Chapter M: E. James: ‘How to Decorate our Ceilings, Walls, and Floors.’ (42)

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The body requires not only to be fed, but filled; and the object of eating is as often to bring up past arrears as to supply present demands. Quality of food, with all the heat and force it may contain, will not make up for quantity, which is required for constructive and reparative purposes. The constant waste of flesh and blood can only be compensated for by an equivalent assimilation of actual materials. Yet, in spite of this self-evident proposition, a large proportion of the better educated classes of the community readily deceive themselves and mislead others in regard to the amount of food necessary for their welfare and nutrition.

From a practice, often beginning in infancy with the common maternal prejudice against giving solid food at a sufficiently early period and in adequate amount, persisted in through childhood from an erroneous idea that “meat once a day” is an ample supply of animal food, still continued during adolescence, especially in the case of girls, under the conceit that eating heartily, or “between meals,” is neither wholesome nor lady-like, a habit of going without enough sustenance is finally established in adult life which is further perpetuated and confirmed by a great variety of influences. Among the more common may be mentioned personal temperament, disturbed mental conditions, languid indoor life, fatigue and exhaustion, theoretical dietetic prejudices, fastidiousness as to eatables, unwise distribution of meals, insufficient variety of food, too rigid domestic economy, and, pre-eminently, the revived fashion of tight lacing. These, and a multitude of similar agencies, apart from pathological derangements, are well-recognised causes of deficient bodily nourishment and prolific sources of disturbed health, revealing themselves in deficient weight, “weakness,” anæmia (want of blood), feeble circulation, neuralgia, cough and throat trouble, constipation, headache, backache, nausea, and a variety of phenomena, unconnected with sensible organic alterations, but characterised by neurotic and functional symptoms easily magnified by the patient and overtreated by the physician.

As testifying to the widespread ignorance relating to food and feeding, the following extract may be quoted from the _Medical Times and Gazette_, May 24, 1884, p. 712:--“At the existing (1884) International Health Exhibition, London, the ‘Vegetarian Society’ are furnishing a sixpenny dinner to 400-500 people daily. From a carefully kept account of the substances used for the bill of fare the following ‘food equivalents’ have been reduced, showing that each diner receives, of

Albuminoids 0·63 oz.
Fat 0·44 oz.
Carbohydrates 3·17 oz.
Mineral matters 0·09 oz.

Physiologists lay down the standard diet for ordinary labour pretty much as follows:--

Albuminoids 4·2 oz.
Fat 1·6 oz.
Carbohydrates 18·7 oz.
Mineral matters 1·0 oz.

It appears, therefore, that it would require about six of the sixpenny dinners to support a man during a day’s hard labour.”

The consequences of an insufficient dietary, says Hodges, are most frequently exemplified in young people, of both sexes, growing school children, boys fitting for college, _débutantes_ in society, young mothers of families, seamstresses, shop girls, &c.; and, although they also appear at other periods of life, and under other circumstances than those which have been enumerated, it is during the years of adolescence that the utilisation of feeding has its supreme value, and its prophylactic and curative effects, as a therapeutic method, are most easily obtained. Sir Andrew Clark, Grailly Hewett, Clifford Allbutt, and others, who have described the ailments which follow inadequate alimentation, have especially urged the necessity for greater attention to the question of diet in the bringing up of families.

The underfed constitute so considerable a class that a large part of medical practice is devoted to attempts at satisfying their importunate demands for “something which shall make them feel better.” To attack with drugs symptoms which are daily regenerated by starvation is labour in vain, so long as that condition is permitted to exist. But if the famished tissues of those who say they are not sick, and there is nothing the matter with them, only that they “do not feel well,” and “cannot eat,” be permeated with the fat which is so often loathed in food--if veins be filled with a more bounteous supply of blood, and if outdoor air be made attainable without the expenditure of an already slender supply of strength--their bodily functions will take on renewed vigour and be reanimated from better life-giving resources, force will be stored up, energy will be developed, and innumerable discomforts evicted. The futile use of iron, quinine, bitters, elixirs, and other so-called “tonics,” either when self-prescribed or methodically directed by physicians, and the insuccess of medicines, as a rule, to relieve the wearisome complaints daily listened to from persons whose mode of living is an injustice to themselves, do not always serve as a reminder that suitable nutriment, in some form or other, is the only real “tonic,” and that its methodical consumption can alone relieve the protean afflictions of many, if not most, of these querulous supplicants. To say to them in a vague and general way that a nourishing diet should be taken, and that anxiety and overwork are to be avoided, is to give weak advice. The most rigid and literal obedience to fixed and precise rules in regard to the quantity and character of their food and the times of taking it--in fact, the carrying out of a process of “stuffing,” practised at short intervals of time, without regard to appetite and pushed to the stomach’s maximum capacity of digestion--is necessary to extricate them from their deplorable situation.

The theoretical standard of a full ration has been given. The conventional standard, however, is an unsettled one. The statement that a person eats as much as other members of his or her family may mean a great deal or nothing, for there are large and small eaters both by habit as well as by example, and there can be no criterion of the amount proper to be eaten under given circumstances except that which is determined by a physician’s judgment. This amount, as has been said, should not only be specified exactly, but its consumption ensured, and nothing but precise and positive evidence accepted in regard to the fulfilment of the specifications given. (R. M. Holmes.)

_Function of Food._--The subject is treated from another point of view by F. W. Moinet, in a lecture on Food and Work, read before the Pharmaceutical Society, who observes that as the food we eat or drink--the latter term applying only to the condition of the article used whether fluid or solid--is the only source from which the elements forming the constituents of the body are derived, it naturally follows that no article of food can satisfy the requirements of life which fails to comply with this condition. But as comparatively few articles of food contain all these elements, or in their proper proportion, it follows that we must combine different articles of food together to make a satisfactory meal, i.e. a meal not only sufficient to satisfy the appetite, but also capable of supplying the different elements required by the tissue to replace what has been spent on work. Hence the reason and necessity of living on a varied diet, which experience taught our ancestors long before the scientific facts on which it is founded were discovered. For with the exception of milk, which is a perfect food, no ordinary article of diet contains all the necessary elements. But this is not only a necessity, but also a great advantage, as our food would be very apt to pall on our palates were it always the same, so nature liberally supplies us with a great variety to choose from, which are nearly equally capable of nourishing the body, and at the same time suiting different tastes, which to some individuals is a matter of importance, either from habit or natural peculiarity, still more valuable to the invalid whose recovery sometimes depends not on medicine, but on diet.

Another reason of this variety in nature is that all animals and vegetables are not found to flourish under the same conditions of climate and soil; hence in different countries the food supply is often obtained from different sources, plants and animals, especially the former.

The function of food may be described as twofold:--1st, to afford material to replace what is spent in labour, physical or mental, muscular or brain; 2nd, to supply fuel which is spent in force.

A considerable proportion of our food, especially the fatty and starchy matters, after being digested and assimilated and stored up in the various tissues, is slowly burnt or oxidised by the oxygen which has been carried from the lungs by the blood; the fat is decomposed into carbonic acid and water, which are given off by the lungs and the kidneys and skin. By this oxidation, or burning, heat and force are generated to keep up the temperature of the body and keep the vital functions going, and to supply physical and mental energy, all the internal and external work of the body being performed by the combustion of the stored-up fat in the tissue. Hence the necessity of a regular and constant supply of food to warm the body, supply mental and physical energy, and repair the waste of the tissues. This brings us naturally to consider next whether this twofold function of food is performed by the same or any article of food. In some cases it is; but as most articles of food do not contain the substance required in suitable proportion to perform both these functions, we require to take more than one article of food to make up what the other lacks, and in this way we get a diet sufficient to fulfil both these functions. It is for this reason that articles of food, or their nutritive principle, have been classified according as they contribute especially to the growth and nutrition of the body, or to the production of heat and force, into two great classes:--(_a_) Heat-producers; (_b_) Flesh-formers, or non-nitrogenised and nitrogenised compounds.

(_a_) _Heat-producing, or Non-nitrogenised._
Sugar } { Carbon
Starch } composed of { Hydrogen
Gum } { Oxygen
Oils and Fats }

(_b_) _Flesh-forming, or Nitrogenised._
{ Carbon
Albumen } { Hydrogen
Gluten } { Nitrogen
Fibrin } composed of { Oxygen
Casein } { Sulphur and
Legumin } { Phosphorus

Of these compounds those which contain nitrogen are used principally for building up the muscles, while those which contain no nitrogen are burnt up in the body to yield heat and force. The flesh-forming compounds are not obtained solely from animal food, as gluten and legumin are derived from the vegetable kingdom, from cereals and peas and beans respectively; while the heat-producers, with the exception of some oils and fats, are obtained solely from the vegetable kingdom. So that for perfect health our food must contain sufficient of both these two classes of compounds to repair the tissues, and to supply heat and force (the mineral substances being contained in these compounds, also partly supplied by the water we drink). As to the relative proportion in which they should be present in our food, there is no hard and fast line; this would be an impossibility unless we were to weigh and analyse every article we eat. We judge by experience what will satisfy the appetite and enable us to feel up to our work. Besides, it must vary considerably according to circumstances,--1st, the amount of work or exercise; 2nd, the climate. Thus physical or bodily exercise compels us to eat more than when idle, our increased hunger or appetite being nature’s method of indicating to our minds that our bodies require food to replace what has been expended in force and to repair the waste of the tissues. Then the colder the climate more food is required, especially of the heat-giving varieties, as more will be spent in keeping up the warmth of the body. Cold is also more conducive to physical work than warm weather, so that for this reason also more food is required in a cold climate.

The following table by Dr. Stevenson Macadam gives an idea of the relative amount of flesh-formers and heat-producers in certain articles of food, showing the amount of heat-producing elements they contain for every 10 parts of flesh-formers.

+----------------+---------------+----------------+
| | Flesh-forming.| Heat-producing.|
|----------------+---------------+----------------+
| Rice | 10 | 123 |
| Potatoes | 10 | 115 |
| Barley | 10 | 57 |
| Oatmeal | 10 | 50 |
| Wheaten Flour | 10 | 44 |
| Milk | 10 | 40 |
| Fat Pork | 10 | 30 |
| Fat Mutton | 10 | 27 |
| Beans | 10 | 22 |
| Beef | 10 | 17 |
| Hare | 10 | 2 |
| Veal | 10 | 1 |
+----------------+---------------+----------------+

In the tropics, where little exercise can be taken, the waste of tissues is small, so that little nitrogenous food is required, and only a moderate amount of fat is taken; the need of heat-producers is comparatively small, so that starchy products, as millet and rice, are the principal articles of food. But gradually as we come north there is a marked increase both in the fatty and nitrogenous articles of food, until in the Arctic zone oily substances and animal food are the staple articles of existence, the amount of them that an Esquimaux will eat being something almost incredible, yet necessary to resist the severe cold.

The vegetable kingdom alone can supply all that is necessary for the human body both of flesh-forming and heat-producing substances, and we must not for a moment imagine that animal food is the only source of flesh-formers, as the world’s population is supported to a large extent on vegetable products, especially in tropical regions, while in colder climates, where vegetable products are hardly to be obtained, flesh and fat are indispensable. Thus man is clearly omnivorous; while men may be advantageously almost vegetarians in one climate, mixed eaters in another (as with us), and almost exclusively flesh eaters in a third, as in the Arctic regions. But there are some people who live exclusively on a vegetable diet (vegetarians) in our country, believing that such a diet is right in principle. Only those are true vegetarians who exclude milk, butter, eggs and cheese, as these are the very essence of animal food.

Man is capable of deriving all that is required for living and working from the animal or vegetable articles of food, either separately or combined. The question, therefore, is whether a purely vegetable diet or a mixed diet of vegetable and animal food is the better suited for our existence. To judge the question we have some facts to go upon. (1) We are so physically constructed as to be able to derive our nourishment from both animal and vegetable food. (2) In the Arctic regions hardly any vegetables are to be obtained. (3) Man alone has the intelligence to obtain food from all sources, and, by cooking, to render it fit for nourishment. It apparently follows, therefore, that while we are suited for either diet, or rather a combination of both, we may also select to some extent our diet according to our individual taste, habit of body, and other circumstances, as work and climate, experience having taught us that for the enjoyment of good health our diet must be regulated by the circumstances we have mentioned.

_Nutritive values of Foods._--The following tables, based on those published by Letheby,[2] show the nutritive values (per lb.) of various food-stuffs, with their composition.

(_a_) ANIMAL FOOD-STUFFS.

+-------------------+---------+----------------+----------------+
| | Value | Carbon. | Nitrogen. |
| | per lb. | | |
+-------------------+---------+----------------+----------------+
| | _d._ | Grains per lb. | Grains per lb. |
| Butter, fresh | 16 | 6456 | -- |
| Butter, salt | 12 | 4585 | -- |
| Lard | 9 | 4819 | -- |
| Bacon, dry | 9 | 5987 | 95 |
| Cheese, cheddar | 8 | 3344 | 306 |
| Beef | 8 | 1854 | 184 |
| Bacon, green | 8 | 5426 | 76 |
| Suet | 7 | 4710 | -- |
| Pork, fat | 7 | 4113 | 106 |
| Dripping | 6 | 5456 | -- |
| Mutton | 5 | 1900 | 189 |
| Herrings, red | 4 | 1435 | 217 |
| Cheese, skim | 3 | 1947 | 483 |
| Liver, bullocks’ | 3 | 934 | 204 |
| White fish | 2 | 871 | 195 |
| Milk, new | 2 | 599 | 44 |
| Milk, skimmed | 1 | 438 | 43 |
| Buttermilk | ½ | 387 | 44 |
| Whey | ½ | 154 | 13 |
+-------------------+---------+----------------+----------------+

(_b_) VEGETABLE FOOD-STUFFS.

+-------------------+---------+----------------+----------------+
| | Value | Carbon. | Nitrogen. |
| | per lb. | | |
+-------------------+---------+----------------+----------------+
| | _d._ | Grains per lb. | Grains per lb. |
| Sugar | 5 | 2955 | -- |
| Cocoa | 4 | 3934 | 140 |
| Oatmeal | 2 | 2831 | 136 |
| Pearl barley | 2 | 2660 | 91 |
| Rice | 2 | 2732 | 68 |
| Flour, seconds | 1½ | 2700 | 116 |
| Bread, bakers’ | 1½ | 1975 | 88 |
| Rye meal | 1¼ | 2693 | 86 |
| Peas, split | 1 | 2698 | 248 |
| Maize meal | 1 | 3016 | 120 |
| Barley meal | 1 | 2563 | 68 |
| Carrots | 1 | 508 | 14 |
| Parsnips | 1 | 554 | 12 |
| Beer and porter | 1 | 274 | 1 |
| Treacle | 1 | 2395 | -- |
| Potatoes | ½ | 769 | 22 |
| Turnips | ½ | 263 | 13 |
| Vegetables, green | ½ | 420 | 14 |
+-------------------+---------+----------------+----------------+

_Digestibility of Foods._--There cannot be the least doubt that in the matter of digestion no rule holds good for all stomachs alike, and it is absurd to attempt to lay down a hard and fast line. At the same time, some idea of the relative period required to digest various substances may be gained from a study of the published results of experiments, though one very doubtful element is left out of the case altogether, namely, the quality of the cooking, which every one knows influences the digestibility of the food. The most complete list is that by Dr. Beaumont, from observation of the process in the stomach of a wounded soldier.

This may be compared with the following table of precedence in digestibility of some animal foods, on the authority of Chambers:--

Sweetbread and Lambs’ Trotters.
Boiled chicken.
Venison.
Lightly Boiled Eggs, New Toasted Cheese.
Roast Fowl, Turkey, Partridge, and Pheasant.
Lamb, Wild Duck.
Oysters, Periwinkles.
Omelette (?), Tripe (?).
Boiled Sole, Haddock, Skate, Trout, Perch.
Tripe and Chitterlings.
Mutton.
Roast Beef.
Boiled Beef.
Rump Steak.
Roast Veal.
Boiled Veal, Rabbit.
Salmon, Mackerel, Herring, Pilchard, Sprat.
Hard-boiled and Fried Eggs.
Wood Pigeon, Hare.
Tame Pigeon, Tame Duck, Goose.
Fried Fish.
Roast and Boiled Pork.
Heart, Liver, Lights, Milt, and Kidneys of Ox, Swine, and Sheep.
Lobsters, Shrimps, Prawns.
Caviare.
Smoked, Dried, Salt, and Pickled Fish.
Crab.
Ripe Old Cheese.

The contradictions are sufficiently glaring.

From some recent experiments by Jessen it would seem that raw meat is more digestible than cooked, which is perhaps not astonishing when due allowance is made for the way in which that operation is often performed. Thus the times required for digestion were:

Raw beef, shaved fine 2 hours.
” mutton 2 ”
” veal 2½ ”
Boiled beef, half done, shaved fine 2½ ”
Raw pork 3 ”
Boiled beef, well done, shaved fine 3 ”
Roast beef, half done, shaved fine 3 ”
Roast beef, well done, shaved fine 4 ”

Klenze, experimenting on 18 kinds of cheese, found that cheddar was digested in the shortest time (4 hours), while unripe skim Swiss cheese required 10 hours for solution. There is no difference in the digestibility of all sorts of hard cheese, or all soft cheese, but all fat cheeses are dissolved the most rapidly, because, being open by reason of the fat, they are the more readily attacked by the solvent. There is no connection between the digestibility and the percentage of water present in the cheese, but there is some connection with the percentage of fat and the degree of ripeness.

_Animal Foods._--There is surely no need to insist on the value of animal foods. At the same time there can be no doubt of a general tendency among town dwellers to eat too much meat. Twice a day is quite often enough for a meat meal, and then it should not form more than about ⅕ of the whole meal. Fresh fish is an excellent and wholesome substitute for meat, especially in the case of brain workers. Cheese is highly nutritious, but digestible only by those living out of doors; this does not apply, however, to the soft cream-cheeses. Lard, dripping, butter, and even butterine or bosch, have great value as heat-producing foods.

_Vegetable Foods._--Few people rightly estimate the true value of vegetables, apart, that is to say, from the starchy products of the vegetable kingdom, such as potatoes, sago, rice, &c. Many people hardly think of eating cabbage or spinach with their meat, yet there is no more wholesome food as an adjunct to the dinner table. The same may be said of many other vegetables. On the authority of the _Medical Record_, asparagus is a strong diuretic, and forms part of the cure for rheumatic patients at such health resorts as Aix-les-Bains. Sorrel is cooling, and forms the staple of that _soupe aux herbes_ which a French lady will order for herself after a long and tiring journey. Carrots, as containing a quantity of sugar, are avoided by some people, while others complain of them as indigestible. With regard to the latter accusation, it may be remarked, in passing, that it is the yellow core of the carrot that is difficult of digestion--the outer, a red layer, is tender enough. In Savoy the peasants have recourse to an infusion of carrots as a specific for jaundice. The large sweet onion is very rich in those alkaline elements which counteract the poison of rheumatic gout. If slowly stewed in weak broth, and eaten with a little Nepaul pepper, it will be found to be an admirable article of diet for patients of studious and sedentary habits. The stalks of cauliflower have the same sort of value, only too often the stalk of a cauliflower is so ill-boiled and unpalatable that few persons would thank you for proposing to them to make part of their meal consist of so uninviting an article. Turnips, in the same way, are often thought to be indigestible, and better suited for cows and sheep than for delicate people; but here the fault lies with the cook quite as much as with the root. The cook boils the turnips badly, and then pours some butter over it, and the eater of such a dish is sure to be the worst for it. Try a better way. What shall be said about our lettuces? The plant has a slight narcotic action, of which a French old woman, like a French doctor, well knows the value, and when properly cooked is really very easy of digestion.

_Fruits._--There are few who cannot enjoy fruit in one form or another. For diabetics only the least desirable kinds, as certain nuts and almonds, are available, all others, as containing sugar, being forbidden. Sufferers from acid dyspepsia must select carefully, and limit their consumption to the least irritating--a few strawberries or a few grapes. Diarrhœa and dysentery preclude the use of all fruit. On the other hand, for constipated persons it is sometimes the only trustworthy remedy which they can use continuously with comfort; it is also of benefit in renal diseases, by its action on the bowel. Atonic persons generally take it well, and feel the better for its digestive property Those in normal health may eat almost any ripe fruit. The bland varieties are the most wholesome and nutritious--strawberries, apples, pears, grapes, and gooseberries. The last named, however, with currants and raspberries, are less wholesome than the others. Stone-fruits are apt to disagree with the stomach; but the more watery, as peaches and large plums, are better than the smaller and drier, as apricots and damsons. The pulp of oranges renders them heavy. Among other foreign fruits, bananas are wholesome. Dried fruits and the skin of fruits in general are indigestible. Nuts, the edible part of which is really the seed, contain much albumen and some fat in a condensed form, and are particularly difficult of digestion. Fruit may be taken with a meal or on an empty stomach. In the former case it promotes digestion by its gently irritating effect on the mucous membrane of the stomach and intestine. If an aperient effect be desired, it had better be taken in the morning before breakfast or between meals. A succulent and pleasantly acid variety is best for both of these purposes, while it is also a food. The quantity of fruit which should be taken depends on the kind. If it belongs to the bland nutritious class, a healthy person may now and then partake of it as freely as of any other wholesome food; but he will gain most benefit if he take only a little, and take it regularly. The same may be said of the invalid with whom fruit agrees. Cooking removes much of the acidity from crude fruit, and renders it lighter as well as more palatable. So treated, it is productive of good and no harm; but it is a fundamental principle that whatever fruit is eaten uncooked must be fully ripe and not over-ripe. This may sound trite, and indeed the principle is commonly admitted, but not, it would seem, by all, for we still find people, and not a few, who will themselves deliberately take, and worse, will give to their children, green gooseberries, green apples, &c., the very hardness of which, apart from their acid pungency, suggest their unfitness for digestion. Such people use as food an acid irritant poison, whose necessary action is to cause excessive intestinal secretion, with more or less of inflammation. Hence arises diarrhœa. On the other hand, fruit which is over-ripe, in which fermentation has begun, is a frequent cause of this disorder, and equally to be avoided, and perhaps also more difficult to avoid because the insidious beginning of decay is not easily recognised. It should never be forgotten by any who incline to follow the season in their feeding, that the want of such precautions as the above may produce that dysenteric form of diarrhœa, “British cholera,” which is occasionally as rapidly fatal as the more dreaded Asiatic type of that disease. (_Brit. Med. Jour._)

_Bread and other Grain Foods._--Arguments on the bread question threaten to be endless, probably because the champions on both sides have just enough scientific knowledge to enable them to misstate the case. The most reasonable review of the whole circumstances is contained in one of Prof. Church’s papers in _Nature_. He deals first with variations in composition in the grain itself. These variations, chiefly affecting the percentage of nitrogen, depend upon hereditary qualities in different strains of the wheat-plant; upon climate and season: and, to some extent, but not so largely as is often stated, upon cultivation, soil, and manure. The hard translucent wheats, _blés durs et glacés_, are of high specific gravity, about 1·41, and, owing to their lengthened and wrinkled shape, of low weight per bushel; these wheats are rich in nitrogen. The soft opaque wheats, of less specific gravity, about 1·38, and, owing to their rounded and plump form, of high weight per bushel, are poor in nitrogen. The hard wheats grown in Poland, in Southern Russia, in Italy, and in Auvergne, are used in the manufacture of macaroni, vermicelli, semolina, and pâtés d’Italie. The softer and more starchy wheats are especially appropriate for the production of fine white flour. According to the most recent analyses, the percentage of nitrogen in different varieties and samples of air-dry wheat may range from 1·3 up to 2·5--numbers corresponding to 8·23 and 15·83, respectively, of gluten or flesh-forming substances. But the same variety of wheat may give a grain having 3 per cent. more gluten in a bad season than when matured in a fine summer. More than this, one may select from the same field, the same plant, or even the same ear, individual grains which shall show quite as wide a variation in gluten as that just cited.

Church next considers “how much flour and how much bran will 100 parts of ordinary soft wheat yield on the ordinary system of low-milling adopted in England?” As the averages from an immense number of independent estimates we may put down the flour at a total of 80, the bran at 17, and the loss at 3. Thus, from an economical point of view, we appear to lose ⅕, or 20 per cent., of our wheat by submitting it to the numerous treatments involved in the manufacture of flour. But is this really the case? We think not. For much of the nitrogen in the rejected parts is not in the form of flesh-forming matter, and much that does so exist in the bran passes unaltered and unused through the alimentary canal, because of its close incorporation with fibre. But on the other side we must not forget that bone-forming materials are clearly deficient in wheaten flour, and that those phosphatic compounds present in bran are readily soluble to a large extent, not only in the several digestive secretions with which they come in contact in the body, but also in pure water.

But in comparing and contrasting bread made from flour with that made from whole wheat, Church considers other points. We shall find it impossible to make, by means of leaven or yeast, a light spongy loaf from whole wheat finely ground, the so-called _cerealin_ of the bran inducing chemical changes which result in a moist, clammy, dense product. Even whole wheat merely crushed into meal, and not ground, partakes of the same defect. Fine flour, on the other hand, yields a bread which is light enough before mastication, but which, when masticated, possesses a marked tendency to become compacted into dense lumps which may never become penetrated by the gastric and intestinal juices, and which are a frequent cause of constipation. Whole-meal bread cannot be charged with this defect; indeed it acts medicinally as a laxative, and by reason of its mechanical texture is hurried rather too quickly along the digestive track, so that the full virtue of such of its nutrients as are really soluble becomes in part lost. Yet there is no doubt that for many persons, especially those who have passed middle age and are engaged in sedentary occupations, whole wheaten meal in the form of bread, biscuits, scones, &c., forms an invaluable diet.

The following analysis may present some of the foregoing statements in a cleared light, and may add some additional particulars of interest. They represent, so far as a couple of sets of average results can do so, the percentage composition of ordinary white bread and of the whole-meal bread made by Hill and Son:--

---------------------------------------+--------+--------------
| White. | Whole meal.
---------------------------------------+--------+--------------
Water | 40·0 | 43·5
[a]Albuminoids or flesh-formers | 7·0 | [b]10·5
Starch, dextrin, and sugar | 50·7 | 40·6
Oil and fat | 0·6 | 1·6
Cellulose and lignose | 0·5 | 1·8
[c]Ash or mineral matter | 1·2 | 2·0
---------------------------------------+--------+--------------
(Church.)
[a] Calculated from total nitrogen present.
[b] As much as 12·5 in some samples.
[c] Includes common salt added.

Another writer who has worked out the facts arrives at closely similar conclusions. He sums up thus:--(_a_) The carbohydrates of bran are digested by man to but a slight degree. (_b_) The nutritive salts of the wheat grain are contained chiefly in the bran, and, therefore, when bread is eaten to the exclusion of other foods, the kinds of bread which contain these elements are the more valuable. When, however, as is usually the case, bread is used as an adjunct to other foods which contain the inorganic nutritive elements, a white bread offers, weight for weight, more available food than does one containing bran. (_c_) By far the major portion of the gluten of wheat exists in the central four-fifths of the grain, entirely independent of the cells of the fourth bran-layer (the so-called “gluten cells”). Further, the cells last named, even when thoroughly cooked, are little if at all affected by passage through the digestive tract of the healthy adult. (_d_) In an ordinary mixed diet, the retention of bran in flour is a false economy, as its presence so quickens peristaltic action as to prevent the complete digestion and absorption, not only of the proteids present in the branny food, but also of other foodstuffs ingested at the same time. (_e_) Inasmuch as in the bran of wheat as ordinarily roughly removed there is adherent a noteworthy amount of the true gluten of the endosperm, any process which in the production of wheaten flour should remove simply the three cortical protective layers of the grain would yield a flour at once cheaper and more nutritious than that ordinarily used.

On this same subject the _Lancet_ remarks that bread which contains all the constituents of the wheat, except the outer, insoluble and irritating portion of the seed, seems, when the appetite for it has been obtained, to be more satisfying and digestible than the white and fashionable product which is found on most tables, of rich and poor alike. It is believed, too, that for children, the whole meal is the best for sustaining growth and for building up the skeleton strongly and in perfect form. The supply of whole-meal bread is now much facilitated by the improvements that have been introduced in the decorticated or granulated flour, to which Lady John Manners called public attention in her paper on Wheat-meal bread. In the decorticated whole meal the extreme outer coating of the wheat grain is, by a special process of abrading, to the perfection of which Dr. Morfit has rendered able service, cleverly removed. After the abrading process is completed, the whole of the grain is reduced to a fine flour, in which there is retained all the substances that are nutritious and digestible. Considering the fact that the whole-meal bread, when properly manufactured, is easily assimilated, we are led to the conclusion that it must be more nutritious generally than any other bread, in which starch predominates.

Oatmeal (Robinson’s for choice) is not adapted for making bread, but forms an excellent porridge--say 2 handfuls coarse oatmeal, 1½ pint water, well mixed, boiled ½ hour, and eaten with milk and treacle or brown sugar. The same may be said of Robinson’s Patent barley, which is wonderfully nutritious and adapted to youthful stomachs, besides being excellent in puddings (Keen, Robinson, and Co. are the makers).

Maize contains invaluable ingredients, and the preparation known as Brown and Polson’s corn-flour cannot be too extensively used, especially in custards and blancmanges.

_Salt._--The _Lancet_ publishes the following:--“We have received from a correspondent a letter making some inquiries into the use of salt, and we are given to understand that among other follies of the day some indiscreet persons are objecting to the use of salt, and propose to do without it. Nothing could be more absurd. Common salt is the most widely distributed substance in the body; it exists in every fluid and in every solid; and not only is it everywhere present, but in almost every part it constitutes the largest portion of the ash when any tissue is burnt. In particular it is a constant constituent of the blood, and it maintains in it a proportion that is almost wholly independent of the quantity that is consumed with the food. The blood will take up so much and no more, however much we may take with our food; and on the other hand, if none be given, the blood parts with its natural quantity slowly and unwillingly. Under ordinary circumstances a healthy man loses daily about twelve grains by one channel or the other, and if he is to maintain his health that quantity must be introduced. Common salt is of immense importance in the processes ministering to the nutrition of the body, for not only is it the chief salt in the gastric juice, and essential for the formation of bile, and may hence be reasonably regarded as of high value in digestion, but it is an important agent in promoting the processes of diffusion, and therefore of absorption. Direct experiment has shown that it promotes the decomposition of albumen in the body, acting probably by increasing the activity of the transmission of fluids from cell to cell. Nothing can demonstrate its value better than the fact that if albumen without salt is introduced into the intestine of an animal no portion of it is absorbed while it all quickly disappears if salt be added. If any further evidence were required it would be found in the powerful instinct which impels animals to obtain salt. Buffaloes will travel for miles to reach a “salt-lick”; and the value of salt in improving the nutrition and the aspect of horses and cattle is well known to every farmer. The popular notion that the use of salt prevents the development of worms in the intestine has a foundation in fact, for salt is fatal to the small threadworms, and prevents their reproduction by improving the general tone and the character of the secretions of the alimentary canal. The conclusion therefore is obvious that salt, being wholesome, and indeed necessary, should be taken in moderate quantities, and that abstention from it is likely to be injurious.”

_Weather._--The weather should govern our diet as much as it does our clothing. In cold weather we require to enrich our blood and fatten our bodies. We should then eat heartily of substantial food and drink milk and cocoa. In hot weather, “the lightest possible food should be taken, and that in moderation. Very little tea or coffee, plenty of milk, with fish, and but little meat, and that well cooked, and a moderate indulgence in iced drinks are indicated. Spirits and heavy wines are, of course, interdicted. It should be known that frequent and excessive thirst is often aggravated by an injudicious consumption of ice. Such extreme thirst will often be immediately allayed by hot drinks, a fact which has been often verified. It cannot be too strongly insisted on that over-feeding and over-drinking (of any fluid whatever) are most pernicious, especially either before or after prolonged or considerable exertion. The principal meal of the day should be taken at sunset.” (_Lancet._)

Lightness is the first essential alike in the food and drink taken in warm weather. There is then less work to be done, less waste of tissue, less need of the pre-eminently muscle-forming and heat-producing substances, meat and bread; and fruit, as being both palatable and easily obtainable, is much in use. Its advantages are that it provides a seasonable change of diet, light and wholesome if well chosen, and a palatable tonic and stimulant of digestion with aperient properties. (_Brit. Med. Jour._)

_Anti-fat Diet._--There is inconceivable folly in the fear of fatness. We do not for a moment deny that it is possible the organism may be too heavily packed with adipose tissue, and that the action of its several parts may be hampered by this encumbrance, while, as a whole, it is needlessly burdened; but this is a totally different matter from the fatness against which the fears of the multitude are for the most part unreasonably directed. There is not the least physiological connection between the accumulation of fat and fatty degeneration. As a matter of fact, what is known as “fatty degeneration” occurs more frequently in those who are lean than in those who are “fat” in a popular sense. It is therefore a misconception to suppose that fatness is in itself a disease. It only becomes morbid when, by mechanical pressure, fat impedes the functions of the organs, or by weight it unduly burdens the body so as to exhaust the strength or make too large a demand on the resources of force and vitality. Unfortunately, the true nature of the objections to fatness are not explained, and misconception is rather confirmed than removed by the prevailing mode of urging arguments against “fat” and in favour of remedies by which it is proposed to get rid of it. Practically speaking, it is idle to suppose that fatness can be certainly prevented by dieting. There are many ways of fat-making, and those persons who have a tendency to its production will make fat however they are fed--in truth, almost as rapidly on one class of diet as on another. There are idiosyncrasies which may in a limited number of instances be taken advantage of to check the tendency to form fat, but these specialties of chemico-nutritive function are by no means common; and, speaking generally, it must be said that, except by starving the body as a whole, fatness cannot be prevented. The exceptions to this rule are chiefly such as may be explained on the principle of a special tissue appetite. Thus, for example, a man whose muscular system has been healthily developed somewhat in excess of the other parts of his organism may have what might be called a muscular-tissue appetite of such voracity that it will, so to say, seize upon the bulk of the nutriment supplied to the blood, and make muscle regardless of what may be left for the nutrition of nerves, &c. Such a person will lose fat without growing thin, so far as muscle is concerned, by a mere reduction of diet, without reference to the kind of food cut off, so that the latter do not chance to be essential to muscle nutrition. In the same way, though with different results, a “nervous” person, in the popular sense--that is, an individual whose nervous system is in perpetual activity, working incessantly and feeding voraciously--may consume so much of the food supplied for the body as a whole that only nervous tissue is nourished, and the rest of the body languishes. This is an instance of growing thin while feeding well, and it is the converse of the process by which, in another class of persons, growth of muscle persists in spite of a reduced diet. There are, in this way, persons whose specialty it is to make adipose tissue, and they will wax fat even when muscles, nerves, and the higher organisation are relatively in a condition approaching starvation. These and a score of other matters have to be taken into account when calculating the probabilities--or rather the improbabilities--of success in the endeavour to diminish the fatness of any individual by a system of dieting. As regards the use of drugs against fats, setting aside such obvious modes as robbing the blood of its proper nutriment by purging and nauseating, we do not believe it is practicable to prevent the formation of adipose tissue or even to promote an elimination of fat by the use of medicines, unless it be by correcting some error in the chemico-vital processes of the organic economy, to which a particular remedy may, as a temporary expedient in here and there a suitable case, be intelligently directed. Measures against fatness are, from the very necessities of the enterprise and the conditions under which it must be carried out in the great majority of instances, predestined to failure. It would save a deal of disappointment, and a great many incidental injuries to health might be avoided, if these facts could be more generally understood; and we think medical practitioners generally may be fairly asked to state and explain them. (_Lancet._)

_Diet for Night-work._--For night-workers, the best plan includes a hearty breakfast when they rise, which is generally between 12 and 3 o’clock; some outdoor exercise and relaxation should precede a good dinner, partaken between 6 and 9 o’clock at night, before beginning work. If the work is to continue until 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning, a light but nutritious repast should be eaten shortly after midnight, in order to fortify the system for labour during the hours immediately following, when the vital powers are most enfeebled. When the work is done, and before retiring, a very simple lunch should be taken in the form of good hot broth or beef tea, or a glass of light wine and a couple of biscuits. This will generally ensure sleep by withdrawing blood from the brain, where it has been concentrated by mental effort. In ordinary cases of sleeplessness, not confirmed by long-continued habit, a light meal of this kind will generally prove a remedy.

_Diet for Children._--The great mortality of infants in this country is due to improper feeding. The following simple rules should be attended to. If the child can be nursed by the mother, give it nothing else for six months. If it cannot be so reared, give 1-1½ pint of good milk every day for the first 6 months, and 1½-2½ pints, with the addition of barley-water, or a teaspoonful or two of corn flour, till a year old. Take care that the milk is good and the bottles clean. As it gets its teeth, give it small quantities of more solid food, but do not indulge it in everything that comes to table. Growing children require a due proportion of meat.

With regard to condensed milk, it contains much less flesh-forming material than is generally supposed. Taking four per cent. for cow’s milk as a fair average, the directions on the can, if followed out, give unexpected results. For children’s use, we are told to dilute the condensed milk with 4 or 5 parts of water. Taking the lowest figure, we should then have 5 parts of diluted condensed milk which, according to Dr. Stutzer, would only contain 1·76 per cent. of flesh-formers, instead of 4 per cent., while the milk sugar would be increased from 4·5 to 10·85 per cent. We know that woman’s milk contains more sugar than cow’s, but still not in the above surprising proportions. Now that so much canned milk is used for infants brought up by hand, it becomes a question how far mothers who cannot suckle their children are responsible for the health and even lives of their children by giving them milk from the tin instead of that from the living animal.

_Diet for underfed Subjects._--The following remarks are derived from Dr. Hodge’s essay before referred to.

As a stomach may become over-distended and permanently dilated by long gluttony or by the accumulated ingesta which a slow and feeble peristalsis refuses to move on, so may it also become contracted from the habitual want of sufficient victualling, sometimes to such a degree that the introduction of enough food can only be accomplished after the gradual dilatation of its receptacle. This may be effected by increasing the frequency of meals. The custom, common in America, of leaving a long interval between them is the reverse of that desirable for those who require extra feeding. The ordinary European arrangement adopts a system which is worthy of imitation, a “little and often” being the motto of the eater. It is useless to attempt too much at one time. The stomach conforms slowly, and rebels at a certain limit, but a brief respite and a short intermission put it in a less antagonistic attitude. If, for the reasons given, or from mere disinclination, 2 meals have been all which the subject under treatment declares can be “got down,” as is often the case, then 3 must be taken or the time between successive feedings shortened to 2 hours, according to the aggregate amount of nourishment intended to be given and the readiness with which its forced consumption is effected. It is an advantage, therefore, that certain periods of the day, not precisely fixed, but approximate, should be established as meal times. For instance, before rising, at the usual breakfast hour, in the middle of the forenoon, at the accustomed luncheon, in the middle of the afternoon, at the regular dinner, and on going to bed.

It is a common impression that to take food immediately before going to bed and to sleep is unwise. Such a suggestion is answered by a reminder that the instinct of animals prompts them to sleep as soon as they have eaten; and in summer an after-dinner nap, especially when that meal is taken at midday, is a luxury indulged in by many. Neither darkness nor season of the year alters the conditions. If the ordinary hour of the evening meal is 6 or 7 o’clock, and of the first morning meal 7 or 8 o’clock, an interval of 12 hours, or more, elapses without food, and for persons whose nutrition is at fault this is altogether too long a period for fasting. That such an interval without food is permitted explains many a restless night, and much of the head and back ache, and the languid, half-rested condition on rising, which is accompanied by no appetite for breakfast. This meal itself often dissipates these sensations. It is, therefore, desirable, if not essential, when nutriment is to be crowded, that the last thing before going to bed should be the taking of food. Sleeplessness is often caused by starvation, and a tumbler of milk, if drunk in the middle of the night, will often put people to sleep when hypnotics would fail of their purpose. It should be borne in mind that a full bladder is a frequent cause of early morning wakefulness. Rising and passing water will often send restless sleepers back to bed for a refreshing nap, which, without relief from this source of reflex irritation, would not have occurred.

Food before rising is an equally important expedient. It supplies strength for bathing and dressing, laborious and wearisome tasks for the underfed, and is a better morning “pick-me-up” than any hackneyed “tonic.”

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