686 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



C. I begin to see that I should have been in equally good trim for 

 boating upon a very different kind of breakfast that what I wanted' 

 was fuel for force-making rather than food for muscle-making ; and 

 now that I call to mind many facts which have been brought under 

 my notice in countries where olive-oil is a staple article of food, I can, 

 after what you have said about the connection of electricity with 

 muscular action, understand how a man whose food is chiefly polenta 

 or potato, with a little bread and oil, should have had as much muscu- 

 lar power at his disposal as ever I could contrive to compass. I once 

 made the ascent of Etna with two Sicilian guides, who scarcely ever 

 tasted any animal food except a morsel of fat bacon, and who lived 

 chiefly on polenta and bread and olive-oil. More than once I thought 

 I should never get to the top ; they trudged upward with scarcely a 

 sign of distress, though often having to expend a good deal of strength 

 in pushing or pulling me up. And yet I was in what I thought to be 

 an excellent " condition " at the time. 



M. Yes. 



C. It is, I suppose, right to believe that most of the weaklings 

 who are benefited in this country by cod-liver oil, in Switzerland by 

 neat's-foot oil, and in Russia by train-oil, would never have required 

 these oils as medicine if their food had been sufficiently rich in fatty 

 and oily articles. Cod-liver oil, I have heard you say again and again, 

 has no special virtue of its own ; it does good simply because it is oil. 

 In my parish, where cod-liver oil is now used, suet diffused in milk, by 

 boiling the two together, was used formerly, and, I am told, with 

 equal benefit. In the cases where cod-liver oil is wanted the food in 

 all probability has been lacking in fatty or oily matter. More force- 

 fuel was wanted, I supjwse. 



M. I have a notion that the beneficial action of the fats and oils is 

 not wholly to be accounted for by regarding them mei-ely as force- 

 producers. I believe that they actually serve as food for nerve-tissue. 

 This tissue is in the main made up of a peculiar kind of fat, and I am 

 convinced that nerve is starved if the food be wanting in a sufficient 

 quantity of fatty or oily matter. I find that very many persons suf- 

 fering from various chronic disorders of the nervous system have ab- 

 stained from the fatty and oily articles of food, and that their state is 

 almost invariably very much changed for the better when you can get 

 them to take what they have avoided ; I also find that a great number 

 of delicate infants who can not take skimmed milk, and who do not 

 take kindly to unskimmed milk, will take milk without any difficulty 

 when it is enriched with cream. You may say if you will, "These 

 facts only show that the fatty and oily matters have done good in 

 these cases by acting as force-fuel," and I do not care to contradict 

 you flatly. Indeed, all I can say is that I do not think I am illogical 

 in supposing that they may do good also in serving as food for nerve- 

 tissue. 



