Foods / by Edward Smith.

  • Edward Smith
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Foods / by Edward Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    30/528 page 8
    phosphoric, and fluoric acids and water; also nearly all the fat which it consumes daily and probably all the nitrogenous substances which it requires, and which are closely allied in composition, as albumen, fibrin, gelatin and cliondrin. It can produce sugar rapidly and largely, and fat slowly and sparely, from other substances; also lactic, acetic, and various or- ganic acids, and peculiar extractive matters. So great an array of mysterious substances might well prevent us from feeding ourselves or others if the selection of food depended solely upon ' our knowledge and judgment; but it is not so, for independently of the aid derived from our appetites, there is the great advantage of having foods which contain a proportion of nearly all these elements; and combinations of foods have been effected by experience which protect even the most ignorant from evil consequences. Thus flesh, or the muscular tissue of animals, con- tains precisely the elements which are required in our flesh-formers, and, only limited by quantity, our heat- generators also; and life may be maintained for very lengthened periods upon that food and water when eaten in large quantities. Seeing, moreover, that the source of flesh in animals which are used as food is vege- tables, it follows that vegetables should have the same elements as flesh, and it is a fact of great interest that in vegetables we have foods closely apalogous to the flesh of animals. Thus, in addition to water and salts, common to both, there is vegetable jelly, vegetable albumen, vegetable fibrin, and vegetable casein, all having a com- position almost identical with animal albumen, gelatin, chondrin and casein. Hence our appetites and the bountiful provision made for us extend our choice to both the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and it is possible to find vegetable
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3