On some points in connection with animal nutrition : being an address delivered at South Kensington, in the Biological Section of the Science Conferences, May 26, 1876 / by J.H. Gilbert.
- Joseph Henry Gilbert
- Date:
- [1876]
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: On some points in connection with animal nutrition : being an address delivered at South Kensington, in the Biological Section of the Science Conferences, May 26, 1876 / by J.H. Gilbert. 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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![greatest interest in them, and I think they lead to the most impor- tant conclusions; but I also think some observers have come to very erroneous conclusions from the results of such experiments. I submit that if you experiment with the fat-producer—the pig—and if you take two carefully selected animals (or more if you like) kill and analyse one, and feed the other as rapidly as possible, that is, let him take as much of the most appropriate food as he will take, you may, without any respiration apparatus, determine this point. It is most important that it should be definitely settled. Since the recent publications on the sub- ject, Mr. Lawes and myself have gone thoroughly into the question, and re-calculated most of our results ; those relating to oxen and sheep as well as pigs. They point to this: that the ruminant animals, which have such elaborate machinery, and do so little productive work, do pass so much nitrogenous substance through the body in relation to the amount of increase, that they do not show that fat can be derived from the non-nitrogenous substances of the food ; but in the case of pigs the evidence is perfectly conclusive. Having re-calculated our own experiments in this way, and the results being absolutely con- clusive so far as the pig is concerned, Mr. Lawes is unwilling to be at the trouble and expense of further experiments on the question ; but it really is one of great importance, and one which public institutions might well take up. It is of importance, not only agriculturally, with reference to the proper way of feeding stock, but also in its bearings on the nutrition of man. [For the tables and diagrams referred to above, see— On the Sources of the Fat of the Animal Body, Philosophical Magazine, December, 1866; and—On the Formation of Fat in the Animal IJody, Journal of Anatomy and Physiology, Vol. xi.. Part iv. ; and for other points, and detail— Food in its Relations to Various Exigen- cies of the Animal Body, Philosophical Magazine, July, 1866 ; and the papers therein referred to.]](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22277997_0014.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
