An infant has thus either to distend its
stomach with a large quantity of watery nourishment, or else to get insufficient
food. Sometimes it is necessary to peptonise the milk a little. At the Leipzig
infants hospital, and also the Hygienic Institute, they give to infants, up to 9
months old, Prof. Soxhlet's mixture, except that an equal volume of water is
added to the milk. Milk, cheese, and especially hen's eggs contain a very large
proportion of proteid. When added to food poor in proteid they improve its
nutritive quality. It has often been said, and with truth, that some vegetarians
by the profuse use of animal products, consume as much, or even more proteid
of animal origin than the average person who includes flesh food in his dietary.
An excess of proteid from these sources is less injurious as eggs contain no
purins, and milk but a very small quantity. In support of the use of animal
products, it may be said that we have become so fond of animal foods and
stimulating drinks, that the use of milk, butter, cheese and eggs renders the
transition to a dietary derived from the vegetable kingdom much easier. By
means of these, cooked dishes can be produced which approach and sometimes
can scarcely be distinguished from those of cooked flesh.

In the present state of society, when really good vegetarian fare is difficult to
procure away from home, eggs, cheese, and milk are a great convenience.

Digestion.—The digestive juices contain certain unorganised ferments, which
produce chemical changes in the food. If the food is solid, it has to be
liquefied. Even if already liquid it has generally to undergo a chemical change
before being fitted for absorption into the body. The alimentary canal is a
tubular passage which is first expanded into the mouth, and later into the
stomach. As the food passes down, it is acted upon by several digestive juices,
and in the small intestine the nutritive matter is absorbed, whilst the residue
passes away.

The saliva is the first digestive juice. It is alkaline and contains a ferment
called ptyalin. This acts energetically on the cooked and gelatinous starch, and
slowly on the raw starch. Starch is quite insoluble in water, but the first
product of salivary digestion is a less complex substance called soluble-starch.
When time is allowed for the action to be completed, the starch is converted
into one of the sugars called maltose. In infants this property of acting on
starch does not appear in effective degree until the sixth or seventh month, and
starch should not be given before that time. Only a small quantity should be

provided before the twelfth month, when it may be gradually increased. Dr.
Sims Wallace has suggested that the eruption of the lower incisors from the
seventh to the eighth month, was for the purpose of enabling the infant—in the
pre-cooking stage of man's existence—to pierce the outer covering of fruits so
as to permit his extracting the soluble contents by suction; and accordingly
when these teeth are cut we may allow the child to bite at such vegetable
substances as apples, oranges, and sugar cane. Dr. Harry Campbell says that
starch should be given to the young, "not as is the custom, as liquid or pap, but
in a form compelling vigorous mastication, for it is certain that early man,
from the time he emerged from the ape till he discovered how to cook his
vegetable food, obtained practically all his starch in such a form. If it is given
as liquid or pap it will pass down as starch into the stomach, to setup
disturbance in that organ; while if it is administered in a form which obliges
the child to chew it properly, not only will the jaws, the teeth, and the gums
obtain the exercise which they crave, and without which they cannot develop
normally, but the starch will be thoroughly insalivated that much of it will be
converted within the mouth into maltose. Hard well baked crusts constitute a
convenient form in which to administer starch to children. A piece of crust may
be put in the oven and rebaked, and spread with butter. Later, we may give
hard plain biscuits." Dr. Campbell continues, that he does not say that starch in
the pappy form, or as porridge, should find no place whatever in man's dietary
at the present day, but we should arrange that a large proportion of our food is
in a form inviting mastication.

The teeth perform the very important function of breaking down our food and
enabling it to be intimately incorporated with the saliva and afterwards with
the digestive juices. The Anglo-Saxon race shows a greater tendency to
degeneracy in the teeth than do other races; the teeth of the present generation
are less perfect than those of previous generations. A dentist writes (Lancet,
1903-2, p. 1054) "I have had the opportunity of examining the teeth of many
natives in their more or less uncivilised state, from the Red Indians of North
America, the negroes of Africa, to the more civilised Chinese, Japanese, and
Indians of the East, and I have usually found them possessed of sound teeth,
but so soon as they come under the influence of civilised life in Washington,
Montreal, London, Paris and other cities, their teeth begin to degenerate,
though their general health may remain good." In a long article on mastication
in the Lancet (1903-2, p. 84) from which we have already quoted, Dr. Harry
Campbell gives as the effect of thorough and efficient mastication, that it
increases the amount of alkaline saliva passing into the stomach, and prolongs

the period of starch digestion within that organ. That it influences the stomach
reflexly by promoting the flow of gastric juice. That the frequent use of the
jaws and the tongue, during the period of growth, cause the jaws to expand. If
the jaws are not adequately exercised during this period, owing to the use of
soft food, they do not reach their normal size, the teeth are overcrowded, do
not develop fully, and are prone to decay. The effect of vigorous mastication is
to stimulate the circulation in the tooth pulp, which promotes nutrition and
maintains a firm dental setting. Dr. Campbell writes: "I am perfectly at one
with Dr. Wallace, in believing that the removal of the fibrous portion of food is
the main cause of the prevalence of caries among moderns."

When the food reaches the stomach, gastric juice is secreted. This juice
contains a ferment called pepsin and hydrochloric acid. Pepsin is only active in
an acid media. Starch digestion proceeds in the stomach to such a time—stated
as from 15 to 30 minutes—when the acid gastric juice has been poured out in
sufficient quantity to neutralise the alkalinity of the saliva. The gastric juice
acts upon the proteids only. After a time the liquefied contents of the stomach
are passed into the first portion of the small intestine, called the duodenum.
Here it meets with the pancreatic juice, which like the gastric juice attacks
proteids, but even more energetically, and only in an alkaline media. The
proteolitic ferment is called trypsin. The pancreatic, the most important of the
digestive fluids, contains other ferments; one called amylopsin, takes up the
digestion of any remaining or imperfectly converted starch left from the
salivary digestion. Amylopsin is much more powerful and rapid than the
ptyalin of the saliva, especially on uncooked starch. Its absence from the
pancreatic juice of infants is an indication that starch should not be given them.
Another ferment, stearopsin, emulsifies fats. The bile is alkaline and assists the
pancreatic juice in neutralising the acid mixture that leaves the stomach; it also
assists the absorption of fats. The digestion of proteids is not completed in the
stomach. There are some who look upon the stomach as chiefly of use as a
receptacle for the large mass of food, which is too quickly eaten to be passed at
once into the intestines; the food being gradually expelled from the stomach, in
such quantities as the duodenal digestion can adequately treat. A frequently
used table, showing the time required for the digestion of various foods in the
stomach, is of little practical value. There is ample provision for the digestion
of food, there is a duplication of ferments for the proteids and starch. In health,
the ferments are not only very active, but are secreted in ample quantities. The
digestive or unorganised ferments must not be confused with the organised
ferments such as yeast. The latter are living vegetable cells, capable of

indefinite multiplication. The former are soluble bodies, and though capable of
transforming or digesting some thousands of times their mass of food, their
power in this direction is restricted within definite limits. Another and
preferable name for them is enzymes.

The action of saliva on starch is powerfully retarded by tea, this is due to the
tannin. Coffee and cocoa are without effect. Tea infused for two minutes only,
was not found to have sensibly less restraining effect than when infused for
thirty minutes. On peptic digestion both tea and coffee had a powerful
retarding effect. When of equal strength cocoa was nearly as bad, but as it is
usually taken much weaker, its inhibitory effect is of little consequence.

Bacteria are minute vegetable organisms, which exist in the dust of the air, in
water and almost everywhere on or near the surface of the earth. They are
consequently taken in with our food. They exist in the mouth; those in carious
teeth are often sufficient to injuriously affect digestion and health. The healthy
gastric juice is to a great degree antiseptic, but few bacteria being able to
endure its acidity. When the residue of the food reaches the large intestine,
bacteria are found in very great numbers. The warmth of the body is highly
favourable to their growth. They cause the food and intestinal debris to assume
its fæcal character. Should the mass be retained, the bacterial poisons
accumutate and being absorbed into the body produce headaches, exhaustion,
neurasthenia and other complaints. Proteid matter, the products of its
decomposition and nitrogenous matter generally, are especially the food of
bacteria; this is shown in the offensiveness of the fæces of the carnivora,
notwithstanding their short intestines, compared with that of the herbivora.
Also in the difference of the fæces of the dog when fed on flesh and on a
nearly vegetable diet. On a rich proteid diet, especially if it consists largely of
flesh, the bacterial products in the intestines are greater than on a vegetable
diet. On the latter such a disease as appendicitis is rare. Professor Elie
Metchnikoff, of the Pasteur Institute, thinks that man's voluminous and highly
developed large intestine fulfils no useful purpose, and on account of its
breeding a very copious and varied bacterial flora, could with advantage be
dispensed with. He also has said that man, who could support himself on food
easily digestible, has a small intestine which is disproportionately fully
developed. Instead of having between 18 and 21 feet of small intestine, man
might do with one-third of that length. According to him, there is a disharmony
of our food and our digestive system. Referring to such views, and the desire
of some surgeons to remove the vermiform appendix and portions of the

intestines upon too little provocation, Sir W. Macewin, M.D., F.R.S. (B.
Medical Jrn., 1904, 2 p. 874) says:—"Is this human body of ours so badly
constructed that it contains so many useless parts and requires so much
tinkering? Possibly I may be out of fashion with the times, as I cannot find
such imperfections in the normal human body as are alleged. On the contrary,
the more one looks into the human body and sees it work, the better one
understands it and the more one is struck with the wondrous utility, beauty, and
harmony of all its parts." Our food we can change, but not our organs-except
by a dangerous surgical operations. Our teeth with our complex and very long
intestines are adapted for fibrous, bulky and solid food. On such food mankind
has lived for an immense period of time. It is true that there are several
theoretical advantages in cooked vegetable foods; but unfortunately there is a
want of conformity with our digestive organs. If a flesh diet is taken, the
incongruity is greater. Concentrated food causes constipation. An active man,
leading an out-of-door life, can take unsuitable food with little or no apparent
inconvenience, the movements of his body favouring intestinal action; whilst
the same food to a sedentary person will prove distinctly injurious.

Some persons have such a vigorous digestion that they can consume almost
any food, even that which is obviously unsuitable; not only bad in kind but
excessive in quantity. Other persons have to be very careful. Many have
boasted that they can take of what they call the good things of life to their full,
without bad effect. We know of such men who have been much esteemed for
their joviality and good nature, but who have broken down in what should
have been a hearty and useful middle life. There are others who were poorly
equipped for the battle of life, with indifferent constitutions, never having had
the buoyancy and overflowing of animal spirits; but who, by conserving such
strength as they had, have outlived all their more healthy but less careful
comrades. The errors of the parents are often most evident in the children or
grandchildren. There are many persons who cannot eat of some particular
food, although it may be quite wholesome to others. Sometimes it is a
psychological rather than a physiological disability, which may he overcome
by an effort of the will. At other times it seems to have no connection with the
imagination, although it is not always possible to give a sound reason for it. In
the main, of course, there are principles of dietetics applicable to all alike, but
in regard to details, everyone should make rules for himself, according to his
experience. When there appears no real reason for an idiosyncrasy, a little
humouring of our taste and digestion will often overcome it, to our advantage.
It is generally those of delicate constitution who are most sensitive. Some

cannot eat oatmeal except in small quantity. Olive and other vegetable oils,
even when of good quality cannot be taken by many people, whilst others find
them quite as wholesome, or even better than butter. Vegetarians can generally
detect lard in pastry both by its taste and its after effects, although those
accustomed to this fat do not object to it. It is also surprising how some
individual's tastes and habits will vary at different periods of their lives.

One form of dyspepsia is due to undigested starch remaining in the stomach
and causing an excessive secretion of hydrochloric acid. As long as proteid
food is present, the pepsin and acid expend themselves on it, and are removed
together. The undigested starch continues to stimulate gastric secretion, and the
acid residuum causes pain, heartburn and flatulence. If there be also any
butyric acid, or some other fatty acid, derived from milk, butter, cheese, &c.,
there will be acid eructations. For this form of indigestion there are several
methods of treatment. First; the very thorough cooking of all starchy food, and
it is an advantage to take a little good extract of malt, either at the time of
eating or directly afterwards. The diastase of the malt has the same action on
starch as the ptyalin in the saliva. It is better, scientifically, to have the
farinaceous food at about 130° F. (as hot as the mouth can bear will do), and
then to add malt extract. On keeping the mixture warm, from a few minutes to
half an hour or more, the starch is digested and rendered soluble. Such food is
not very pleasant to take. The food known as Grape Nuts has been treated in a
similar manner. The use of malt extract, however, seems a clumsy substitute
for salivary digestion. Second; the eating of starch in the form of hard and dry
biscuits, crusts and other hard food, which demand thorough mastication and
insalivation, and the keeping in the mouth for a long while, during which the
saliva has time to act. This is the best plan. Third; the taking of sodium
bicarbonate towards the end of the period of digestion, in order to neutralise
the acid in the stomach. This gives relief, but does not cure, as the dose has to
be repeated after each meal; in course of time the quantity of soda has
sometimes to be increased to an alarming extent. Fourth; the abstention from
starchy foods and the substitution of an exclusive flesh dietary. In the
"Salisbury" treatment, raw minced beef is given. This method often gives
immediate relief, but its ultimate effect on the kidneys and other organs is very
bad.

No hard and fast rule can be laid down as to the number of meals into which
the daily amount of food required should be divided. The stomach appears to
work to the best advantage when it is full, or nearly so, and the appetite is

appeased. Three approximately equal meals seems to be a convenient division.
Dr. Dewey and his followers advise only two meals a day, and it seems
incontestable that many persons find the plan advantageous. These are
generally adults with weak digestions, or elderly persons who, on account of
their age and the sluggish action of their assimilative functions, require
comparatively little food. Children, on account of their vigorous vitality, rapid
growth and hearty appetites, ought not to be restricted to this number. Persons
who have got into the pernicious habit of greatly over-eating, and whose
stomachs have become distended and unusually large, sometimes find it easier
to restrict their daily food to a healthy quantity by taking only two meals. The
general objections against two meals are that either two little food is taken, or
the ingestion of such a large quantity is bad for the stomach and causes it to
press on the adjacent viscera. The large quantity of blood and nerve force
drawn to the over-distended stomach, depletes the brain and nervous system,
causing drowsiness and incapacity for mental and physical work. The
carnivora, whose opportunity for obtaining food—unlike the herbivora—is
irregular and often at long intervals, gorge themselves upon opportunity and
are in the habit of sleeping after a meal. The frugivora and herbivora, however,
are alert and ready to fly from their enemies should such appear. The
conveying of so much nourishment to the liver and blood stream at one time, is
probably a greater tax on them. A light lunch between the usual full meals has
nothing to recommend it. The stomach is burdened to little purpose, often
before it has finished with one meal another is imposed upon it, no time being
left for recuperation.

Dietaries.—The best proportions of proteids, carbo-hydrates and fats required
for the nourishment of the body has not yet been conclusively decided. The
common plan is to average the dietary of large bodies of persons, particualrly
of soldiers and prisoners. These dietaries have been adjusted empirically (the
earlier ones at least), and are generally considered as satisfactory. They are
chiefly of English and German origin. Another method is to laboriously
analyse the injesta or food consumed and compare it with the dejecta or
excretions, until a quantity and kind of food is found which is just sufficient to
keep the body in equilibrium. This latter plan is the best, but to be quite
satisfactory must be tried on a large number of suitable persons under varying
conditions, both of quantity and kind of food. Nearly all the experiments have
been made on persons accustomed to a stimulating dietary: their usual food has
included a considerable quantity of flesh and alcoholic drinks. Sufficient
attention has not been paid to the dietaries of the more abstemious races who

partake of little if any flesh food. The standard daily dietary for a man of
average weight, doing a moderate amount of work, is variously stated by the
best authorities as proteids from 100 to 130 grammes, fat 35 to 125 grammes,
and carbo-hydrates 450 to 550 grammes. There is a surprising difference of
opinion on the amount of fat, but those who give least fat give the largest
quantity of carbo-hydrate and vice-versa. Dr. R. Hutchison in "Food and
Dietetics," sums up the quantities given by the highest authorities as follows:
—-

Proteid 125 g. ( 4.4 oz.) x 4.1 = 512 cal. = 20 g. N, 62 C
Carbo-hydrate 500 g. (17.6 oz.) 4.1 2050 200
Fat 50 g. ( 1.8 oz.) 9.3 465 38
675 g. (23.8 oz.) 3027 Total 20 g. N, 300 C

The nutrient ratio is 1 : 4.9. For scientific purposes, metrical weights and
measures are used, instead of the inconvenient English grains, ounces, pounds,
&c. (1 gramme = 15.43 grains; 1 ounce avoirdupois = 437.5 grains = 28.35
grammes). A calorie is a measure of the power of a food in generating heat and
muscular energy (these two being convertible).

The calories used in food tables are kilo-calories, representing the amount of
heat which would raise a kilogramme (1000 grammes) of water 1° Centigrade.
This is the same as raising 1 pound weight 4° Fahrenheit. According to the
table given, 125 grammes of dry proteid are required per day; this contains 20
grammes of nitrogen and 62 of carbon. When thoroughly consumed or utilised
in the body, the heat or its equivalent in muscular work equals 512 kilo-
calories. Proteids have, of course, an additional value as tissue formers. The
factors used here, of 4.1 and 9.3, are those commonly employed; but the latest
and most reliable research, taking account only of that part of the food which
is actually available in the body, gives for proteid and carbo-hydrate 4 calories,
and for fat 8.9 calories.

Fat has a higher food value than the carbo-hydrates, as 4.1 : 9.3 = 2.27 or 4.0 :
89 = 2.225, according to whether the old or new factors are used. In the table
of analyses 2.225 was used. The standard dietary for a woman, or of a boy 14
to 16 years of age, is given as equivalent to eight-tenths that of a man; a child
of 10 to 13 six-tenths; of 2 to 5 four-tenths. A man doing hard work requires
one-tenth more. The following table gives three standard dietaries, and a few

actual ones, in grammes per day. The food of persons in easy circumstances,
and of working men in the receipt of good wages, approximate to the standard
dietaries, except that the fat is higher and the carbo-hydrates proportionately
less. This is due to an abundance of animal food. It was thought unnecessary to
give them in detail:—

Dr. Alexander Haig considers that 88 grammes of proteid is required by a man
leading a decidedly active life.

NOTES.—(a) The Japanese are of small stature and weight.

(b) One of a series of experiments by A.W. Blyth, 1888. 1½ lbs. of wheatmeal
per day was required for equilibrium; sedentary occupation, with a daily walk
of six miles.

(c) See "A Text Book of Physiology," by M. Foster, 5th edition, part ii., p. 839;
the diet was bread, fruit and oil. The man was in apparently good health and
stationary weight; only 59 per cent. of the proteids were digested, leaving the
small quantity of 32 grammes available for real use. In commenting upon this,
Professor Foster writes:—"We cannot authoritatively say that such a reduction
is necessarily an evil; for our knowledge will not at present permit us to make
an authoritative exact statement as to the extent to which the proteid may be

reduced without disadvantage to the body, when accompanied by adequate
provision of the other elements of food; and this statement holds good whether
the body be undertaking a small or large amount of labour."

(d) The Miller of Billericay's case is quoted by Dr. Carpenter, and also by Dr.
Pavy. It was reported to the College of Physicians in 1767 by Sir George
Baker. A remarkable degree of vigour is said to have been sustained for
upwards of eighteen years on no other nutriment than 16 oz. of flour, made
into a pudding with water, no other liquid of any kind being taken.

A striking instance of abstemiousness is that of Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman,
who died in the year 1566 at the age of 98. Up to the age of 40 he spent a life
of indulgence, eating and drinking to excess. At this time, having been
endowed with a feeble constitution, he was suffering from dyspepsia, gout, and
an almost continual slow fever, with an intolerable thirst continually hanging
upon him. The skill of the best physicians of Italy was unavailing. At length he
completely changed his habits of diet, and made a complete recovery. At the
age of 83 he wrote a treatise on a "Sure and certain method of attaining a long
and healthful life." He says, what with bread, meat, the yolk of an egg and
soup, I ate as much as weighed 12 ozs., neither more nor less. I drank 14 oz. of
wine. When 78 he was persuaded to increase his food by the addition of 2 oz.
per day, and this nearly proved fatal. He writes that, instead of old age being
one of weakness, infirmity and misery, I find myself to be in the most pleasant
and delightful stage of life. At 83 I am always merry, maintaining a happy
peace in my own mind. A sober life has preserved me in that sprightliness of
thought and gaiety of humour. My teeth are all as sound as in my youth. He
was able to take moderate exercise in riding and walking at that age. He was
very passionate and hasty in his youth. He wrote other treatises up to the age of
95.

Kumagara, Lapicque and Breis-acher, have, as the result of their experiments,
reduced the quantity of proteid required per 24 hours to 45 grammes. T.
Hirschfeld states, as the conclusion of his research, that it is possible for a
healthy man (in one case for 15 days and in another for 10 days) to maintain
nitrogenous balance on from 30 to 40 grammes of proteid per day. Labbé and
Morchoisne (Comptes Rendus, 30th May, 1904, p. 1365) made a dieting
experiment during 38 days, upon one of themselves. The proteid was derived
exclusively from vegetable food. The food consisted of bread, lentils, haricots,
potatoes, carrots, chestnuts, endives, apples, oranges, preserves, sugar, starch,

butter, chocolate and wine. At the commencement, the day's food contained
14.1 grammes of nitrogen = 89.3 proteid, which was gradually diminished. On
the 7th day 11.6 g. N. = 73.5 g. proteid was reached; during this time less N.
was eliminated, indicating that the proteid food was in excess of that required
for the wear and tear of the body. As the quantity of nitrogenous food was
diminished almost daily, the N. eliminated was found to diminish also. This
latter was in slight excess of that absorbed; but when a day or two's time was
allowed, without further reduction in the food, the body tended to adjust itself
to the dimished supply, and there was an approximation of income and
expenditure. The smallest quantity of food was reached on the 32nd day with
1.06 N. = 6.7 proteid, which was obviously too little, as 2.19 N. = 13.9 proteid
was eliminated. On the 21st day 4.12 N. = 26 proteid was injested, and 4.05 N.
was eliminated. The inference drawn from the research is that about 26
grammes of proteid per day was sufficient. The weight of the body remained
practically constant throughout, and the subject did not suffer inconvenience.
Of course the full amount of calories was kept up; as each succeeding quantity
of the proteid was left off, it was replaced by a proper quantity of non-
nitrogenous food. These experiments were carried out in the usual approved
scientific manner. It may, however, be urged against any generalised and
positive conclusions as to the minimum quantity of proteid required for the
body, being drawn from such experiments, that the period covered by them
was much too short. A prolonged trial might have revealed some obscure
physiological derangement. We are quite justified in concluding that the usual,
so-called "standard dietaries" contain an unnecessarily large proportion of
proteid. In some practical dietaries, 50 grammes and under have seemed
enough; but for the ordinary adult man, who has been accustomed to an
abundance of proteid, and whose ancestors have also, it is probably advisable
not to take less than 70 or 80 grammes per day (2½ to 3 ounces). If it is desired
to try less, the diminution should be very gradual, and a watch should be kept
for any lessening of strength.

Some comments may now be made upon the table of dietaries. That of the
London sewing girl contained 53 grammes of proteid, which should have been
ample, according to some of the authorities we have given; yet she was badly
nourished. The food was doubtless of bad quality, and it appears deficient in
carbo-hydrates; this latter is shown by the low number of calories. The long
hours and unhealthy conditions of work, and not a deficiency of food
constituents, is probably the cause of the bad health of such persons. There is
no reason to think the proteid insufficient, although some persons have said as

much. We have no particulars of the German vegetarians, but the calories
appear satisfactory. In the poor German labourer's family the calories are too
low. In Dr. T.R. Allinson's experiment on a wheatmeal dietary, it will not do to
assume that less than 82 grammes of proteid would have been insufficient. It is
probable that a smaller quantity of proteid would have been enough if the fat
and carbohydrates had been increased. The calories are below the usual
standard. In the succeeding example the calories are considerably higher, being
not far from the usual standard, yet 54 grammes of proteid sufficed. It is a
common error to place an undue value on the proteids to the extent of
overlooking the other constituents. Dr. Alexander Haig in "Diet and Food," p.
8, cites the case of a boy aged 10, fed on 2¼ pints of milk per day. The boy lost
weight, and Dr. Haig is of opinion that the quantity of milk was very deficient
in proteid; more than twice as much being required. 2¼ pints of milk contain
about 45 grammes of proteid, whereas, according to the usual figures (125 x
6/10) a boy of this age requires 75 g. This quantity of 45 g. is however, higher,
allowing for the boy's age, than that in several of the dietaries we have given in
our table. A little consideration will show that Dr. Haig has overlooked the
serious deficiency of the milk in the other constituents, which accounts for the
boy's loss of weight. The quantity of milk contains only about 160 g. of total
solid matter, whilst 400 g. is the necessary quantity. Milk is too rich in proteid
matter to form, with advantage, the sole food of a human being. Human milk
contains much less in proportion to the other constituents.

The old doctrine enunciated by Justus von Liebig was that proteid matter is the
principal source of muscular energy or strength. He afterwards discovered and
acknowledged his error, and the subject has since been thoroughly
investigated. The makers of meat extracts and other foods, either from their
own ignorance of modern research or their wish to take advantage of the lack
of knowledge and prejudice of the public, call proteid matter alone
nourishment. The carbo-hydrates and fats are equally entitled to be called
nourishment.

Our reason for devoting so much space to the consideration of the quantity of
proteid matter required, is that in the opinion of many eminent writers it is the
crux of vegetarianism. They have stated that it is impossible to obtain
sufficient from vegetable foods alone, without consuming an excessive
quantity of carbo-hydrates. We will summarise the argument as given in
Kirke's Physiology, as edited by Morrant Baker, a standard work, and which is
repeated in Furneaux's "Animal Physiology," a book which is much used in

elementary science schools: "The daily waste from the system amounts to,
carbon 4,500 grains (or 300 grammes), and nitrogen, 300 grains (or 20
grammes). Now let us suppose a person to feed on bread only. In order to
obtain the necessary quantity of nitrogen to repair this waste he would have to
eat nearly 4¼ lbs. daily.... He would be compelled to take about double the
quantity of carbon required in order to obtain the necessary weight of
nitrogen.... Next, let us suppose that he feeds on lean meat only. Then, in order
to obtain the necessary quantity of carbon, he must eat no less than 6½ lbs.
daily.... In this case we notice a similar waste of nitrogen, the removal of which
would give an undue amount of work to the organs concerned.... But it is
possible to take such a mixed diet of bread and meat as will supply all the
requirements of the system, and at the same time yield but little waste
material." (These extracts are from Furneaux, the next is from Kirke. The
figures and argument is the same in each, but we have chosen those sentences
for quotation which are the briefest and most suitable; certain calculations
being omitted.) "A combination of bread and meat would supply much more
economically what was necessary ... so that ¾ lbs. of meat, and less than 2 lbs.
of bread would supply all the needful carbon and nitrogen with but little waste.
From these facts it will be plain that a mixed diet is the best and most
economical food for man; and the result of experience entirely coincides with
what might have been anticipated on theoretical grounds only." Professor
Huxley, in his "Elementary Physiology" uses almost the same figures and
argument.

The adoption of this high proteid or nitrogen figure would lead to some
ridiculous conclusions. One writer states that 18 eggs would contain sufficient
flesh forming substance for a day's ration, but a very much larger quantity
would be required to supply enough carbon. On the other hand, Professor
Church says that, no less than 70 lbs. of pears would have to be eaten per day,
to supply the necessary quantity of nitrogen; although the carbon would be in
excess. The curious may calculate the proper quantity of each that would make
a theoretically perfect dietary. People are apt to assume that what they
themselves eat, or what their class, race, or nation eat, is the proper and
necessary diet; at least as far as the elementary constituents and quantities are
concerned. The error is in attempting to make a vegetarian diet, however
contrary to common sense and the experience of the greater part of the earth's
inhabitants, agree in composition with the ordinary lavish flesh dietary of the
well-to-do European. It is significant that John Bull is caricatured with a large
abdomen and a coarse, ruddy, if not inflamed face, indicative of his hearty

dining on flesh, coarse food and alcoholic drinks. An unhealthy short lived
individual. Even if we accept a high proportion of proteid, it is possible to
combine purely vegetable foods so as to give the required quantity of the
various constituents, without a superfluity of the carbo-hydrates. In "Food
Grains of India," Professor A.H. Church shows by elaborate analyses and
dietary tables, how this can be accomplished by various combinations of
cereals, pulses, etc. He takes Forster and Voit's standard of 282 grains of
nitrogen and 5,060 grains of carbon, with a suitable deduction for the smaller
weight of the Indians. In his examples of daily rations he gives from 5 to 9
ounces of various beans, balanced by the addition of the proper quantity of rice
—4 to 16 ounces, and a little oil. Such a large quantity of pulse appears to us
excessive, and would cause discomfort to most persons. We much doubt
whether those Indians who are strict vegetarians could consume such
quantities.

Some valuable investigations were made on the diet of a family of fruitarians,
at the Californian Agricultural Experimental Station, July, 1900, by Professor
M.E. Jaffa (bulletin 107). The proportion of food, both proteid and carbo-
hydrate used was surprisingly small. The research is particularly important, as
the diet was not an experimental one, tried during a short period only; but that
to which the family were accustomed. The family consisted of two women and
three children; they had all been fruitarians for five to seven years, and made
no change in their dietary during the experiment. They only had two meals a
day, the food being eaten uncooked. The quantities of all the foods and other
particulars are detailed in the bulletin. The first meal was at 10-30 a.m., and
always consisted of nuts followed by fruits. The other meal was about 5 p.m.,
when they usually ate no nuts, substituting olive oil and honey. The nuts used
were almonds, Brazil, pine, pignolias and walnuts; the fresh fruits were apples,
apricots, bananas, figs, grapes, oranges, peaches and pears. Other foods were
dates, raisins, pickled olives, olive oil and honey. One person (b) ate a little
celery and tomatoes, and another (c) a little cereal food. In the following table
are given the average daily quantities of the food constituents in grammes:—
Proteids, fat, carbo-hydrate, crude fibre, value in calories and nutrient ratio.
The crude fibre is classed as a carbo-hydrate and included in the calorie value,
and also in calculating the nutrient ratio.

The last research extended over ten days; the period during which each of the
other subjects was under observation was from 20 to 28 days.

(a) The tentative standard for a woman at light work calls for 90 grammes of
proteids and 2,500 calories; it is thus seen that the quantity of food eaten was
far below that usually stated as being necessary. The subject, however, was a
very small woman, 5 feet in height, taking almost no physical exercise. She
believed, as do fruitarians generally, that people need far less raw than cooked
food. (b) The food eaten was even less in quantity than in the previous dietary.
One reason for this was the fact that the subject was, for part of the time at
least, under great mental strain, and did not have her usual appetite. Even this
small amount of food, judging by her appearance and manner, seemed
sufficient for her needs, enabling her to do her customary housework and take
care of her two nieces and nephew, the subjects of the other experiments. (c)
This girl was given cereals and vegetables when she craved them, but her aunt
says she never looks nor feels so well when she has much starchy food, and
returns to her next meal of uncooked food with an increased appreciation of its
superiority. The commonly accepted dietary standard for a child 13 years old
and of average activity, is not far from 90 grammes of proteids and 2,450
calories, yet the girl had all the appearance of being well fed and in excellent
health and spirits. (d) During the 22 days of experiment, there was an increase
in weight of 2 pounds, due to the fact that the family had been in straitened
circumstances, and the food provided was more abundant during the study. (e)
The subject had been very delicate as a baby. She was very small for her age,
being 10 pounds under the average weight, and 7 inches less than the average
height. It is interesting to note that her only gain in weight during the past year
was made during this dietary and the one immediately following. This was due
to her being urged to eat all she wanted, of what she most preferred, as the
food was provided by those making the study. The proteid is less than the
tentative standard for a child of 1 to 2 years old, but the subject appeared
perfectly well and was exceedingly active. She impressed one as being a

healthy child, but looked younger than her age. (ee) The subject is the same as
in the previous experiment (e), but after an interval of 8 months, her seventh
birthday occurred during the time.

Professor Jaffa, who made the investigation, says:—"It would appear that all
the subjects were decidedly under-nourished, even making allowance for their
light weight. But when we consider that the two adults have lived upon this
diet for seven years, and think they are in better health and capable of more
work than they ever were before, we hesitate to pronounce judgment. The
three children had the appearance of health and strength. They ran and jumped
and played all day like ordinary healthy children, and were said to be
unusually free from colds and other complaints common to childhood. The
youngest child, and the only one who has lived as a fruitarian almost from
infancy was certainly undeveloped. She looked fully two years younger than
she was. Still, there are so many children who are below the average in
development, whose dietaries conform to the ordinary standards, that it would
be unfair to draw any conclusions until many more such investigations are
made."

The research shows that not only is there need of a revision of the "standard"
quantity of proteids, but also of the carbo-hydrates and fats. It is generally said
by those who have no practical experience amongst vegetarians, that the latter
require a much larger quantity of food than do those who include flesh. The
truth is that vegetarians eat less, often much less. It is a common experience
that vegetable food has a more staying power, and a much longer period can be
allowed between meals, without the inconvenience that a flesh-eater,
especially a flesh and alcohol consumer, suffers. This is due, in part at least, to
its less stimulating character and its slower digestion. This fact has been shown
by the success of vegetarians in feats of strength and endurance, and especially
in the comparatively fresh condition in which they have finished long walking,
cycling, tennis, and other matches. Those who attempt to prolong their powers
of endurance by flesh extracts and stimulating foods and drinks, usually finish
in a very exhausted condition. The superior endurance and recovery from
wounds, when compared with our English soldiers, of simple feeding men,
such as the Zulus, Turks and Japanese, has often been remarked. It is often said
that vegetable food, as it contains more fibre and is slower of digestion, taxes
the bodily organs more. If we attempted to eat uncooked, the more fibrous
vegetables, the grains, and unripe fruit, it would be quite true, but it is not so of
the ordinary food of vegetarians. A slowness of digestion does not necessarily

imply a greater strain on the system. As vegetables, in particular, are for the
longest period of time in the intestines, and undergo the greater part of their
digestion there, a gentle and slow process of digestion in that organ may be
more thorough. It may also entail less expenditure of nervous energy than if
the food had been of such a stimulating character, as to be hurried along the
digestive tract. Digestion is for the most part a chemical process. If the food is
of right kind and quantity, thoroughly masticated, assisted if necessary by
cookery, and the digestive ferments are normal, digestion proceeds without any
sensible expenditure or energy or consciousness of its accomplishment. There
is nothing improbable in a flesh-eater requiring more food than a simple living
vegetarian. His food contains more proteid, and excrementitious matter or
extractives; these stimulate the digestive organs and overtax the excretory
ones. Generally, he is fond of condiments, salt, and elaborate cooking, often
also of alcohol; if a man, probably of tobacco. He lives, as it were, at high
pressure.

There are on record certain experiments which appear to indicate the necessity
of a large proportion of proteid, especially when the diet has been of vegetable
origin. These experiments are inconclusive, because the subject has been
accustomed to an ordinary flesh diet, perhaps also to alcoholic drinks. The
change to a comparatively non-stimulating diet cannot be made, and the
digestive organs expected to adapt themselves in a few days. Perhaps not even
a month or a year would suffice, for some people, and yet that same diet would
suit others. In some experiments the food has not been appetising, the subject
has even taken it with reluctance or even loathing; an excess of some food has
been eaten which no vegetarian or anybody else would think of using in a
practical dietary.

Sometimes persons on changing from an ordinary flesh dietary, lose weight
and strength. Generally, it is found that they have done little more than
discontinue the flesh, without substituting suitable foods. Authorities think it is
from a deficiency of proteid, and recommend an addition of such foods as
pulse, wheatmeal, oatmeal, eggs, milk, cheese, and such as a reference to the
table of analyses, show a low nutrient ratio figure. This may also be due to an
insufficiency of food eaten, owing to the comparatively insipid character of the
food and want of appetite. In making a change to a vegetarian diet, such foods
had better be taken that are rather rich in proteid, and that approximate
somewhat in their flavour and manner of cooking to that used previously. A
further change to a simpler diet can afterwards gradually be made, according

to conviction, tastes and bodily adaptability. It must not be expected that a
change, even an ultimately very advantageous one, will always meet with an
immediate and proper response from digestive and assimilative organs which
have been accustomed for many years, perhaps by inheritance for generations,
to another manner of living. There are several preparations produced from
centrifugalised milk—that is milk from which the butter fat has been removed,
which consist chiefly of proteid. These have a value in increasing the proteid
contents of foods which may be thought deficient. The addition of these
manufactured products appear unnecessary, as most of our food contains an
abundance of proteid, and we can easily limit the quantity or avoid altogether
those that are thought defective.

The later apologists for a flesh diet have had to admit that it is not a
physiological necessity; but they have attempted to justify its use by a theory
somewhat as follows. It is admitted, that any excess of proteid over that
necessary for its special province of producing tissue, is utilised as a force-
producer, in a similar manner to the carbo-hydrates. When the molecule is split
up, and the carbon utilised, the nitrogen passes off in the form of urea by the
kidneys. The theory propounded is that at the moment the nitrogen portion is
liberated, it in some manner stimulates the living protoplasm of the nerve cells
in its immediate neighbourhood to a higher state of activity. These views are
given by Dr. Hutchison in his book on "Food," but there are no substantial
grounds for them. It is only prompted by a wish to excuse a cherished habit.
Sir William Roberts, M.D., in "Dietetics and Dyspepsia," p. 16 says that "high
feeding consists mainly in a liberal allowance of meat, and in the systematic
use of alcoholic beverages, and that low-feeding consists in a diet which is
mainly vegetarian and non-alcoholic," and he proceeds to say that the high-fed
classes and races display, on the whole, a richer vitality and a greater brain-
power than their low-fed brethren. That "it is remarkable how often we hear of
eminent men being troubled with gout, and gout is usually produced either by
personal or ancestral high-feeding." We can only spare room for a few remarks
on this subject. Intellectual and business ability brings wealth, wealth
frequently leads to the pleasures of the table, but such habits are detrimental to
sustained effort and clearness of mind. The children and grandchildren of such
high livers are usually common-place, intellectually, and of deteriorated
physique. The aristocracy who are generally high livers, notwithstanding their
great advantages of education, travel and leisure, are not as a rule famed for
their intellectual gifts. In the recent war the frugal living Japanese soldier has
proved himself the most enduring and bravest in history; whilst the Japanese

officers are more resourceful and tactful than the wealthier, high-fed Russian
officers, with their aristocratic lineage. What is called high-feeding, is of the
greatest benefit to the doctors and the proprietors of remedies for digestive and
nervous disorders.

Food Adjuncts and Drugs.—In addition to the nutrients and the small
quantity of indigestible fibre of which we have already written, food generally
contains small quantities of substances which are difficult to classify, and
whose action on the body is but imperfectly understood. Many of these possess
pungent or strong odours and flavours. To them, various fruits, meats, etc.,
owe much of their characteristic differences of taste. When pure the proteids
and starches are devoid of taste. Such oils and fats as are generally eaten have
also but little flavour, providing they are free from rancidity and of good
quality. The sugars differ from the other nutrients in possessing a more or less
decided taste. The free vegetable acids also strongly affect the sense of taste,
but they are only consumed in small quantities.

A drug may be defined as a substance which modifies the functions of the
body or of some organ without sensibly imparting nourishment. This action
may be one of stimulation or of depression. A drug is taken for its medicinal
action, a food adjunct for its modifying action on food. It is impossible to give
a quite satisfactory definition, or to draw sharp distinctions. For example, tea,
coffee, alcohol and tobacco are sometimes placed in one group, and sometimes
in another, according to opinion of their action and the definition of the terms
food adjuncts, drugs and poisons. The difference of grouping often depends
upon intensity rather than of kind of action. If taken frequently and not in
quantity sufficient to have a markedly medicinal action, such things are
generally called food adjuncts or supplementary foods, although much may be
said in favour of a different view. The volatile oils of mustard, caraway, cloves,
etc., are used in medicine; also the alkaloids of coffee and cocoa. Even honey
is used as a mild laxative for infants; that is, as a drug. The difference between
a drug and a poison is one only of degree. Some of the most esteemed drugs
have to be administered in very small quantities, or they cause death; e.g.,
strychnine and morphine.

Classifications are necessary for methodical study, and for assisting the
memory in grasping large numbers of things which can be grouped together.
Classifications, however, are artificial, not due to natural lines of demarkation,
but according to man's knowledge and convenience; hence a group is apt to

approach and finally merge into another group, although on first consideration
they appeared quite distinct. The disregard of this often leads to confusion and
useless discussions.

Plants, like animals, as the result of tissue change, have certain used-up or
waste matters to get out of the way. Animals have special excretory organs for
the purpose; waste matter remains in the flesh and blood of dead animals. In
plants are found a large number of powerful volatile oils, alkaloids, bitter
resins, etc. Many of these are, in all probability, excretory products of no
assimilative value to the plant. Certain volatile oils may attract insects, and in
obtaining nectar from flowers insects assist fertilisation. Agreeable volatile oils
and flavouring substances in fruits attract birds and animals. The eating of the
fruits cause the seeds, which are uninjured by passing through the digestive
system, to be disseminated over wide areas to the advantage of the plant
species. On the other hand, nauseous and poisonous alkaloids, oils, resins, etc.,
serve as a protection against the attacks of browsing animals, birds,
caterpillars, snails, etc. These nauseous substances are most abundant in the
bark, husk, skin and outer parts. It is commonly supposed that the food on
which each animal, including man, subsists, is especially produced by Nature
for the purpose. This is an error, for each species of plant and animal lives for
itself alone, and protects itself, with more or less success, against destruction
by its competitors and enemies. Each species of animal selects from its
surroundings such food as is most suitable. Such food may not be theoretically
perfect; that is, it may not contain the maximum of nourishment free from
innutritious matter; but during the long period of evolution, each species of
animal has become possessed of organs suited to its environment. If to such
animals be given food containing less indigestible matter, or food which is
more readily digested by laboratory tests made independently of the living
animal, their digestive system will be thrown out of gear, become clogged up
or refuse to work properly, just as the furnace of a steam boiler, made to burn
coal, will act badly with wood or petroleum. Many scientific men have
overlooked this fact, and have endeavoured to produce food substances for
general consumption, in the most concentrated and soluble form, thinking such
food would be more easily assimilated.

The Volatile and Essential Oils are contained in minute quantity in a very
large number of animal and vegetable foods. They contribute in part to the
flavour of fruits. They are the cause of the pungency and aroma of mustard,
horse-radish, cloves, nutmegs, cinnamon, caraway seeds, mint, sage and other

spices. Onions contain a notable quantity. When extracted the essential oils
become powerful drugs. In moderate quantities they are stomachic and
carminative, in larger quantities irritant and emetic. Condiments and spices not
only add flavour to food, but stimulate the secretion of gastric juice and
peristaltic movement.

The Alkaloids most used are those of tea, coffee, kola-nut, cocoa, coca,
tobacco and opium. Although the two last are generally smoked, they must be
classed amongst the food adjuncts. It is of little consequence whether their
active principles enter the body by the mouth and saliva or the lungs; their
action on the blood and nervous system is the same.

The Extractives, as they are called, comprise a number of bodies of varying
nature. They especially exist in flesh and flesh extracts. Amongst these are the
purins. They will be treated at greater length hereafter.

Alcohol is to some extent a true food, but its stimulant and other action quite
overshadows any food value it may possess.

There are other bodies such as the resins and bitters. The active principle of
Indian hemp is a resin.

There is a great difference of opinion as to the extent to which stimulants may
advantageously be used. It is remarkable that amongst nearly all nations, either
alcohol in some form or one of the stronger alkaloids is in common use. From
this fact it is sometimes argued that stimulants must supply a physiological
need. The same method of reasoning will apply with greater force to the use of
condiments. Such conclusions appear to us to be scarcely warranted. If the
extensive or even universal practice of a thing proves its necessity, then has
there been justification, either now or in the past, for war, lying, avarice and
other vices. It is strange that drugs differing so greatly in their immediate and
obvious effects as, for example, alcohol and opium, or coffee and tobacco
should be used. Should it he said that only some of the much used stimulants
are useful, there is an end to the argument based on their universal use. There
is no doubt that the use of stimulants in more than very small quantities is
distinctly injurious, and it is difficult to see what physiological advantage there
can be in their habitual use, to what is vaguely called a moderate extent.
Sometimes they are taken for a supposed medical necessity, and where taste
attracts, little evidence satisfies. Those in the habit of taking them, if honest,

must confess that it is chiefly on account of the apparent enjoyment. The ill-
nourished and the depressed in body and mind crave most for stimulants. A
food creates energy in the body, including the nervous system, and this is the
only legitimate form of stimulation. A mere stimulant does not create but
draws on the reserve forces. What was latent energy—to become in the natural
course gradually available—under stimulation is rapidly set free; there is
consequently, subsequent depletion of energy. There may occasionally be
times when a particular organ needs a temporary stimulus to increased action,
notwithstanding it may suffer an after depression; but such cases are so rare
that they may be left out of our present argument, and stimulants should only
be used, like other powerful drugs, under medical advice. In the last 25 years
the use of alcohol by the medical profession has steadily diminished, its
poisonous properties having become more evident.

There is a general similarity in the effects of stimulants on the digestive and
nervous systems. The most largely used stimulant is ethyl alcohol, and as its
action is best known, it may be useful to name the principal effects. Alcohol in
the form of wine and spirits, in small quantities, first stimulates the digestive
organs. Large quantities inflame the stomach and stop digestion. (Beer,
however, retards digestion, altogether out of proportion to the alcohol it
contains.) Alcohol increases the action of the heart, increases the blood
pressure, and causes the vessels of the whole body to dilate, especially those of
the skin; hence there is a feeling of warmth. It the person previously felt cold
he now feels warm. The result of the increased circulation through the various
organs is that they work with greater vigour, hence the mental faculties are
brightened for a time, and the muscular strength seems increased. The person
usually feels the better for it, though this is not always the case; some have a
headache or feel very sleepy. It has been repeatedly proved that these good
results are but transitory. The heart, although at first stimulated, is more
exhausted after the action of the alcohol has passed away than it was at first.
This is true of all the organs of the body which were stimulated. In
consequence of the dilatation of the blood vessels of the skin, an unusual
quantity of heat is lost and the body is cooled. After taking alcohol persons are
less able to stand cold. When overtaken by snowstorms or subjected to
excessive or prolonged cold, it has often happened that those who resorted to
spirit drinking have succumbed, whilst the others have survived. Insurance
statistics have conclusively shown that teetotallers are longer livers than the
so-called moderate drinkers. The terrible effects on both body and mind of the
excessive drinking of alcohol, or the use of other strong stimulants or

narcotics, are too obvious to need allusion to here; we are only concerned with
what is vaguely called their moderate use.

The stimulation produced by tea and coffee is in some respects like that of
alcohol. The heart is stimulated and the blood pressure rises. The kidneys are
strongly affected in those unaccustomed to the drug, but this ceases after a
week or more of use. Their chief effect is on the brain and nervous system.

Many have boasted that they can take of what they call the good things of life
to their full, without any bad effect, and looking over a few years, or even
many years, it seems a fact. Some of us have known of such men, who have
been esteemed for their joviality and good nature, who have suddenly broken
down at what should have been a hearty middle life. On the other hand there
are men who were badly equipped for the battle of life, with indifferent
constitutions, who never had the buoyancy and overflow of animal spirits, but
who with care have long outlived all their formerly more robust but careless
companions.

Simple versus Highly-flavoured Foods.—It is very difficult to decide to what
extent condiments and flavourings should be used. These have stimulating
properties, although differing from the more complex properties of alcohol and
the alkaloids. The great differences in the dietetic practices of nations does not
appear to be in conformity with any general rule. It varies with opportunity,
climate and national temperament; though doubtless the national temperament
is often due in part to the dietetic habits. Some races are content with the
simplest foods, large numbers subsist chiefly on rice, others on the richer
cereals, wheat, oatmeal, etc., and fruit. On the other hand there are races who
enjoy stronger flavoured food, including such things as garlic, curry, pickles,
pepper, strong cheese, meat extracts, rancid fats, dried and smoked fish, high
game or still more decomposed flesh, offal and various disgusting things. The
Greenlanders will eat with the keenest appetite, the half-frozen, half-putrid
head and fins of the seal, after it has been preserved under the grass of
summer. In Burmah and Sumatra a mess is made by pounding together prawns,
shrimps, or any cheap fish; this is frequently allowed to become partially
putrid. It is largely used as a condiment for mixing with their rice. Numerous
examples of this sort could be given. There is scarcely anything that it is
possible to eat, but has been consumed with relish by some tribe or other. The
strongest flavoured, and to our minds most disgusting foods are eaten by the
least intelligent and most brutal races. It is hunger that compels the poor

African bushman to eat anything he can get, and the Hottentot not only the
flesh, but the entrails of cattle which die naturally, and this last he has come to
think exquisite when boiled in beast-blood. All this shows a wonderful range
of adaptability in the human body, but it would not be right to say that all such
food is equally wholesome. The most advanced and civilised races, especially
the more delicately organised of them are the most fastidious, whilst it is the
most brutal, that take the most rank and strongly flavoured foods. Even
amongst the civilised there are great differences. The assimilative and nervous
systems can be trained to tolerate injurious influences to a remarkable degree.
A striking example is seen in the nausea commonly produced by the first pipe
of tobacco, and the way the body may in time be persuaded, not only to
tolerate many times such a quantity without manifesting any unpleasant
feelings, but to receive pleasure from the drug. Opium or laudanum may be
taken in gradually increasing quantities, until such a dose is taken as would at
first have produced death, yet now without causing any immediate or very
apparent harm. Nearly all drugs loose much of their first effect on continued
use. Not only is this so, but a sudden discontinuance of a drug may cause
distress, as the body, when free from the artificial stimulation to which it has
become habituated, falls into a sluggish or torpid condition. For the enjoyment
of food two things are equally necessary, a healthy and keen appetite and
suitable food; without the first no food, however good and skilfully prepared,
will give satisfaction. The sense of taste resides in certain of the papilloe of the
tongue, and to a much less degree in the palate. Tastes may be classified into
sweet, bitter, acid and saline. Sweet tastes are best appreciated by the tip, acid
by the side, and bitter by the back of the tongue. Hot or pungent substances
produce sensations of general feeling, which obscure any strictly gustatory
sensations which may be present at the same time. To affect the taste the food
must enter into solution. Like the other senses, taste may be rendered more
delicate by cultivation. Flavours are really odours, and the word smell would
be more appropriate. For example, what we call the taste of an onion, the
flavour of fruit, etc. (independent of the sweetness or sourness of the fruit) is
due to the nose.

Much has been written on the necessity of making food tasty, so as to stimulate
the appetite and digestion. It is urged that unless this is done food will not be
eaten in sufficient quantity. Innumerable receipts (some very elaborate) have
been published for this purpose. All this is supposed to increase the enjoyment
of food. The Anglo-Saxon race—the race whose dietary is the most elaborate
—is especially subject to digestive derangements, and without good digestion

and the consequent healthy appetite, no food will give full gustatory pleasure.
The most wholesome food, and that which can be eaten most frequently
without weariness, is mildly flavoured and simply prepared. Plain bread is an
example; whereas sweet bread, currant bread, etc., though agreeable in small
quantity, or as an occasional delicacy, soon palls on the appetite. Rice is the
poorest and mildest flavoured of the cereals, it is therefore often, perhaps
generally, made more tasty by the addition of fish, curry, etc. The bulk of the
Chinese live on rice, with the exception of only 3 or 4 ounces of fish per day,
and they are a fine, big and strong race. The Japanese labourer lives on similar
food. In India rice is the food most in use, though many other cereals are eaten
there. Other races live chiefly on fruits. It appears that the digestive organs will
perform their functions perfectly with the mildest flavoured food. There is
nothing surprising in this. The strongest, most intelligent, and largest animals
are those which feed on grass, herbs and fruits. Even the African lion is no
match for the gorilla. The lion and tiger are capable of great strength, but they
cannot put it forth for long periods as can the herbivora. Our most useful
animal, the horse, can exert much more muscular energy, weight for weight,
than any of the carnivora. The cost of feeding one of the herbivora is much less
than that of one of the carnivora of the same weight. This is so whether we
take the cost of purchasing the food; or the expenditure of time, labour and
energy on the part of man or of natural forces in the production of the food.
Herbs, roots, corn and fruit are produced much more abundantly and freely
than the corresponding quantity of sheep, deer, etc., on which the carnivora
feed.

The restlessness, craving for novelty, and love of excitement, so characteristic
of the Anglo-Saxon, and to a less extent of some other European races, has its
correspondence in the food of these races. Highly-seasoned and nitrogenous
foods act as a stimulant and favour spasmodic, and for a time perhaps, great
intellectual and physical exertion, with a succeeding period of exhaustion.
Simpler food favours long, sustained, uniform muscular strength, clearness of
intellect, and contentment. Let no one misunderstand us; we do not assert that
all who live on simple food have either clear intellects or are contented,
because there are other factors besides food, but that such qualities are more
easily retained or obtained under that condition. It is well known that the over-
fed and badly fed are the most irritable and discontented Those living on a
stimulating dietary consisting largely of flesh have their chief successes in
feats of short duration. Simple and abstemious living individuals or races excel

in laborious work requiring endurance over long periods, such as long
walking, cycling, and other athletic feats and long military campaigns.

The digestive and assimilative organs need the food constituents of which we
have written, in proper proportion and quantity, and in a fairly digestible
condition. Within these very wide and comprehensive limits, the organs can be
trained. Very much of the great difference in food is due to the non-essential
flavouring and stimulating part, rather than to that part which is essential and
nourishing. What is the best, interests but few; whilst what is at present the
pleasantest, influences the many. The ego, the superphysical conscious and
reasoning entity should rule its material body, its temporary vehicle. The body,
being the servant of the ego, just as a horse, dog, or other of the lower animals
recognises its master, becomes a docile subject. The body can be led into good
habits nearly as easily as into bad ones; often more easily, as bad habits are
sometimes painfully acquired. The body being once habituated to certain
movements, conditions, foods or drinks, within reasonable limits, derives
pleasure therefrom and resists change. It is only when the food, etc.,
transgresses certain elementary principles, that the result is more or less
painful. We may on scientific principles condemn flesh-foods, stimulants and
elaborately prepared foods; but after ruling all this out, there is still left a very
great variety of foods and methods of preparing them: hereon each individual
must form his own opinion. Of the foods thus left, the same kind is not equally
suitable to everyone, nor even to the same person at different periods.

A delicately balanced, fine-grained, high-toned mind and body responds to
every tender influence, and is painfully jarred by that which is coarse. To such,
fruits and delicately flavoured and easily digested foods are doubtless best and
conducive to purity and clearness of thought. A coarse-grained, badly poised,
roughly working body and spirit, is non-responsive except to loud or coarse
impulses; and such a one's appetite is gratified, not by simple but by coarsely
seasoned foods.

A person who is accustomed to a stimulating dietary of flesh-foods, especially
if well-seasoned, finds a simple diet unsatisfying. Should such persons dine off
simple vegetarian food, there is a tendency to over-eating. The less stimulating
food fails to rouse the digestive organs and to appease the appetite; although an
ample supply of nourishment be consumed. This is the reason why so many
imagine that it is necessary to eat a larger quantity of food if it be vegetable.
Should a distressing fulness and flatulence result from their over-feeding, they

lay the blame to the vegetarian dietary instead of to themselves. Most persons,
on changing to a vegetarian dietary, commence by imitating flesh dishes in
appearance and flavour and even in the names. There is the additional
inducement that the food may be attractive and palatable to friends who lack
sympathy with the aesthetic and humane principles of the diet. After a while
many of them incline to simpler flavoured foods. They revert to the
unperverted taste of childhood, for children love sweets, fruits, and mild-
flavoured foods rather than savouries. One who loves savouries, as a rule,
cares much less for fruits. By compounding and cooking, a very great variety
of foods can be prepared, but the differences in taste are much less than is
usually, supposed. The effect of seasoning instead of increasing the range,
diminishes it, by dulling the finer perception of flavours. The predominating
seasoning also obscures everything else. The mixture of foods produces a
conglomeration of tastes in which any particular or distinct flavours are
obscured, resulting in a general sameness. It is often stated that as an ordinary
flesh-eater has the choice of a greater range of foods and flavours than a
vegetarian, he can obtain more enjoyment, and that the latter is disagreeably
restricted. Certainly he has the choice, but does he avail himself of it to any
considerable extent? No one cares to take all the different kinds of food,
whether of animal or vegetable that are possible. Of edible animals but a very
few kinds are eaten. A person who particularly relishes and partakes largely of
flesh-foods will reject as insipid and unsatisfying many mild-flavoured foods
at one end of the scale. The vegetarian may abstain from foods at the opposite
end of the scale, not always from humane reasons, but because they are
unpleasant. Thus there may be little to choose between the mere range of
flavours that give enjoyment to each class of persons. The sense of taste is in
its character and range lower than the sense of sight and hearing. The
cultivation of the taste for savouries seems to blunt the taste for fruits and the
delicate foods. The grass and herbs on which the herbivora subsist, seems to
our imagination of little flavour and monotonous; but they eat with every sign
of enjoyment, deliberately munching their food as though to get its full flavour.
In all probability they find a considerable range of flavours in the great
varieties of grasses commonly found together in a pasture.

Our elaborate cooking customs entail a vast amount of labour. They necessitate
the cost, trouble and dirt from having fires in great excess of that required for
warmth: the extra time in preparing, mixing and attending to food which has to
be cooked: and the large number of greasy and soiled utensils which have to be
cleaned. Cooked savoury food is generally much nicer eaten hot, and this

necessitates fires and attention just previous to the meal. We have already said
that soft cooked food discourages mastication and leads to defective teeth. Our
elaborate cookery is mainly due to our custom of eating so largely of flesh,
whilst the eating of flesh would receive a great impetus on the discovery of the
art of cooking. Flesh can only be eaten with relish and with safety when
cooked. Such a large proportion of it is infected with parasites, or is otherwise
diseased, that it would he dangerous to eat it raw, even were it palatable in
such a state. In those countries where man eats flesh in a raw or semi-cooked
form, parasitic diseases are common. There is not the least doubt that our habit
of eating so much cooked food is responsible for much over-eating, hasty
eating, dyspepsia and illness. In regard to the making of bread, porridge, and
many other comparatively simple prepared foods, the advantages of cooking
seem overwhelmingly great. With our present imperfect knowledge and
conflicting opinions, it is impossible to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion,
and the whole question requires careful and impartial investigation.
Experiments have been made with animals, chiefly pigs, with cooked and
uncooked clover, hay, corn, meal, etc. (U.S. Department of Agriculture). It was
found that the food was more or less diminished in digestibility by cooking. At
least 13 separate series of experiments with pigs in different part of the country
have been reported. In 10 of these trials there has been a positive loss from
cooking the food. The amount of food required to produce in the animal a
pound gain in weight was larger when the food had been cooked than when it
was given raw. In some cases, the increased quantity of food required after
cooking was considerable.

Those who live on uncooked food contend that a smaller quantity of
nourishment is required. As uncooked food requires more mastication and is
eaten more slowly, there is a better flow of saliva and time is given for the
digestive organs to be gradually brought into complete action, and finally for
the appeasing of the appetite. In the case of the members of the fruitarian
family, whose food was uncooked, and of whom we have previously written,
the quantity of nutriment taken was much less than that thought necessary,
even after making full allowance for their small stature and weight.

Meat Extracts.—Justus von Liebig, the great German chemist, was the first to
attempt to make these on the commercial scale. He described a method in
1847, and this not proving satisfactory, another one in 1865. He stated that the
only practicable plan on a manufacturing scale, was to treat the chopped flesh
with eight to ten times its weight of water, which was to be raised to 180° F. In

another passage he says it is to be boiled for half-an-hour. After straining from
all the undissolved meat fibre, etc., and carefully cleansing from all fat, the
decoction is to be evaporated to a soft extract; such a preparation is practically
free from albumin, gelatin and fat; all the nutritive principles except the saline
matter having been extracted. Liebig states that 34 pounds of meat are required
to produce 1 pound of extract. In 1872, he wrote "neither tea nor extract of
meat are nutritive in the ordinary sense," and he went on to speak of their
medicinal properties. Druit, in 1861, in describing the effect of a liquid
preparation of meat, states that it exerted a rapid and stimulating action on the
brain, and he proposed it as an auxiliary and partial substitute for brandy, in all
case of great exhaustion or weakness attended with cerebral depression or
despondency. In like manner, a feast of animal food in savages, whose
customary diet was almost exclusively vegetable, has been described by
travellers as producing great excitement and stimulation similar to that of
intoxicating spirits. Similar effects have been observed from a copious
employment of Liebig's extract. Voit asserts, from the results of his
experiments, that extract of meat is practically useless as a food, and other
authorities are quite of the same opinion, although they may value it as a
stimulant and drug. _The Extra Pharmacopæia_, 1901, states that "Liebig's
Extract or Lemco consists of creatin, creatinin, globulin and urea, with organic
potash and other salts. It has been much over-estimated as a food either for
invalids or healthy persons; still it is often valuable as a flavouring to add to
soups, beef-tea, etc., and it is a nerve food allied to tea." Meat extracts
stimulate the action of the heart and the digestive processes, but as in the case
of other stimulants there is a succeeding period of depression. The British
Medical Journal says that the widespread belief in the universal suitability of
concentrated beef-tea is frequently responsible for increasing the patient's
discomfort, and is even capable in conditions of kidney inefficiency, of
producing positive harm. Some of the meat bases, the leucomaines, have been
found to possess marked poisonous effects on the body. The manfacturers of
meat extracts continue to mislead the public by absurdly false statements of the
value of their products. They assert that their extracts contain the nutritive
matter of 30, 40 or 50 times their weight of fresh meat, or that one or two
meat-lozenges are sufficient for a meal. One company, asserts by direct
statement, or imply by pictorial advertisement, that the nutritive matter in an
ox can be concentrated into the bulk of a bottle of extract; and another
company that a tea-cup full is equivalent in food value to an ox. Professor
Halliburton writes: "Instead of an ox in a tea-cup, the ox's urine in a tea-cup
would be much nearer the fact, for the meat extract consists largely of products

on the way to urea, which more nearly resemble in constitution the urine than
they do the flesh of the ox." Professor Robert Bartholow has also stated that
the chemical composition of beef-tea closely resembles urine, and is more an
excrementitious substance than a food. Those whose business it is to make a
pure meat-broth, for the purpose of preparing therefrom a nutrient for
experimenting with bacteria, cannot fail to recognise its similarity both in
odour and colour to urine. Little consideration is needful to show the
untruthfulness and the absurdity of the statements made by manufacturers as to
the food value of these extracts. Fresh lean beef contains about 25 per cent. of
solid nutriment and 75 per cent. of water. If lean beef be desiccated, one pound
will be reduced to four ounces of perfectly dry substance; this will consist of
about 80 per cent. of proteid matter and nearly 20 per cent. of fat including a
little saline matter and the extractives. This is as far as it is possible to
concentrate the beef. If it were possible to remove, without interfering with the
nutritious constituents, the membraneous matter, the creatin, creatinine and
purin bodies, we should reduce it to a little less than four ounces. It is very
remarkable that the most nutritious matter of the beef, the muscle substance or
proteid and the fat, are rejected in making Liebig's extract, whilst the effete or
waste products are retained. In Bovril and some other preparations, some meat
fibre has been added with the object of imparting a definite food value. Hence
in some advertisements, now withdrawn, it was alleged that the preparations
were immensely superior in nutritive value to ordinary meat extracts. The
Bovril Company extensively circulated the following:—"It is hard for ladies to
realise that the beef tea they make at home from the choicest fresh beef
contains absolutely no nourishment and is nothing more than a slight
stimulant. It is so, however, and many a patient has been starved on beef tea,
whether made from fresh beef or from the meat extracts that are sold to the
public. From these Bovril differs so much that one ounce of its nutritious
constituents contains more real and direct nourishment than fifty ounces of
ordinary meat extract." If analyses of meat extracts are referred to, it will be
seen that the principal part of Bovril is the meat bases and other things
common to all such extracts, and which the Company in their circular so
emphatically condemn. If the meat fibre, which is the principal, if not the sole
difference, is the only nourishing constituent, it is difficult to see the advantage
over ordinary beef, which can be procured at a very small proportionate cost.
Concerning this added meat fibre, C.A. Mitchell, in "Flesh Foods," writes: "As
this amounts to at most some 8 or 10 per cent., it is obvious that a large
quantity of the substance would be required to obtain as much unaltered
proteid as is contained in an egg. On the other hand, it has been pointed out

that there is nothing to show that flesh powder suspended in meat extract is
more digestible than ordinary flesh in the same fine state of division, whilst the
amount of flesh bases, the principal stimulating agents, is correspondingly
reduced." Concerning added albumin and meat fibre, A.H. Allen, in
"Commercial Organic Analysis," vol. iv., writes: "The amount of these
constituents present in such a quantity of meat extract as is usually, or could
be, taken at a time, is too insignificant to give it any appreciable value as
nutriment." Notwithstanding such statements by analysts and others, Bovril is
advertised to contain "the entire nourishment of prime ox-beef." The great
extent of the extract of meat trade is shown by a circular issued by the Lemco
and Oxo Company. They give the number of their cattle killed since 1865 as
5,550,000; stock of cattle 160,000; employees in works, farms and branches,
3,200. This is only one out of many such companies. It is a sad thing that
myriads of animals should be slaughtered with all the horrible and brutalising
surroundings of the slaughter-house to such a purpose—the nutritious matter
being nearly all wasted. Reliance on these extracts is responsible for much
sickness and death. Instead of their preventing colds, influenza, and other
complaints as is professed, they predispose to them by overloading the body
with waste products, taxing the excretory organs and reducing the vitality. The
following analyses of meat extracts are by Otto Hehner:—

Some of the "Liebig's Extract of Meat" so called, contains yeast extract; some
even, is almost entirely, if not altogether made from yeast. The latter can be
manufactured at a very low cost from brewers' and distillers' waste products,
and there is a strong incentive for unscrupulous dealers to substitute it secretly.
Artificial meat extracts prepared from yeast have the appearance and taste of
meat extracts, but some, at least, have a considerably sharper flavour. In one
method of manufacture common salt is added, and this renders it unfit for use
in more than very small quantities as a flavouring. J. Graff has made analyses
of ten yeast extracts, and contrasted them with meat extracts (see Analyst 1904,
page 194), and says, "It will be seen that the chemical composition of yeast
extract does not greatly differ from that of meat extract." Yeast extracts contain
purin bodies, and are probably equally as injurious as meat extracts. Such
strong and rank flavours (the odour is suggestive to us of putrefaction) should
be discouraged by those who would cultivate a refined taste in food.

Flesh Bases and Waste Products.—As the result of destructive
metamorphosis or the wearing out of the body, there remain certain waste
products which have to be expelled as soon as is possible. Their retention and
accumulation would soon produce death. A part is expelled by the lungs as
carbon-dioxide, or as it is generally though less correctly termed, carbonic
acid. Upon the breaking down of the complex proteid and other nitrogenous
matter, the nitrogen is left in comparatively simple combinations. These effete
nitrogen compounds are commonly termed flesh bases or nitrogenous
extractives. They exist in small quantity in flesh meat, but are concentrated and
conserved in the making of beef-tea or beef-extract. The spleen, lymphatic and
other glands, and especially the liver, break these down into still simpler
compounds, so that the kidneys may readily separate them from the blood, that
they may pass out of the body. By far the largest part of this waste nitrogen is

expelled from the bodies of men and many other mammals in the form of urea.
Pure urea is an odourless transparent crystalline substance, of cooling saline
taste like nitre. It is soluble in an equal volume of water, and is expelled from
the body with great ease. In the herbivora the nitrogenous waste takes the form
of another body called hippuric acid. The nearly solid light-coloured urinary
excretion of birds and serpents consists of urates; this is uric acid in
combination with alkalies. In man, in addition to the urea excreted, there is
also a little hippuric and uric acid or compounds of these. Uric acid is a
transparent colourless crystalline body almost insoluble in water but soluble as
urates in the presence of alkalies. As deposited from urine it is of a dull red
sand-like appearance, as it has a great affinity for any colouring matter that is
present.

It is only possible to make a brief reference to the chief organic bases. The
xanthine bases are closely related to uric acid. Some of these occur in small
quantity in the urine and animal tissues, others, such as caffeine, occur in
plants. Creatine is a constant constituent of muscle substance. In fowl's flesh
there is said to be 0.32 per cent., in cod-fish 0.17 per cent., and in beef 0.07 per
cent. Creatinine is produced from creatine with great facility; it exists in urine.
Both creatine and creatinine are readily soluble in water. A series of bases,
closely allied to creatinine have been isolated from the flesh of large animals
by A. Gautier; they are known as Gautier's flesh bases. When administered to
animals, these act more or less powerfully on the nerve centres, inducing sleep
and in some cases causing vomiting and purging in a manner similar to the
alkaloids of snake venom, but less powerfully than the ptomaines. These bases
are formed during life as a result of normal vital processes and are termed
leucomaines.

Another class of bases of an alkaloidal nature, are termed ptomaines; these
differ from the leucomaines, being produced by putrefactive or bacterial
agency from dead flesh. The poisoning which has occasionally resulted from
the eating of sausages, pork-pies, tinned meats, etc., is due to their having
contained ptomaines.

Such quantities of waste products as are produced in the healthy body are
excreted with ease, but it is otherwise in certain diseases. Either specially
noxious substances are produced, or the usual substances are in excessive
quantity and not eliminated with sufficient rapidity; in consequence the body is
poisoned. Those who eat largely of flesh, introduce into their system the

excretory matter contained therein, which super-added to the excretory matter
resulting from the vital processes of the body puts an unusual and unnatural
strain upon the liver and kidneys. It has been observed, that the eating of the
flesh of some trapped animals has produced severe symptoms of poisoning.
The pain and horror of having a limb bleeding and mangled in a most cruel
steel trap, the struggles which only add to the misery, slowly being done to
death during hours or even days of torture, has produced in their bodies
virulent poisons. Leucomaine poisons have also been produced by the violent
and prolonged exertions of an animal, fleeing from its pursuers, until its
strength was completely spent. Cases are also known, where a mother nursing
her infant, has given way to violent anger or other emotion, and the child at the
breast has been made violently ill. We must not expect the flesh of any hunted
or terrified animals to be wholesome. Animals brought in cattle ships across
the Atlantic, suffer acutely. After rough weather they will often arrive in a
maimed condition, some being dead. To this is added the terror and cruelty to
which they are subjected whilst driven by callous drovers, often through a
crowded city, to the slaughter house to which they have an instinctive dread. It
is only to be expected that the dead flesh from such animals, should contain an
unusually large quantity of the more poisonous flesh bases.

Purin Bodies.—The term purin has been applied to all bodies containing the
nucleus C5N4. It comprises the xanthine group and the uric acid group of
bodies. The principal purins are hypoxanthin, xanthin, uric acid, guanin,
adenin, caffeine and theobromine. Purins in the body may either result from
the wear and tear of certain cell contents, when they are called endogenous
purins; or they are introduced in the food, when they are distinguished as
exogenous purins. These purins are waste products and are readily converted
into uric acid. The production of some uric acid by tissue change is, of course,
unavoidable; but that resulting from the purins in food is under control.

An excess of uric acid is commonly associated with gout and similar diseases.
The morbid phenomena of gout are chiefly manifested in the joints and
surrounding tissues. The articular cartilages become swollen, with ensuing
great pain. There is an accumulation of mortar like matter about the joints.
This is calcium urate (not sodium urate as is generally stated). These nodular
concretions are called tophi or chalkstones.

Very many are the hypotheses which have been propounded on the cause of
gout and the part played by uric acid; many have had to be discarded or greatly

modified. Though much light has recently been thrown on the subject, there
remains much that is obscure. The subject is one which is surrounded with
great difficulties, and would not be suitable for discussion here, were it not for
the following reason: Certain views on uric acid as the cause of gout and
several other diseases, are at the present time being pushed to the extreme in
some health journals and pamphlets. Unfortunately many of the writers have
very little knowledge, either of chemistry or physiology, and treat the question
as though it were a simple one that had been quite settled. Our purpose is to
clear the ground to some extent, for a better understanding of its fundamentals,
and to warn against dogmatism. Our remarks, however, must be brief. It is
undeniable that great eaters of meat, especially if they also take liberally of
alcoholic drinks, are prone to diseases of the liver and kidneys, about or soon
after the time of middle life. Flesh meat contains relatively large quantities of
purins. Purins are metabolised in the body to uric acid, about half of the uric
acid produced in the body disappears as such, being disintegrated, whilst the
other half remains to be excreted by the kidneys.

One view is that whilst the organs of the body can readily dispose of its
endogenous uric acid, or that produced by its own tissue change, together with
the small amount of uric acid derived from most foods, the organs are strained
by the larger quantity introduced in flesh-food or any other food rich in purins:
that there is an accumulation in the system of some of this uric acid. Vegetable
foods tend to keep the blood alkaline, flesh possesses less of this property;
alkalinity of the blood is thought to be favourable to the elimination of uric
acid, whilst anything of an acid nature acts contrarily. Dr. Alexander Haig
writes "I consider that every man who eats what is called ordinary diet with
butcher's meat twice a day, and also drinks acid wine or beer, will, by the time
he is 50, have accumulated 300 to 400 grains of uric acid in his tissues, and
possibly much more; and about this time, owing to the large amount of uric
acid in his body, he will probably be subject to attacks of some form of gout or
chronic rheumatism." Dr. Haig ascribes to the presence of uric acid in the
system, not only gout and rheumatism, but epilepsy, hysteria, mental and
bodily depression, diseases of the liver, kidneys, brain, etc.

The opinion of the majority of eminent medical men, during recent years, is
that uric acid is not a cause, but a symptom of gout, that uric acid is not an
irritant to the tissues, and that it is readily excreted in the healthy subject.
Some of the reasons for this latter and against the previously stated hypothesis,
are as follows:—Birds very rarely suffer from gout—the nodular concretions,

sometimes found about their joints and which have been ascribed to gout, are
of tuberculous origin—yet their blood contains more uric acid than that of
man, and the solid matter of their excretion is mainly urates. If uric acid caused
gout we should expect the disease to be common in birds. It is a remarkable
fact that the waste nitrogen should be excreted in the form of uric acid or
urates from such widely differing classes of animals as birds and serpents.
Birds have a higher body temperature than man, they are very rapid in their
movements and consume a large amount of food proportionate to their weight.
They live, as it were, at high pressure. Serpents, on the other hand, have a low
body temperature, they are lethargic and can live a long while without food.
There is no obvious reason why some animals excrete urea and others uric
acid. As uric acid is a satisfactory and unirritating form in which waste
nitrogen is expelled from the body of the active alert bird, as well as from the
slow moving reptile, it is surprising if a very much smaller quantity acts as a
poison in man. Many physicians are convinced that uric acid is absolutely
unirritating. Uratic deposits may occur to an enormous extent in gouty persons
without the occurrence of any pain or paroxysms. Urates have been injected in
large amounts into the bodies of animals as well as administered in their food
with no toxic result whatever, or more than purely local irritation. The most
careful investigations upon the excretions of persons suffering from gouty
complaints, have failed to show uric acid in the excretions in excess of that in
normal individuals, except during the later stage of an acute attack. There is an
excess of uric acid in the blood of gouty subjects; some eminent medical men
say it is in the highest degree probable, that this excess is not due to over
production or deficient destruction, but to defective excretion by the kidneys.
The excess may arise from failure of the uric acid to enter into combination
with a suitable substance in the blood, which assists its passage through the
kidneys. Under the head of gout are classed a number of unrelated
disturbances in the gastro-intestinal tract and nutritive organs, whose sole bond
of union is that they are accompanied by an excess of urates, and in well
developed cases by deposits in the tissues. This is why there are so many
different causes, curative treatments, theories, contradictions and vagaries in
gout. There are good reasons for believing that uric acid is not in the free state
in the body. In the urine it is in combination with alkalies as urates, perhaps
also with some organic body. It has been shown that the blood of the gouty is
not saturated with uric acid, but can take up more, and that the alkalinity of the
blood is not diminished. The excess over the normal is in many cases small; it
is said to be absent in some persons, and rarely, if ever reaches the quantity
found in leukaemia. Leukaemia is a disease marked by an excessive and

permanent increase in the white blood corpuscles and consequent progressive
anæmia. Neither does the uric acid of gout reach the quantity produced in
persons whilst being fed with thymus gland (sweetbread), for medical
purposes. In neither of these cases are any of the symptoms of gout present. In
the urine of children, it is not unusual to find a copious precipitate of urates,
yet without any observed effect on them.

The symptoms of gout point to the presence of a toxin in the blood, and it is
this which produces the lesions; the deposition of urates in the joints being
secondary. This poison is probably of bacterial origin, derived from
decomposing fæcal matter in the large intestine. This is due to faulty digestion
and insufficient or defective intestinal secretions and constipation. This
explains why excessive feeding, especially of proteid food, is so bad. The
imperfectly digested residue of such food, when left to stagnate and become a
mass of bacteria and putrefaction, gives off poisons which are absorbed in part,
into the system. This bacterial poison produces headache, migraine, gouty or
other symptoms. Because of the general failure of gouty persons to absorb the
proper amount of nutriment from their food, they require to eat a larger
quantity; this gives a further increase of fæcal decomposition and thus
aggravates matters. The voluminous bowel or colon of man is a legacy from
remote pre-human ancestors, whose food consisted of bulky, fibrous and
slowly digested vegetable matters. It was more useful then, than now that most
of our food is highly cooked. About a third part of the fæcal matter consists of
bacteria of numerous species, though chiefly of the species known as the
bacillus coli communis, one of the less harmful kind which is a constant
inhabitant of the intestinal tract in man and animals. This species is even
thought to be useful in breaking down the cellulose, which forms a part of the
food of the herbivora. Flesh meat leaves a residue in which the bacteria of
putrefaction find a congenial home. Poisons such as ptomaines, fatty acids and
even true toxins are produced. It is believed that there exists in the colons of
gouty persons, either conditions more favourable to the growth of the bacteria
of putrefaction, or that they are less able to resist the effect of the poisons
produced. It has generally been found that milk is a very good food for gouty
patients. This seems due to its being little liable to putrefaction, the bacterial
fermentation to which it is liable producing lactic acid—the souring of milk.
The growth of most bacteria, particularly the putrefactive kinds are hindered or
entirely stopped by acids slightly alkaline media are most favourable. This
explains how it is that milk will often stop diarrhoea.

Dr. Haig condemns pulse and some other vegetable foods, because, he says,
they contain uric acid. Pulse, he states, contains twice as much as most
butcher's meat. Vegetable foods, however, contain no uric acid and meat but a
very small quantity. The proper term to use is purins or nucleins. Dr. Haig has
used a method of analysis which is quite incapable of giving correct results.
Many vegetarians have accepted these figures and his deductions therefrom,
and have given up the use of valuable foods in consequence. We therefore give
some of the analyses of Dr. I. Walker Hall, from "The Purin Bodies in Food
Stuffs." The determination of the purins has proved a very difficult process. Dr.
Hall has devoted much time to investigating and improving the methods of
others, and his figures may be accepted with confidence.

The first column of figures indicates purin bodies in parts per 1,000, the
second column purin bodies in grains per pound:—

Mutton 0.96 6.75
Sweet bread 0.06 0.4 Salmon 1.16 8.15
Liver 2.75 9.3 Cod 0.58 4.07
Beef steak 2.07 4.5 Lentils and
0.64 4.16
Beef Sirloin 1.30 9.1 haricots
Ham 1.15 8.1 Oatmeal 0.53 3.45
Chicken 1.30 9.1 Peameal 0.39 2.54
Rabbit 0.97 6.3 Asparagus
0.21 1.50
Pork Loin 1.21 8.5 (cooked)
Veal loin 1.16 8.14 Onions 0.09 0.06
Potatoes 0.02 0.1

The following showed no traces of purins: white bread, rice, cabbage, lettuce,
cauliflower and eggs. Milk showed a very small quantity, and cheese
consequently must contain still less.

The researches of Dr. Hall show that the purins of food are metabolised or
broken down by gouty patients, almost as well as by normal individuals, any
slight retention being due to increased capillary pressure. A portion of the
purins remain undigested, the quantity depending upon the particular purin and

the vigour of the digestive organs. Two rabbits had the purin hypoxanthin
given to them daily, in quantities which if given to a man in proportion to his
weight, would have been 17 and 3 grains respectively. These rabbits showed
malnutrition, and after death degenerative changes were visible in their liver
and kidneys. Dr. Hall has made a large number of personal experiments, and
says that when he has taken large doses of purin bodies—such as 7 grains of
hypoxanthin, 15 to 77 grains of guanin or 7 to 15 grains of uric acid,
apparently associated symptoms of general malaise and irritability have
frequently appeared. In gouty subjects such moderate or small quantities of
purins which are without effect on the healthy subject, may prove a source of
irritation to the already weakened liver and kidneys.

Professor Carl von Noorden says of gout, "with regard to treatment we are all
agreed that food containing an excess of purin bodies should be avoided, and
those words embody almost all there is to be said as to dietetics. Alcohol is
very injurious in gout. Salicylic acid is a dangerous remedy. Alkalies in every
form are utterly useless." Dr. J. Woods-Hutchinson says, "the one element
which has been found to be of the most overwhelming importance and value in
the treatment of gout and lith¾mia, water, would act most admirably upon a
toxic condition from any source; first, by sweeping out both the alimentary
canal primarily, and the liver, kidneys and skin secondarily; and secondly, by
supplying to the body cells that abundant salt-water bath in which alone they
can live and discharge their functions." Dr. Woods-Hutchinson proceeds to
state, that the one active agent in all the much vaunted mineral waters is
nothing more or less than the water. "Their alleged solvent effects are now
known to be pure moonshine." The value consists in "plain water, plus
suggestion—not to say humbug—aided, of course, by the pure air of the
springs and the excellent hygienic rules."

It is a common experience amongst rheumatic patients, that they cannot take
lentils, haricots and some other foods; sometimes, even eggs and milk are
inadmissible. This is not for the alleged reason that they contain purins, or as
some misname it, uric acid; but because the digestive organs are unequal to the
task. It will be seen, that although Dr. Haig's hypothesis of uric acid as a cause
of gout and some other diseases is disputed by many eminent physicians, his
treatment by excluding flesh and other foods which contain purins, and also
pulse, which is difficult of digestion by the weakly, is a wise one. It has proved
of the greatest value in very many cases.

Digestion and nutrition is a complex process, and it may be faulty at various
stages and in several ways; there may be either deficient or excessive
secretions or inaction. Thus there are exceptions, where gouty symptoms,
including an excessive quantity of urates in the urine, have only been relieved
by the giving up of milk foods or starch foods (see Lancet, 1900, I., p. 1, and
1903, I., p. 1059).

Those particularly interested in the subject of the purins and gout are referred
to the lecture on "The meaning of uric acid and the urates," by Dr. Woods-
Hutchinson, in the Lancet, 1903, I., p. 288, and the discussion on "The
Chemical Pathology of Gout" before the British Medical Association at Oxford
(see British Medical Journal, 1904, II., p. 740).

Dr. George S. Keith, in "Fads of an Old Physician," has a chapter on rheumatic
fever; he says that the disease is much more common than it was fifty years
ago. He has never met with it in the young or old except when the diet had
consisted largely of beef and mutton, and this although he has been on the
outlook for at least forty years for a case of the disease in a child or youth who
had not been fed on red meat. He speaks of it as being exceedingly common in
Buenos Ayres and Rosario in the Argentine Republic, amongst the young; and
that it leads to most of the heart disease there. The amount of meat, especially
of beef, consumed by old and young is enormous. The main evils there, were
anæmia in children and neuralgia both in old and young. Dr. Haig relates how
he suffered from migraine all his life, until the time of his discontinuing
butchers' meat. As meat contains a comparatively large quantity of purins and
other bodies called extractives, it is probable that such quantities have an
injurious effect, quite apart from the question of uric acid production. That an
excessive meat diet lessens the vitality of the body and pre-disposes to disease
is undoubted, but opinions differ as to how the injury is brought about.

On thorough Mastication.—We have written at some length on the quantity
and constituents of food required per day and have criticised the usually
accepted standards. We have since read a valuable contribution to the subject
by Mr. Horace Fletcher in his book, "The A.B.-Z. of our own nutrition" (F.A.
Stokes & Co., New York). Ten years previous to the writing of the book, when
of the age of 4, he was fast becoming a physical wreck, although he was
trained as an athlete in his youth and had lived an active and most agreeable
life. He had contracted a degree of physical disorder that made him ineligible
as an insurance risk. This unexpected disability and warning was so much a

shock, that it led to his making a strong personal effort to save himself. He
concluded that he took too much food and too much needless worry. His
practice and advice is, be sure that you are really hungry and are not
pampering false appetite. If true appetite that will relish plain bread alone is
not present, wait for it, if you have to wait till noon. Then chew, masticate,
munch, bite, taste everything you take in your mouth; until it is not only
thoroughly liquefied and made neutral or alkaline by saliva, but until the
reduced substance all settles back in the folds at the back of the mouth and
excites the swallowing impulse into a strong inclination to swallow. Then
swallow what has collected and has excited the impulse, and continue to chew
at the remainder, liquid though it be, until the last morsel disappears in
response to the swallowing impulse. In a very short time this will become an
agreeable and profitable fixed habit. Mr. Fletcher has been under the
observation of several eminent scientific men. Professor R.H. Chittenden, of
Yale University, in his report refers to the experiments of Kumagawa, Sivén,
and other physiologists; who have shown that men may live and thrive, for a
time at least, on amounts of proteid per day equal to only one-half and one-
quarter the amount called for in the Voit standard (see p. 32), even without
unduly increasing the total calories of the food intake. Such investigations,
however, have always called forth critical comment from writers reluctant to
depart from the current standards, as extending over too short periods of time.

Dr. Chittenden writes that he has had in his laboratory, for several months past,
a gentleman (H.F.) who for some five years, practised a certain degree of
abstinence in the taking of food and attained important economy with, as he
believes, great gain, in bodily and mental vigour and with marked
improvement in his general health. The gentleman in question fully satisfies
his appetite, but no longer desires the amount of food consumed by most
individuals. For a period of thirteen days, in January, he was under observation
in Professor Chittenden's laboratory. The daily amount of proteid metabolised
was 41.25 grammes, the body-weight (165 pounds) remaining practically
constant. Analysis of the excretions showed an output of an equivalent quantity
of nitrogen. In February a more thorough series of observations was made. The
diet was quite simple, and consisted merely of a prepared cereal food, milk and
maple sugar. This diet was taken twice a day for seven days, and was selected
by the subject as giving sufficient variety for his needs and quite in accord
with his taste. No attempt was made to conform to any given standard of
quantity, but the subject took each day such amounts of the above foods as his
appetite craved. The daily average in grammes was, proteid 44.9 (1.58

ounces), fats 38.0, carbohydrates 253.0, calories 1,606. The total intake of
nitrogen per day was 7.19, while the output was 6.90. It may be asked, says
Professor Chittenden, was this diet at all adequate for the needs of the body—
sufficient for a man weighing 165 pounds? In reply, it may be said that the
appetite was satisfied and that the subject had full freedom to take more food if
he so desired. The body-weight remained practically constant and the nitrogen
of the intake and output were not far apart. An important point is, can a man on
such food be fit for physical work? Mr. Fletcher was placed under the guidance
of Dr. W.G. Anderson, the director of the gymnasium of Yale University. Dr.
Anderson reports that on the four last days of the experiment, in February,
1903, Mr. Fletcher was given the same kind of exercises as are given to the
'Varsity crew. They are drastic and fatiguing and cannot be done by beginners
without soreness and pain resulting. They are of a character to tax the heart and
lungs as well as to try the muscles of the limbs and trunk. "My conclusion,
given in condensed form, is this: Mr. Fletcher performs this work with greater
ease and with fewer noticeable bad results than any man of his age and
condition I have ever worked with." "To appreciate the full significance of this
report, it must be remembered," writes Professor Chittenden, "that Mr. Fletcher
had for several months past taken practically no exercise other than that
involved in daily walks about town." Sir Michael Forster had Mr. Fletcher and
others under observation in his Cambridge laboratories, and in his report he
remarks on the waste products of the bowel being not only greatly reduced in
amount, as might be expected; but that they are also markedly changed in
character, becoming odourless and inoffensive, and assuming a condition
which suggests that the intestine is in a healthier and more aseptic condition
than is the case under ordinary circumstances. If we can obtain sufficient
nourishment, as Mr. Fletcher does, on half the usual quantity of food, we
diminish by half the expenditure of energy required for digestion. By thorough
mastication the succeeding digestive processes are more easily and completely
performed. What is also of great importance is that there is not the danger of
the blocking up of the lower intestines with a mass of incompletely digested
and decomposing residue, to poison the whole body. Even where there is daily
defæcation, there is often still this slowly shifting mass; the end portion only,
being expelled at a time, one or more days after its proper period. All this
improved condition of the digestive tract, leaves more vitality for use in other
directions, a greater capacity for work and clearness of brain.

Professor R.H. Chittenden, in "Physiological Economy in Nutrition," writes:
—"Our results, obtained with a great variety of subjects, justify the conviction

that the minimum proteid requirements of the healthy man, under ordinary
conditions of life, are far below the generally accepted dietary standards, and
far below the amounts called for by the acquired taste of the generality of
mankind. Body weight, health, strength, mental and physical vigour and
endurance can be maintained with at least one-half of the proteid food
ordinarily consumed."

From these and other considerations, we see that it is not only unnecessary, but
inadvisable to diet ourselves according to any of the old standards, such as that
of Voit, or even to any other standard, until they have been very thoroughly
revised. We shall probably find that as the body becomes accustomed to
simpler food, a smaller quantity of the food is necessary. The proportion of
proteids to other constituents in all the ordinary, not over manfactured
vegetable foods, such as are generally eaten, may be taken as sufficient.
Several cookery books have been compiled in conformity with certain proteid
standards and also with some more or less fanciful requirements; these give the
quantities and kinds of food which it is imagined should be eaten each day.
Theoretically, this should be calculated to accord with the weight,
temperament, age and sex of the eater and the work he or she has to perform.
The dietaries that we have seen have their proteid ratio placed unnecessarily
high. This high proteid ratio can be got by the use of the pulses, but except in
small quantities they are not generally admissible, and in some of the dietaries
they are ruled out. The difficulty is got over by the liberal use of eggs, cheese
and milk. To admit a necessity for these animal products is to show a weakness
and want of confidence in the sufficiency of vegetable foods. Some of these
cookery books are of use in sickness, especially as replacing those of the beef-
tea, chicken-broth, jelly and arrowroot order. They provide a half-way stage
between flesh and vegetable food, such as is palatable to those who have not
quite overcome a yearning for flesh and stimulating foods. The liberal use of
animal products is less likely to excite the prejudice of the ordinary medical
practitioner or nurse. Possibly, also, a higher quantity of proteid may be
required on first giving up flesh foods.

The Use of Salt.—One of the most remarkable habits of these times is the
extensive use of common salt or sodium chloride. It is in all ordinary shop
bread, in large quantity in a special and much advertised cereal food, even in a
largely sold wheat flour, and often in pastry. It is added to nearly all savoury
vegetable food, and many persons, not content, add still more at the time of
eating. No dinner table is considered complete without one or more salt-

cellars. Some take even threequarters of an ounce, or an ounce per day. The
question is not, of course, whether salt is necessary or not, but whether there is
a sufficient quantity already existing in our foods. Some allege that there is an
essential difference between added salt and that natural to raw foods. That the
former is inorganic, non-assimilable and even poisonous; whilst the latter is
organised or in organic combination and nutritive. The writer is far from being
convinced that there is a difference in food value. Some herbivorous animals
are attracted by salt, but not the carnivora. This has been explained by the fact
that potassium salts are characteristic of plants, whilst sodium chloride is the
principal saline constituents of blood and of flesh. In their food, the herbivora
take three or four times as much potash salts as the carnivora. Of course, the
sodium chloride in the flesh of the herbivora and frugivora is obtained from
the vegetable matter forming their food, and very few of them have the
opportunity of obtaining it from salt-licks and mineral sources. They must
have the power of storing up the sodium chloride from plants in sufficient
quantity, whilst the potash salts pass away. There is no justification for saying
that they are worse off by being deprived of salt. If the ape tribe can thrive
without added salt why should not man? Bunge considers that a restriction to
vegetable food causes a great desire for salt. Opposed to this, is the fact that
certain tribes of negroes who cannot obtain salt, add to their vegetable food
wood ashes or a preparation of wood ashes; this is chiefly potash. One
preparation used in British Central Africa was found to contain about 21 per
cent. of potassium chloride to only 0.5 per cent. of sodium chloride. It has been
said that vegetarians consume more salt than those who take flesh food. We
doubt this; we know of many vegetarians who have a strong objection to added
salt, and have abstained from it for years. Some find that it predisposes to
colds, causes skin irritation and other symptoms. At many vegetarian
restaurants the food is exceedingly salty; the writer on this account cannot
partake of their savoury dishes, except with displeasure. Nearly all who
patronise these restaurants are accustomed to flesh foods, and it is their taste
which has to be catered for. Flesh, and particularly blood, which of course, is
in flesh, contains a considerable quantity of sodium chloride; and most flesh
eaters are also in the habit of using the salt cellar. These people are accustomed
to a stimulating diet, and have not a proper appreciation of the mildly
flavoured unseasoned vegetable foods. Only those who have, for a time,
discontinued the use of added salt, and lost any craving for it, can know how
pleasant vegetables can be; even those vegetables which before were thought
to be nearly tasteless, unless seasoned, are found to have very distinct flavours.
It is then perceived, that there is a much greater variety in such foods than was

previously imagined. It is commonly urged that salt and other condiments are
necessary to make food palatable and to stimulate the digestive functions. We,
on the contrary, say that condiments are the cause of much over-eating; and
that if food cannot be eaten without them, it is a sign of disorganisation of the
digestive system, and it is better to abstain from food until the appearance of a
natural and healthy appetite. An excess of salt creates thirst and means more
work for the kidneys in separating it from the blood prior to its expulsion.
Even should it be admitted, that certain vegetables contain too little sodium
salts, a very little salt added to such food would be sufficient; there is no
excuse for the general use of it, and in such a great variety of foods. It is
thought that some cases of inflammation of the kidneys originate in excessive
salt eating; certain it is that patients suffering from the disease very soon
improve, on being placed on a dietary free from added salt and also poor in
naturally contained sodium and potassium salts. It is also possible to cause the
swelling of the legs (oedema), to which such invalids are subject, to disappear
and reappear at will, by withdrawing and afterwards resuming salt-containing
foods. The quantity of one-third of an ounce, added to the usual diet, has after
a continuation of several days, produced oedema. In one patient, on a diet of
nearly two pounds of potatoes, with flesh, but without added salt, the oedemia
disappeared and the albumin in the urine diminished. As potatoes are
particularly rich in potash salts, this case is significant, as showing contrary to
expectations, that such quantity as they contained had not the irritating effect
of added common salt. Salt and other chlorides have been shown by several
observers, to be injurious, not only in diseases of the kidneys, but also of the
liver and heart. In these diseases the excess of salt is retained in the tissues, it
causes a flow of fluid into them, and so produces oedema and favours the
increase of dropsy. The good effect of milk in such diseases has long been
known; it is probably due to its relative poverty in sodium and potassium
chlorides. Even in the case of three healthy men, by an abrupt change from a
diet extremely rich in chlorides to one deficient, they were able to reduce the
body-weight by as much as two kilos. (4 lbs. 6 oz.); this was by the loss of an
excess of water from their connective tissues. Sodium chloride diminishes the
solvent action of water on uric acid and the urates; but potassium salts, on the
contrary, do not, they may even increase the action. Although nearly all the
medical experience recorded has to do with diseased persons, such cases are
instructive; it is only reasonable to suppose, that more than a very small
quantity of salt in excess of that natural to the food, is a source of irritation in
the body, even of the ordinarily healthy individual.

Summary.—Enjoyment of food is dependent upon appetite quite as much as
upon the nature of the food. Better a simple repast with good appetite than
sumptuous fare with bad digestion. There is indeed a causal relationship
between simplicity and health. The savage likes the noise of the tom-tom or
the clatter of wooden instruments: what a contrast this is to the trained ear of
the musician. Uncivilised man has little enjoyment of scenery or of animal life,
except as in respect to their power of providing him with food, clothing or
other physical gratification. What an enormous advance has taken place. In the
case of the painter, his eye and mind can appreciate a wide range and delicacy
of colour. Man has improved on the crab-apple and the wild strawberry. From
a wild grass he has produced the large-grained nutritious wheat. Vegetables of
all kinds have been greatly improved by long continued cultivation. In tropical
and sub-tropical climates, where wild fruits are more plentiful, high cultivation
is of less importance than in temperate regions. In sparsely inhabited or wild,
temperate and cold regions, in times past, when deer and other animals were
plentiful, and edible fruits few, flesh could be obtained at less labour; or such
intelligence and industry as is required for the cultivation of fruits, cereals, and
other foods scarcely existed. Flesh almost requires to be cooked to be
palatable, certainly this much improves its flavour. The eating of flesh tends to
produce a distaste for mild vegetable foods, especially if uncooked. In process
of time, not only flesh but vegetable foods, were more and more subjected to
cooking and seasoning, or mixed with the flesh, blood or viscera of the
animals killed. Next, food was manufactured to produce a still greater variety,
to increase the flavour, or less frequently to produce an imagined greater
digestibility or nutritiveness. Man has taken that which seemed most
agreeable, rarely has he been intentionally guided by scientific principles, by
that which is really best. Only of late years can it be said that there is such a
thing as a science of dietetics; although cookery books innumerable have
abounded. Of recent years many diseases have enormously increased, some
even seem to be new. Digestive disturbances, dental caries, appendicitis, gout,
rheumatism, diabetes, nervous complaints, heart disease, baldness and a host
of other diseases are due, in a great measure, to abuse of food. One of the most
learned and original of scientific men, Professor Elie Metchnikoff, in his
remarkable book on "The Nature of Man," referring to the variety of food and
its complexity of preparation says that it "militates against physiological old
age and that the simpler food of the uncivilised races is better.... Most of the
complicated dishes provided in the homes, hotels and restaurants of the rich,
stimulate the organs of digestion and secretion in a harmful way. It would be
true progress to abandon modern cuisine and to go back to the simpler dishes

of our ancestors." A few have lived to a hundred years, and physiologists,
including Metchnikoff, see no inherent reason why all men, apart from
accident, should not do so. Most men are old at 70, some even at 60; if we
could add 20 or 30 years to our lives, what an immense gain it would be.
Instead of a man being in his prime, a useful member of the community, from
about 25 to 60 or perhaps to 70; he would have the same physical and mental
vigour to 80 or 90 or even longer. This later period would be the most valuable
part of his life, as he would be using and adding to the accumulated experience
and knowledge of the earlier period.

Some, perceiving the mischief wrought by luxurious habits, urge us to go back
to nature, to eat natural food. This is ambiguous. To speak of animals as being
in a state of nature, conveys the distinct idea of their living according to their
own instinct and reason, uninterfered with, in any way, by man. The phrase,
applied to man, is either meaningless, or has a meaning varying with the views
of each speaker. If it has any definite meaning, it must surely be the giving
way to the animal impulses and instincts; to cast off all the artifices of
civilisation, to give up all that the arts and sciences have done for man, all that
he has acquired with enormous labour, through countless failures and
successes, during hundreds of thousands of years, and to fall back to the lowest
savagery—even the savages known to us use art in fashioning their arms,
clothing and shelter, to the time when man was a mere animal. Civilised man is
not only an animal, but an intellectual and spiritual being, and it is as natural
for him to clothe himself as for a cow to eat grass. Our intellect has been made
to wait on our animal nature, whilst our spiritual has lagged far behind. Animal
food and all else of a stimulating character, stimulates the lower nature of man,
his selfish propensities; whilst mild food makes it easier to lead a pure life. In
the treatment of habitual drunkards in retreats, it has been found that a
permanent cure is rare upon the usual abundant flesh dietary. Only by the use
of vegetable food, particularly farinaceous, can a permanent cure be assured.
The editor of the Clarion, Mr. R. Blatchford, or "Nunquam," has lately adopted
a vegetarian diet. He remarks with surprise, that although he has been a heavy
smoker for more than 30 years, using not less than eight ounces of tobacco a
week, often two ounces in a day, he has found his passion for tobacco nearly
gone. He has had to get milder tobacco, and is now not smoking half-an-ounce
a day. He says "it does not taste the same; I am not nearly so fond of it." He
finds, with regard to wine, that he now cannot drink it, "it tastes like physic."
He writes: "These things have come upon me as a revelation. I begin to see

that the great cure for the evil of national intemperance is not teetotal
propaganda, but vegetarianism."

We have given reasons of a scientific character, for abstaining from flesh as
food, but higher than these are those relating to ethics. Everything relating to
the slaughter-house is revolting to a refined and humane person. In the great
slaughter-houses of Chicago; in those huge hideous box-shaped buildings, five
or six storeys high, about ten millions of animals are killed every year. They
are treated as if they were bales of merchandise and as destitute of feeling.
Bullocks are struck on the head with a mallet and let fall into the basement of
the building. They are whilst stunned or half-stunned, at once strung up by
their hind legs to some machinery, which moves them along, their heads
hanging downwards. Regardless of their agony, men run after them to cut their
throats, followed by others with great pails to catch the blood. Much of the
warm blood is spilt over the men or on the floors; but this is of no
consequence, if but a small fraction of a minute is economised. In a short time,
whether the animal has bled long enough or not, it reaches the lowest and
darkest and worst ventilated portion of the gloomy building, where it is
disembowelled. The walls and floors are caked with blood, the place is filthy,
there is no proper lavatory accommodation, everything both to eyes and nose
is detestable. Even if the windows were kept clean, light could not penetrate
into the centre of the buildings. Consequently a large part of the work is done
by artificial light. Tuberculosis is prevalent amongst the workpeople living
under such unsanitary conditions. Serious crime is much more common
amongst them than amongst any other class.

We English-speaking people, who pride ourselves on our civilisation and
religion; who call ourselves the followers of the gentle Jesus, the Prince of
Peace; yet hunt, shoot, trap and torture animals for food sport and science. Our
main reason for eating flesh is that of personal gratification. We are loath to
admit that the lower animals have any rights. Those Eastern peoples who are
adherents to the teachings of the gentle Buddha hold life sacred. Mr. H.
Fielding, who lived many years amongst the simple-minded Burmese, says
that though there is now no law against the sale of beef, yet no respectable
Burman will even now, kill cattle or sell beef. No life at all may be taken by
him who keeps to Buddhistic teaching, and this is a commandment
wonderfully well kept. "He believes that all that is beautiful in life is founded
on compassion and kindness and sympathy—that nothing of great value can
exist without them. Do you think that a Burmese boy would be allowed to

birds'-nest or worry rats with a terrier, or go ferreting? Not so. These would be
crimes. That this kindess and compassion for animals has very far-reaching
results, no one can doubt. If you are kind to animals, you will be kind, too, to
your fellow-men."

By participating in any form of cruelty or injustice, not only to our fellow-
men, but also to the lower animals, we retard our progress towards the higher
life, the subtler forces in man cannot find their full expression and we are less
responsive to spiritual influences.

Printed by
Hurst Bros., Shaw Heath, Stockport.

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