H. M. Sago, boiled, ... ... Tapioca, Barley, stale Bread, Cabbage, with 1 2 2 2 ∞ ∞ 45 0 30 45 3 0 3 15 30 ... ... Bread-Corn, baked; and Carrots, boiled Potatoes and Turnips, boiled; Butter and Cheese 3 Eggs, soft-boiled; Beef and Mutton, roasted Wild Fowls; Pork, salted and boiled ; Suet Our second question (177) is, I think, now sufficiently answered;—it being demonstrated, upon the strictest chemical principles, that vegetables do possess the elements and qualities necessary for renewing the decomposed tissues of the body. EXPERIMENTS OF MAJENDIE AND OTHERS. 213. How is it, then, that we hear of the failure of various attempts to support life upon a simple and non-azotized diet? The experiments of Majendie, Burdach, Tiedemann, and Gmelin, Dr. Stark, and others, are any thing but satisfactory upon this point; although they are, in most physiological and dietetic works, adduced as complete proofs of the necessity for azotized food, variety in diet, and (more especially) for the mixture of animal and vegetable products in the food of man. Majendie fed dogs upon sugar and distilled water; the consequence was that, in the course of a few days, they became diseased; and died in about a month. He also fed some dogs upon olive oil and water, some on gum, and others on butter; and in each of these trials, death took place in the course of four or five weeks.* Tiedemann and Gmelin fed geese, one with sugar and water, another with gum and water, and a third with starch and water: they all gradually lost weight, and died in the course of three weeks or a month. None of the substances on which these animals were fed, contained nitrogen: the experiments, therefore, are thought by some to demonstrate the necessity for azotized food. The following experiments * M. C. Chossat has lately made seventeen experiments on dogs; and ascertained, that in some cases sugar tended to fatten the animal, and in others turned to bile. In the first case, there was generally a tendency to constipation; in the others, the bowels were relaxed. He also observes that milk, as well as sugar, has a tendency to fatten or to create bile, according to the different systems of the persons who use it exclusively, or make it a principal article of food; and that where bile is thus created, diarrhoea ensues, and leads to a wasting of the solids. Where the digestion is feeble, excess of nutrition-instead of being absorbed generally into the system-turns to bile, and causes debility and wasting to a high degree. show the fallacy of such a conclusion. Majendie fed a dog on white bread and water; but it did not live more than fifty days; although the gluten with which white bread abounds, is as highly nitrogenized a product, as any of the albuminous class of aliments. Tiedemann and Gmelin fed a goose on boiled white of egg, cut into small pieces; and, notwithstanding that the animal was (in this case) fed on pure albumen, it died on the forty-sixth day. Dogs fed on cheese alone, or on hard eggs, lived for a long time, but they became feeble and thin, and lost their hair. Animals fed exclusively on gelatine,-the most highly nitrogenized principle of the food of the Carnivora, die with all the symptoms of starvation: in fact, the gelatinous tissues are incapable of conversion into blood.* 214. I might relate many other experiments of the same nature; but these are sufficient to prove that death, in the former instances, was not owing to the absence of nitrogen in the food. The death of these and other animals experimented on, is clearly attributable to one or *M. Majendie, in the report made by the gelatine committee, infers that as gelatine, albumen, or fibrin, separate or artificially combined, are incapable of permanently nourishing; while flesh (which consists of gelatine, albumen, fibrin, fat, salts, &c., combined according to the laws of organic nature,) suffices, even in small quantities, for complete and prolonged nutrition,-it is the "organic condition" which forms so important an element in the process. The same observations will apply to wheat and maize; the gluten of which is said to be the only proximate principle capable of supporting life, without being combined with some other principle. Gluten, however, may be regarded as a compound principle; containing some traces of fecula, gum, &c. H both of the following causes:-1. The non-adaptability of the articles used as food, to the structure and secretions of the alimentary organs. 2. The artificial and concentrated state of the substances attempted to be used as nutriment. 215. When inquiring respecting the natural food of man, I showed that the various animals are constructed with an evident adaptation to one kind of food, and with a certain range of adaptability to other varieties of diet; but it is evident to any one who will reflect, that the experiments I have just mentioned, were conducted in direct violation of the physiological laws of adaptation; the carnivorous dog, and the herbivorous goose, being alike fed upon artifically produced, and (to them) totally unnatural substances. The results, therefore, might have been predicted, without any reference to the chemical character of the articles given them as food. 216. "Art alone," says Raspail, "furnishes us with non-nutritive substances, which it extracts from vegetables and from animals; for extraction is isolation. Now, when two things derive their qualities from their association only, then isolation must destroy them. To feed animals with substances produced by art, is very frequently to load their stomachs, while leaving them to die of hunger." An ass fed by Majendie on dry rice, and afterwards on boiled rice, lived only fifteen days; whereas a cock was fed with boiled rice for several months, with no ill consequences;-evidently showing, that the very same substance may be insufficient nutriment to one animal, while it imparts health and enjoyment to another ; the effects varying with the development of the alimentary organs. 217. But the greatest error in many experiments on the food of animals, has consisted in the employment of substances too concentrated or of abstract and isolated principles. "Like the atmospheric air," says Graham, "all substances designed for human aliment, are composed of certain proportions of nutritious and innutritious matter; and the alimentary canal, like the lungs, is constituted with determined relations to the constitutional nature of alimentary substances in this respect. There is somewhere a point of truth, in the proportions best adapted to the constitution and functional powers of the alimentary canal, and the vital welfare of the whole system; and so far as we vary from this point of truth, by increasing or diminishing the proportion of the nutritious to the innutritious matter of our food, we do, as a general fact, injure the alimentary canal, and through it the whole body. And it is very certain, that too great a proportion of nutritious matter in our food, is little less dangerous to our digestive organs, and to the vital interests generally, than too small a proportion. Every thing in the anatomical structure and physiological powers of the alimentary canal, clearly and fully demonstrates, that it is constituted with wise and determinate relations to natural alimentary substances, composed of nutritious and innutritious matter. And all experience corroborates this demonstration. It is the duty of the alimentary canal to receive these substances, at proper times, and in proper quantities, after they have |