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be very sensibly reduced below four ounces a-day without risk of 

 injury. 



3. This amount of nutriment, though in general adequate for the 

 average in the supposed circumstances, is not always so. 



4. It is probably inadequate for those who have been accustomed 

 to a vigorous occupation in the open air, and a liberal dietary, even 

 when their employment is changed for one involving no great mus- 

 cular effort or exercise. 



5. It is inadequate for a fair proportion of persons considerably 

 exceeding the average in bulk. 



6. It is inadequate for a considerable proportion of growing lads 

 between sixteen and twenty. 



7. It is more generally adequate for females than for males. 



8. It is rendered oocasionally inadequate by other causes not dis- 

 tinctly indicated by the observations in the Scottish prisons, but 

 certainly independent of any increase in habitual muscular exertion. 



9. Hence the economical regulation of the diet of bodies of men 

 must always be a matter of great difficulty ; and if deviations from 

 the standard dietary be not allowed with a liberal discretion, injury 

 will be apt to ensue. And here it should be added from other 

 observations, that suspicion may be lulled by no very perceptible 

 injury except loss of weight occurring ia ordinary seasons ; while, 

 nevertheless, manifest injury will arise in periods of epidemic dis- 

 ease. 



10. The prison dietary in Scotland has been very successfully 

 adjusted by long experience in most of the prisons, so far as regards 

 the class of prisoners who formed the subject of the preceding ob- 

 servations and experiments, — viz., those imprisoned for terms not 

 exceeding two months. But in that dietary treacle-water cannot be 

 substituted for milk without a reduction of flesh, the forerunner of 

 probable ill health, unless some compensation be made in other arti- 

 cles of food. It has, in fact, been disallowed by the Board since 

 these experiments were made. 



11. In adjusting dietaries, and in all practical inquiries into the 

 subject, reliance ought never to be put on practical observation alone ; 

 but scientific analysis should be likewise brought into requisition. 

 Numberless errors committed by merely practical men might easily 

 be quoted, which could scarcely have escaped notice had they united 

 scientific knowledge to practical skill. 



