NATURE AND DESTINATION OF FOOD. 115 



probably attributable to their being undertaken by young persons who have 

 undergone an insufficient amount of training, and who exhaust themselves 

 by exerting their whole nervous energies, or who induce some physical de- 

 rangement of the vascular or respiratory system, by the violent muscular 

 efforts put forth. 1 



71. It is not enough for the healthy support of the body, that the Food 

 ingested should contain an adequate proportion of alimentary constituents; 

 it is important that these should be in a wholesome or uudecomposing state. 

 Thus from Mr. Gamgee's inquiries it appears 3 that the sale of meat derived 

 from animals who have suffered from the recently prevalent diseases, pleuro- 

 pneumonia and typhoid fever, is lamentably common even in the London 

 markets; and it has been well stated 3 that "although it may be difficult to 

 prove it by actual cases, there can be no doubt that unwholesome meat is 

 one cause amongst many of the debility and cachexies, the poverty of blood 

 and intractable maladies of the poor who flock to the dispensaries and paro- 

 chial medical officers, and especially of diarrhoea during hot weather." 

 Many instances of this kind have been recorded; 4 and the risk is quite suf- 

 ficient to justify a strict prohibition of the use of any such article. That 

 meat which is simply putrescent is to be considered as injurious per se, when, 

 habitually employed, is scarcely a matter of reasonable doubt. It is true 

 that some nations are in the habit of keeping their meat until it is tainted, 

 having a preference for it in that condition, which seems to have grown out 

 of the supposed necessity for thus employing it; a preference which has its 

 parallel among the epicures in our own country, who consider the Ji-mt c/odt 

 essential to the perfection of their venison or woodcock. One of the most re- 

 markable examples of this kind among a civilized people, is furnished by the 

 inhabitants of the Faroe Islands ; who, according to the report of Dr. Pa mini, 

 who has investigated their Sanitary condition, live during a large part of 

 the year upon meat in a state of incipient decomposition, and introduce rast, 

 or half decayed maggoty flesh, fowl, or fish, as a special relish at the end of 

 a meal. 5 The result of such a diet is (as might be anticipated) a continual 

 disorder of the digestive organs, manifesting itself especially by diarrhoea, 

 which also complicates the course of other diseases, and even becomes, from 

 its obstinacy and exhausting character, their most serious occurrence. More- 

 over, the Faroese are peculiarly liable to suffer severely from epidemics, 

 when these are introduced among them. Hence, notwithstanding that the 

 usual rate of mortality is very low (only 1 in 64 annually), it is obvious 

 that there is a certain constitutional condition among them which peculiarly 

 favors the reception and propagation of zymotic poisons; and it is quite con- 

 formable to the principles elsewhere laid down, to attribute this to the 

 habitual introduction of putrescent matter with the food. It is probable, 

 indeed, that if it were not for the active lives of the Faroese, and their 

 habitual exposure to a low external temperature, the direct effects of their 

 diet would be far more prejudicial than they are; but a large part of these 

 are probably neutralized by that activity of respiration which the habits of 

 life of this hardy people induce, much of the noxious matter being decorn- 



1 Sec SUey's Letter and subsequent discussion in Times of October, 1867. 



2 Cattle Plague and Diseased Meat. Letter to Sir George Grey, 1857, quoted in 

 Med.-Chir. Rev., 1858. 



3 In a Report of the Committee of the Metropolitan Association of Medical Officers 

 of Health. 



4 See Ann. d'Hygiene, 1829, ii, p. 2G7 ; 1834, ii, 69; also Taylor in Guy's Hospital 

 Eeports, April, 1813. 



5 See Dr. Panum's Observations o?i an Epidemic of Measles in the Faroe Islands, 

 in the Bibliothek for Lasgr., 184G ; of which an analysis is given in the Brit, and Fur. 

 Med.-Chir. Rev., vol. vii, p. 419. 



