222 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



may often be restored by washing in lime-water. The liine-water 

 may be replaced by any other alkaline ley. Comptes Rendus. 



ON THE NATURE OF ALIMENTS. 



AT the American Association, Cincinnati, the following communi- 

 cation was presented from Dr. Emmons, of Albany, on the nature of 

 Aliments : 



The popular doctrine of the day is, that these bodies sustain or 

 nourish the animal system, in a ratio proportionate to the amount of 

 nitrogen they contain ; and that their value as nutrients may be ex- 

 pressed by numbers. This view of the subject, however, I have never 

 been able to understand, and have never adopted it ; for it appears to 

 me that there are other bodies in combination, in all these nutrients, 

 which are equally important with nitrogen, and which minister also 

 to the support of the animal system. I shall not attempt to state in 

 detail the objections to the doctrine that the value of nutrients is de- 

 termined by the amount of nitrogen which they contain. I am satisfied 

 with saying now, that the inorganic bodies, the salts of lime, (particu- 

 larly the phosphates of that, as well as the other combinations of 

 phosphoric acid,) must be of equal value with the nitrogenous com- 

 pounds. In the analysis of many vegetable bodies, including the 

 cryptogami, these inorganic bodies are invariably present. They are 

 important, then, in the lowest as well as the highest forms of vegetable 

 life, and more abundant in the class of nutrients than in those which 

 are not reckoned as such. 



But there is still another class of bodies, which are neither poisons 

 nor aliments indeed, seem to be far removed from both of these 

 classes of bodies and yet their influence is salutary upon the system, 

 especially if taken with the nutrients proper. In combination with 

 the nutrients or aliments, the amount of the latter need not be so large, 

 in order to perform a specific amount of work. These bodies may in- 

 clude the milder class of astringents, or I may say, more correctly, that 

 they are allied to them. In recoveries from sickness, when the system 

 is reduced, those mild medicines which are denominated tonics, sus- 

 tain the body more than can be accounted for by the common hypoth- 

 eses which have been invented to explain their eflects. Perhaps one 

 of the most common bodies in use will illustrate more perfectly my 

 views. Tea, for example, is often used in large quantities. Individ- 

 uals who become accustomed to this beverage take comparatively 

 little food, and yet perform as large an amount of work as if they had 

 taken a full ration of nutrient proper. Opium-eaters consume but 

 little food. Inebriates take but little food for weeks, and sometimes 

 perform considerable work. Now, in order to obtain data upon which 

 it will be safe to found correct views of the office of food and beverages, 

 as well as some of the milder forms of medicines called tonics, it will 

 be necessary to collect a larger stock of facts, and institute many ad- 

 ditional experiments. Those inquiries should be made which have 

 reference to the eremacautis which the system suffers under exercise 

 and work, whether mental or physical the direct influence, too, of 



