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.

    62/112 (page 56)
    Variety in Foods, Co-existence with Economy. Causes of Varia¬ tion. Season : in rela¬ tion to Diet. Modifications of Food by Cookery Defects of Culinary Art. The experience of athletes, boxers, wrestlers, and pedestrians—of the “trainers ” of race horses and fighting cocks—shows that the most vigorous health cannot long be maintained on a uniform diet, however nutritious and substantial this may in itself be : and how necessary therefore in the selection of foods is variety. Such is the importance of variety, as an element in diet, that foods inferior in nutritive value are frequently superior in usefulness or suitableness, simply because a greater and more judicious variety is supplied. Fortunately, it fre¬ quently happens also that greater variety is not necessarily synonymous with greater expensiveness; on the contrary, the more varied diet may be the more economical, as well as the more palatable and digestible. Hence it is desirable, within due limits, to vary the diet in a public institution from day to day, so that no special food or article of diet may be suffered to pall upon the appetite on account of its uniformity. This can be readily done without any increased expenditure by the substitution, for instance of fish, poultry, rabbits, ham, bacon, or game, for ordinary butcher meat : of rye, oats, or barley, lentils, or revalenta, for the more common cereal and leguminous flours : of rolls, biscuits, scones, or cakes, for the more usual forms of bread : of puddings, stews and hashes for soups and broths. By this means we secure that foods are palatable, or relished; and it is by no means unimportant that such a relish should both be created and attended to. In the light of the remarks that have already been made on the chemistry and physiology of Food, it is obvious that diet should vary with the varying circumstances of its consumer, in regard, for instance, to the kind and amount of his physical labour and exercise. It is no less evident that it should vary materially with external temperature—with the seasons ; a more substantial diet bein<* called for in winter than in summer—one abounding more in meat and fat—more strictly animal in its origin in the one case—more properly or purely vegetarian in the other. Marvellous are the modifications produced on the same foods by the resources of modern culinary art. Hot only may the same amount of raw material be rendered more savoury and palatable,—in itself a matter of some moment; more easily digested and assimilated, —a matter of still greater moment; but it may be made to yield a much greater amount of nutriment by proper cooking, which, as a question both of economy and physiology, is of the highest importance. Equally marvellous, however, it is, that cookery, in relation to dietetics in our public Institutions, is most defective; the result whereof is not only great loss of material, but great physiological errors. How zealously, for instance, do cooks throw away, as useless, the water in