Physiological and pathological researches / being a reprint of the principal scientific writings of the late T. R. Lewis ... Arranged and edited by Sir William Aitken ... G. E. Dobson ... and A. E. Brown.

Timothy Richards Lewis

Date:: 1888

Credit: Physiological and pathological researches / being a reprint of the principal scientific writings of the late T. R. Lewis ... Arranged and edited by Sir William Aitken ... G. E. Dobson ... and A. E. Brown. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

871/920 page 689

$to the albuminates is as five to one, but observation of the ordinary habits of natives, as well as a study of such jail diets as have proved successful, suggests the advisability of the proportion being as six or six and a half to one when the dietary consists exclusively, or almost exclusively, of vegetable substances. Moreover, a diet in which the several alimentary principles are distributed in such proportions would seem to be in accord with the teachings of modern physiologists as to the respective parts which they play in the economy. The aggregate of the fatty matter should not be less than 1 oz. per diem, and this amount might be increased with advantage to \\ oz. during the colder season of the year, as a considerable proportion of the food which in warm weather goes towards the production of mechanical power is in cold weather diverted to meet the extra calls upon the system to maintain the heat of the body at its healthy standard. This suggestion is based on the fact that the inhabitants of cold countries resort largely to fatty food as a means of resisting the influence of cold, and is made quite apart from theoretical considerations as to the principal sources of the heat of the body, regarding which much uncertainty prevails. The diet above sketched would, therefore, in round numbers, consist of the follow- ing proportions of water-free principles: albuminates 3 oz., carbo-hydrates 18 to 19 oz., and fats 1 to 1^ oz.; while its value, expressed in terms of nitrogen and carbon, would be 207 grains of the former and from 4,500 to nearly 5,000 grains of the latter. The half-an-ounce of common salt, which is very generally issued in Indian as well as in English prisons, appears to be enough. Judging from the data which have been collected during the preparation of this memorandum, a diet of this character should, if properly cooked, be sufficient to maintain native prisoners, of an average weight of 110 lbs., in good health, and at the same time be compatible with the exaction of a fair amount of ordinary hard labour. Simla, November 1881. [Tabular Statements of the several Diet Scales and of their Nutritive Values in terms of Nitrogen and Carbon are appended; as also of the Factors adopted in th& computations.] 46$