110 OF FOOD, AND THE DIGESTIVE PROCESS. 



vegetables seems especially indicated, where .1 general chronic disorder of 

 nutrition indicates a perverted condition of the circulating material; and 

 especially where there is a disposition to chronic inflammation, induration, 

 and ulceration, in different parts of the body. 



v. Finally, then, a well-arranged dietetic scheme ought to consist of^uch 

 a combination of the Albuminous, Oleaginous, and Farinaceous constituents, 

 as is most appropriate to the requirements of the system; a larger measure 

 of both the albuminous and farinaceous or oily being supplied, when an un- 

 usual amount of nervo-muscular exertion is put forth, and this supply being 

 in the latter case most advantageously derived from animal flesh; a larger 

 measure of the oleaginous being required for the sustentarion of the heat in 

 a frigid atmosphere, and this being supplied equally well by the Vegetable 

 kingdom as by the Animal; and a larger proportion of the farinaceous, as 

 a substitute for the oleaginous, being most favorable to health under a high 

 atmospheric temperature. An habitual excess in the use of either of these 

 constituents, above what the demands of the system require, tends towards 

 the production of a particular "diathesis" or constitutional state, which 

 may manifest itself in a great variety of modes. Thus, an excess of the 

 albuminous components, such as is only likely to occur when too large a pro- 

 portion of animal food is employed, undoubtedly favors the arthritic dia- 

 thesis, which seems to consist in the presence of imperfectly assimilated 

 histogenetic substances and wrongly metamorphosed products of disintegra- 

 tion, that are not duly eliminated through the kidneys; and this diathesis 

 not only displays itself in gout and gravel, but modifies the course of other 

 diseases. So again, an excess of the oleaginous constituents of the food 

 tends to the production of the bi/ioii* diathesis, in which, through the in- 

 sufficient elimination of hydrocarbonaceous matters, the blood becomes 

 charged with the elements of bile. The excess of farinaceous matters, more- 

 over, especially when combined with a deficiency of the albuminous (as it 

 too frequently is among those who are obliged by necessity to live chiefly 

 upon a "poor" vegetable diet), tends to the production of the rheumutlc dia- 

 thesis; which seems to consist, like the arthritic, in the mal-assimilation and 

 wrong metamorphosis of the components of the tissues, but to be especially 

 favored by the presence either of lactic acid, or of some other product of 

 the metamorphosis of the saccharine compounds. And, as already pointed 

 out, the deficiency of oleaginous matters seems to tend to the development 

 of the scrofulous diathesis; and that of fruits and fresh vegetables to the 

 production of the scorbutic. 1 



sicians, who practiced in those good old times when potatoes were a luxury and green 

 vegetables in the winter almost unknown, when the middle classes led upon salted 

 meat during a great part of the year, and when sagacious old women prescribed 

 nettle-tea and scurvy-grass, with a course of lenitive "spring-physic," for the 

 " cleansing of the blood." 



1 It is worthy of remark that in the times when even the wealthy lived during 

 four or five months of the year almost exclusively upon meat, bread, and flour-pud- 

 dings, and when, therefore, the diet was far too highly a/oti/ed, as well as delicient in 

 fresh vegetables, Arthritic, Calculous, and Scorbutic disorders were much more com- 

 mon than at present. The introduction and universal employment of the potato has 

 unquestionably done much to correct these two tendencies ; on the one hand, by dilut- 

 ing the M/.oiizcd constituents of the food, so that, with the, same bulk, a much smaller 

 proportion of these is now introduced ; and on the other, by supplying to tin- blood 

 some I'li'iinMit which is c>sential to the maintenance of it* healthy condition. But 

 with the diminution of the Arthritic diathesis, which the experience of our older prac- 

 titioners, and the medical writings of the last century, indicate as having taken place 

 during that period, there has been an increase in tin- Khcumatic ; a change which 

 seems to have a clo.-e relation |o this alteration in diet. And it seems not improb- 

 alil", too, that this alteration has also much to do with that diminished power of sus- 

 taining active depletory treatment, which, according to the observations of practi- 



