A FEW WORDS ABOUT EATABLES. 685 



31. You have only to consider how olive-oil is used in the warm. 

 parts of Europe where the olive is cultivated, and how ghee is used in 

 India, in order to satisfy yourself that oily matter may be taken with 

 facility in hot countries as well as in cold. You hear nothing about 

 indigestion ; you find that a bad olive-harvest or scant supply of ghee 

 is a great national calamity. A Hindoo servant of a friend who 

 kept up his Indian habits of eating here in London has often told me 

 that in his own case nothing would make up for a deficiency of ghee 

 or butter, and that his experience in this matter was the common ex- 

 perience of his countrymen at home or away from home. He looked 

 upon a sip of ghee in very much the same light as that in which his 

 fellow-servants looked upon a draught of beer. " Wine is good, but 

 oil is better," said a peasant to the courier who was with me the other 

 day in Andalusia, and after gulping down a large mouthful of olive- 

 oil and smacking his lips more than once, the expression of his coun- 

 tenance was an apt illustration of the meaning of the Scriptural text 

 which speaks of oil as making "the face to shine." Indeed, it may be 

 taken for granted that oil may be used in large quantities throughout 

 the year in the hot, olive-growing countries of the south of Europe, 

 not only without making the people bilious or out of order in any way, 

 but with unmistakable benefit. 



C. You have spoken of fat and butter and cream as force-produc- 

 ing agents. You mean heat-producing, I suppose ? 



31. No ; I meant what I said. They are heat-producing agents 

 without doubt, but heat is only one of several modes of force which 

 are closely correlated, and there is reason to believe that the molecular 

 movement which gives rise to heat in one case may, in another case, 

 give rise to electricity or some other form of physical force. I do not 

 believe that heat is transformed into muscular force or nerve-force. 

 I believe that the oxidization of the force-fuel, which gives rise to 

 heat in one case, may in the case of a muscle and nerve give rise to the 

 electricity which is peculiar to muscle and nerve ; that this electricity 

 antagonizes the state of action in both muscle and nerve ; that in mus- 

 cle it also causes elongation of the fibers during the state of rest, and 

 that muscular contraction is brought about by the action of the attract- 

 ive force which is inherent in the physical constituents of the mus- 

 cular molecules when this force is no longer antagonized by their elec- 

 tricity. Indeed, all that I want to bring about muscular contraction 

 is, not a metamorphosis of muscle which issues in the development of 

 muscular force, nor a transformation of heat into muscular force, but 

 simply a supply of electricity during the state of muscular inaction 

 which will counteract the tendency which the muscle always has to 

 contract as an elastic body. I want, indeed, not a special muscular 

 force, but merely the common attractive force which is inherent in the 

 physical constitution of the muscular molecules, and electricity to 

 counteract the working of their attractive force when necessary. 



