Volume 1

Health lectures for the people.

Date:
1883-1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health lectures for the people. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    32/896 page 18
    I butter, is a perfectly wholesome fat, and the only objection to it is, that many unprincipled dealers sell it under the name of but- ter. If honestly sold, at an appropriate price, under its own name, it would be a most legitimate article of commerce, and one which would be welcomed as affording a good source of fat for the people. Fats are rather hard to digest by themselves, and therefore one easily digested like butter is very valuable. That they assist in the digestion is shown by the administration of cod liver oil in small doses. It is then given, not so much for the sake of the small quantity of fat contained in a teaspoonful of oil, but to pro- mote the digestion and assimilation of other substances. In fact it is sometimes given in cases of stoutness arising from indigestion, in order to make the patient thinner. The late Professor Bennett alleged that the dearness of butter was one of the causes of con- sumption. Now fat is contained in a large number of articles of food, as you will see by referring to the table of composition of foods. Human milk, for instance, contains 3 per cent; bacon, 70 per cent; wheat bread, 1 per cent; rye bread, 1 per cent; and potatoes *2 per cent, being only one-fifth of that in bread. Carbo-hydrates, such as sugars and starches, are largely con- tained in vegetable sources of food. They have no nitrogen in them, and therefore are not capable of nourishing the tissues of the body by themselves. Within the body they are changed into fat, and largely assist in the supply of heat and force for work. Arrow-root consists entirely of water and starch. Starch must be cooked in order to be digested, because the covering of cellulose, containing the starch granule, requires to be ruptured, and the digestive ferments, which act more particularly upon starch, cannot take effect until the covering has been broken. Starch is easily digested by the active principle contained in the saliva or spittle, and therefore it is desirable that farinaceous food, containing starch, should be slowly masticated in the mouth, for the purpose of mixing it with the saliva. The active principle contained in the saliva exercises a chemical influence upon starch, which very rapidly changes it into a form of sugar. This action continues
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