Air, water and food from a sanitary standpoint / by Ellen H. Richards and Alpheus G. Woodman.

  • Richards, Ellen H. (Ellen Henrietta), 1842-1911.
Date:
[1904], [©1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Air, water and food from a sanitary standpoint / by Ellen H. Richards and Alpheus G. Woodman. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

    155/302 (page 139)
    CHAPTER VIII. FOOD IN RELATION TO HUMAN LIFE: COMPOSITION, SOURCES DIETARIES. Paracelsus (1493-1541) taught that the object of chemistry is not to make gold, but to prepare medicines. Van Helmont (1577) recognized water as a chief constituent of all living matter. Sylvius (1614) taught that combustion and respiration were precisely similar phenomena. The mod- ern revival of chemistry has been largely due to efforts to preserve health. These efforts are turned more and more to the attainment of a high degree of daily efficiency instead of toward curing already established disease. Life itself is con- ditioned on the food-supply. Wholesome food is a necessity for productive life. Man can and does exist on very unsuit- able, even more or less poisonous, food, but it is merely ex- istence and not effective life. This is true not only of the wage-earner, but of the business-man, the professional man, the scholar. To be well, to be able to do a day's work, is man's birthright. Nevertheless a too large proportion of the American people sells this most valuable possession for a mess of pottage which pleases the palate for three minutes and weights the digestive organs for three hours. With no other known source of bodily energy, the student cannot afford to use up the capital in his bank lest he find the account overdrawn before middle age. With no hope of entirely ban- ishing evil microbes from the haunts of men, it behooves each one to so nourish his body that the enemy can find no point of attack.