LITERARY NOTICES. 



843 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Food for the Invalid, the Convalescent, 

 THE Dyspeptic, and the Gouty. By J. 

 MiLNER FoTHERGiLL, M. D., and Horatio 

 C. Wood, M. D. New York : Macmillan 

 & Co. 1830. Pp. 150. Price, 1. 

 The introduction to this volume is a very 

 important and interesting essay on food in 

 its sanitary relations by Dr. Fothergill, while 

 Dr. Wood compiled the recipes, some three 

 hundred in number. In speaking of our 

 present eating arrangements and culinary 

 combinations, Dr. Fothergill says that they 

 have come about under the guidance of the 

 palate first, and the digestion afterward. 

 They were established before the daybreak 

 of physiological knowledge, and the light of 

 chemistry and physiology can not fail to dis- 

 turb them. Our food combinations should 

 now be modified by our advancing knowledge 

 of the wants of the organism. By a suitable 

 dietary many maladies may be avoided, and 

 many troubles, as indigestion, biliousness, 

 gout, and diabetes, alleviated or even cured. 

 To the increasing wealth and mental worry 

 of our times. Dr. Fothergill ascribes much of 

 the prevalent biliousness, gout, and visceral 

 disturbance ; and also the growing incapaci- 

 ty to digest fat, which has led to the use of 

 artificial digestive agents. Hence the neces- 

 sity for a cook-book devoted to the food of 

 those out of health, or with feeble powers of 

 digestion. 



Dr. Fothergill traces the biliousness and 

 gout so common nowadays to the excessive 

 use of albuminoids in our food. They are 

 requisite for tissue growth and repair, and, 

 when swallowed, are digested mainly in the 

 stomach, passing into the blood, whence 

 they reach the tissues. But the nitrogen, 

 their essential feature, when in combination 

 with hydrogen and carbon, does not readily 

 oxidize, and it is the imperfect oxidation in 

 the liver of this nitrogen of the surplus al- 

 buminoids that causes biliousness and the 

 gouty condition. " In biliousness the blood 

 is surcharged with bile-salts of albuminoid 

 descent and nitrogenized lineage; just as 

 much as the lithic acid now known as ' gout- 

 poison,' . . . and it is obvious that in the 



treatment of biliousness and gout alike it is 

 essential to cut down the albuminoid ele- 

 ments of the food to the minimum of tissue- 

 wants." 



To the question why we systematically 

 eat more albuminoid food than we require, 

 Dr. Fothergill replies that there are two 

 very potent reasons : one, because it is pleas- 

 ant to eat it, and another, because it pro- 

 duces an agreeable mental condition. " The 

 albuminoid waste in the blood gives us the 

 sensation of energy, of being equal to work, 

 which is pleasant to all. But this sensation 

 is bought with a price ; and its Nemesis is 

 found in biliousness and gout." After prov- 

 ing the albuminoid descent of both bile and 

 gout-poison, Dr. Fothergill remarks that the 

 amount of albuminoids required for the re- 

 pair of the tissues of the body is very small, 

 and it is with the intent of avoiding exces- 

 sive albuminoid waste that the dietaries 

 arranged in the volume consist so little of 

 " brown meats." The flesh of fish, however, 

 is provided for in abundance. More than 

 ninety of the recipes are devoted to the 

 preparation of fish of various kinds in soups, 

 pies, patties, and puddings, or boiled, stewed, 

 fried, broiled, in paste, and on toast. Not 

 that " fish " differs materially from " flesh " 

 in chemical composition, but it contains more 

 water, and is more easily digestible. "A 

 meal of fish," it is said, " gives less albu- 

 minoid waste than a meal of brown meats." 



Great prominence is given to fat in the 

 dishes here recommended. It is regai'ded as 

 a most important element of food, and much 

 pains are taken to make it unobjectionable 

 to the palate, inoffensive to the stomach, 

 and easily assimilable by the system. Starch, 

 also, so long decried and sneered at as hav- 

 ing no food-value, is given a prominent 

 place. " With fat and starch," Dr. Fother- 

 gill declares, " the bilious are comparatively 

 well ; for neither can produce bile-acids." 

 They may, however, lead indirectly to the 

 production of bile-acids when eaten in ex- 

 cess. 



The first forty-three recipes of the book 



