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.

    36/896 page 22
    The foregoing shows how very expensive an unbalanced diet may be, as the excess of carbon or of nitrogen is of no use, and is thrown away; indeed, it is worse than useless, for the matter in excess is largely digested and absorbed, and can then only be excreted from the blood by the lungs, skin, or kidneys, which are embarrassed, and liable to injury by it. On the other hand, if not absorbed, it may partially decompose and give rise to illness. In the food of rich people there is generally an excess of nitrogen taken in the form of too much flesh, and the result is gouty diseases; while a diet containing too much carbon, as rice, potatoes, malt liquors, and fat, is more frequently used by the poorer classes, and checks nutrition of muscle, rendering them in- capable of prolonged exertion. The body is apt to become stout, the wind short, and the mind inactive. We see the effects of such a diet exhibited in animals in menageries, which frequently die from a diet too carbonaceous. Poor people, by adopting vegetables, which are rich in nitrogen, and combining them with those that are rich in carbon, may get a fair combination without the use of meat. Peas and beans, for instance, are even richer in nitrogen than is meat, while oatmeal combines a large amount of nitrogenous with carbo-hydrate substances. Strasbourg geese show the effect of a purposely unbalanced diet. They are denied exercise, and fed upon a carbonaceous diet in a warm room, until the liver be- comes enlarged to the size of that of a man. The geese are then killed, and the livers made into the famous pates. The famous Mr Banting reduced his weight in one year from 202 lbs. to 156 lbs., and brought down his girth 12J inches, by avoiding food containing sugary and starchy substances, and living chiefly upon meat and other things rich in albuminates. DIET requires to be modified in accordance with work. A diet which suffices for health during idleness will not suffice under stress of labour. Take the case of the 100 prisoners referred to in the table. If made to perform work on the diet sufficient for quietude, cases of illness, and probably deaths, would very soon occur; and to enable them to do work such as lifting 10 stone
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