228 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



itself digested and de-energized and acts more slowly than the digest- 

 ive process. 



After this the ever-present but now non-energized ferment-germs 

 act tardily, till some accident of overdoing, or bad eating, or other 

 cause, again delays digestion till fermentation is set up in the gastric 

 cavity, and the cultivation process above described is renewed, when 

 there is another attack of acidity of the stomach, difficult to bear and 

 difficult to get rid of, as every unfortunate dyspeptic and every un- 

 fortunate physician to such a patient full well know to their sorrow. 

 But the starving-out process is not easy, and is not applicable in many 

 cases ; besides, not every one has the resolution for it, wdien it might 

 be proper and effective. If, in gofio, already demonstrated to have 

 the essentials of high nutrition and palatableness, we have an article 

 of food capable of resisting the acid decomposition for a much longer 

 time than the ordinary preparations of farinacea, it will be an ines- 

 timable boon to all civilized communities to make the fact known 

 to them. 



I have set on foot trials of the value of gofio, in such cases as are 

 appropriate, to carefully determine its influence in preventing gastric 

 acidity. Whether the impressions, formed, as above described, after 

 several months' personal experience, are to be sustained or to be found 

 groundless, will be known in due time by ample clinical demonstra- 

 tions. But, considering the importance of the subject to so many 

 persons, and to the end that experiments in the use of gofio in appro- 

 priate cases may be multiplied, I do not hesitate to place my (as yet) 

 unsupported personal experience before the profession and public for 

 their careful consideration. 



SOCIAL SUSTENANCE. 



II. COMBINATION OF EFFORT. 



By HENKY J. PIIILPOTT. 



PERHAPS we may now enter on a more detailed examination of 

 the nature and methods of the help that human beings in the 

 social state render one another in making a living. The best way to 

 do this will be to begin with the simple and proceed to the complex. 

 It is all done by the combination of our efforts not their aggregation 

 simply, but their combination. We must carefully note the difference. 

 Aggregation is a mere pooling of products or results. At any rate, 

 let us so use the word. It may be illustrated by two fishermen fishing 

 on the river-bank with hook and line, and dividing the catch at night. 

 No more fish will be caught than if each fished separately and carried 

 home his own catch. 



But suppose they take a seine, they may catch ten times as many 



