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quantity of organic matter, hardly 16 p. 1000, and an enormous 
portion of water, 985 p. 1000, broth helps the digestion of food in 
rapidly penetrating into the circulation and bringing back the materials 
necessary to the secretion of gastric juice. 
Therefore, if I am allowed to offer you here a practical advice as a 
conclusion of what I have just said, I will give you the following: If 
ever it is your misfortune to suffer some day from b:id digestion, before 
exposing yourselves to be stuffed up by all the drugs invented of late to 
cure dyspepsia, try a cup of good broth before or after meals ; others 
have often derived much benefit from this practice and the experiment 
is inoffensive and certainly worth trying. 
In spite of the nutritive value of the aliments we have just exam- 
ined, they cannot exclusively compose the food destined to repair the 
waste of the organism. If meats possess the advantageof containing a large 
proportion of nitrogen (albuminoids) on the other hand, they are 
deprived of starch and carbohydrates which we are compelled to 
ask of the vegetable foods, characterized by low albuminoids and 
high carbo-hydrates. The vegetable kingdom will supply us with 
flour, bread, vegetables and fruits, and if you want to form an idea 
of the nutritive value of these nutrients, allow me to place before you 
the composition of some of them. For exami le, wheat flour contains : 
Water 14. o per cent. 
Fatty Matters 1.2 
Nitrogenous substance insoluble in water (gluten) 12.8 
" " soluble in water (albumen) 1.8 
Non-Nitrogenous substances (dextrin) 7.2 
Starch 59-7 
Cellulose 1. 7 "' 
Salts 1.6 
Oatmeal, out of which porridge is made, contains 63 parts of starch, 
and 12 per cent, of nitrogenous substance, that is, almost as much as 
muscular flesh of animals. Peas contain 22 per cent, of proteic com- 
pounds, and 53 per cent, of starch. 
Among usual alimentary compounds, the most important is with- 
out doubt bread. The whitest is the most nutritious, and the crust 
