Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The adulteration of food. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![Science applied to Physical Education. 1855.] ful are arguments addressed to our prejudices than to our judgment. This single remark was sufficient to overthrow some progress which had been made in persuading the inha- bitants of one of our large cities of the erroneous principle on which the hereditary system of preparing animal food is still persisted in. In truth, the people require reform in regard to the management of their own persons. To accomplish this important object ought to be the work of education. Unfortu- nately this, one of the mostimportant branches of knowledge, has hitherto been neglected in the training of our youth. Their minds have rather been viewed as mysteries wrapt up in abstract encase- ments, than as thinking principles, placed in the midst of tangible mat- ter, now influenced by the motion of its component parts, again irri- tated by its stagnation. Science has not been applied so as to de- monstrate to their minds the struc- ture of their bodies or the dangers to be avoided, and the course to be pursued in their physical edu- cation. Each man has been left to experiment for himself on health during his life, often too early closed by such fearful trials. But even among those who have been trained in a wider school, there are errors of education which have been insinuated by custom, dressed out in gaudy trappings by sociality, and almost hallowed by poetry and song, which are as hard to root out as if they had been sown in a more congenial soil. In diffe- rent districts we find peculiarities of diet, which are either highly objec- tionable, or at least anti-physiologi- cal. Different forms of alcoholic fluids are hereditarily considered necessary sequences of peculiar viands. And even the influence of these morally has been bound up with the earliest recollections. Have not many who have read some of the finest emanations of the ancient and modern Muse, been impressed in some degree by the axiom of Erasmus, of the ‘ truthful- ness of wine ?’ until by experience, that is, by a series of experiments often ultimately fatal, the objects of the research have found out for themselves that the proverb contains but a shadow of truth, and that the authors w ho have, in the words of Horace, counselled to ‘ drown care in the bowl,’ are but blind leaders of the blind. Some- times too human nature has been painted by poesy as being elevated in rank by such indulgences, the pauper being raised to the condition of royalty by ‘ wine and mirth.’ But the philosopher, although he can discover by another route such a possible transference of positions, sees it not in such ephemeral stimu- lation, but in the calmness and quietude of mind of ‘ the beggar sunning himself by the side of the highway, who possesses that secu- rity which kings are fighting for.’ The purport of our argument may be gleaned from w hat we have urged, that, although savages and wild animals may have been directed to obtain their nourishment by the instincts of their nature, the ques- tion is changed with modern closely-confined, civilized humanity and domestic animals. The subject of food is one of science, and can no longer be entrusted to the tender mercies of advertising mercenaries or cooks, many of whom consider wholesomeness and agreeableness to the palate as synonymous terms. True, it may be that good cookery wrill present healthy food in an agreeable form, but the relish should never be mistaken for the substance, the glittering for the reality. Eor example, at the present time there is a great demand for animal matter in the production of manure, and the supply is somewhat short of the demand , a condition increased by the fact that much of the substance, and particularly the tongues, of horses which die in the metropolis from disease, or are slaughtered after serving their day, make their w7ay into provision shops under the va- rious forms of sausages and genuine reindeer organs from Scandinavia. The detection of all such practices ought to constitute part of the functions of the Board of Health, since the prevention of disease, as has been demonstrated by the pro- gress of science, true to the adage, is infinitely ‘ better than cure.’ Science, in this respect, would be- come a great power, if it wrere only](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b2246766x_0005.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
