Thirty-sixth annual report of the directors of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics, near Perth. June, 1863.

  • James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Thirty-sixth annual report of the directors of James Murray's Royal Asylum for Lunatics, near Perth. June, 1863. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    ates that as substitutes, the one for the other, the equivalent of 27 Darts lean beef is 125 parts of potatoes or about 5 times as much. It s necessary here to remember further that the quantity of food avail¬ able for nutrition is limited to a certain extent by its bulk, and the physical capacity and digestive power of the stomach; henCe large masses of such articles of food as rice or potatoes are, in ordinary cir¬ cumstances, in this country, quite inadmissible. The proportion that ought to subsist between the nitrogenous and carboniferous constituents of foods must be judged of by various considerations to follow. The . sedentary or passive, for instance, require less nitrogenous, and per-relation to l* j Digestion. haps proportionally, more carboniferous food than the vigorous and active; and the diet most suitable for them as a class is probably to be found (selecting types always) in milk associated with the farinacea, or in a vegetarian diet. True it is that, under such circumstances, “a “ less vigorous life may thus result; but it may be the best attainable and the most truly balanced.”* Judged by any of the standards or tests above enumerated or Amplitude of introduced, the Dietaries of this Institution must be considered as at Dietaries of this least ample. The comparison with other Public Dietaries is decidedly and greatly in our favour ; and it would undoubtedly have been so to a still greater extent had the nutritive value of all the said Dietaries been estimated by our Standard Table, which, as we have already pointed out, shows a much lower proportion or per centage, especially of nitrogenous components of foods, than the older Tables of a similar kind. Were each patient actually to consume the daily allowance Difterenceg specified as pertaining to or set apart for him, in perhaps a half or between Reguia- L 1 ° . . . tion Dietaries three-fourths of the whole population of this Institution the consumptand actual con- would greatly exceed the necessities of the system, under the cireiim-sumpt 0 oot stances in which our patients are placed. The result would inevitably be vitiated health, or diseases connected with satiety or excess of food,—a danger which is a real one in certain classes of Public Insti¬ tutions in an age when it is popularly supposed impossible to overfeed the poor—the criminal—the insane.! But, in point of fact, while a few of our patients habitually consume with apparent benefit,—cer¬ tainly at least with no apparent or obvious detriment,—a larger, some¬ times a considerably larger, amount of solid nutriment than that specified as the individual allowance—even the maximum—for any class of our community, the majority consume less, frequently not half the * Cornhill Magazine, ol, citat. page 290. t In the Convict Establishment at Freemantle, near Perth, Western Australia, the diet of the prisoners, in 1853, contained a daily allowance per person of 16 oz. fresh meat and 27 oz, bread the climate being hot and close,—the exercise insignificant,—the confinement great,— the occupations mostly sedentary. The result was the production of disease attributable or attributed to a diet, which was unnecessarily ample in relation to the requirements of the con¬ victs under such conditions—Vide Dr Rennie on “Excess of Diet as a Cause of Disease.”— [Roy. Med. & Chirurg. Society of London, June 8, 1858.]