Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Von Ziemssen's Handbook of general therapeutics. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
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![great extent fiüfilled, tlianks to the strides which our know- ledge of the processes of nutrition has made since Lavoisier and Magendie, and even more since J. v. Liebig. Still, how- ever, there remain many gaps in our knowledge of digestion and metabolism in the several forms of disease, and especially as to the action of particular articles of food and food stuffs in each. Experience is not equal to the Solution of these problems in a satisfactory manner; recourse must be had on a far larger Scale than hitherto to experiments, experiments in that dnec- tion especially which von Voit and von Pettenkofer have opened up for the healthy and diseased organism alike, and abeady with great success. In the normal organism material efFects are brought about by the ingestion of nourishment, which assume various charac- ters, according to the amount and composition of the food taken into the body and also according to the proportion which the several food stuffs bear to one another; the actual state of nutrition of the body at the time has also a considerable influ- ence. The like is true of the diseased organism, and the ideal ]Droblem of dietetics in disease would consist in being able to indicate for each individual case the food which in prescribed quantity and in definite combinations of the several principles should bring about in the body precisely those effects which appear to be called for in respect of the particular phase of the disease. In practice, however, the matter takes a very different form, since it is frequently impossible to introduce the kind of nourishment desired, or, if introduced, for the organism to utilise it. » Thus there are a great number of pathological processes in which, on the one hand, the capability of taking food, diges- tion, and absorption are more or less impaired, while on the other the waste of the tissues may be increased. Under such circumstances it is impossible that the reception of nutriment should keep pace with the waste, for nourishment would require to be introduced in such amount or in forms so ill adapted ta the powers of the organism that much of it would never enter the nutrient currents and might lead to other and injm-ious consequences. This is especially the case in acute febrile pro- cesses, but very similar conditions may be met with in non-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21995473_0001_0036.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
