222 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



that even milk, which contains all the substances 

 needed for the nourishment of the child, contains 

 them in a condition perfectly useless, as far as the 

 direct and immediate nourishment of the child is con- 

 cerned : until the milk has undero-one the dio-estive 

 process — namely, a succession of chemical decomposi- 

 tions and recompositions — it is no more competent to 

 nourish the muscles, bones, and nerves of the child, 

 than so much chalk -and -water, which is delusively 

 sold as milk in virtuous cities. The mutton-chop, too, 

 which we justly reckon such excellent food, is only 

 "food potential;" it must undergo a very curious 

 series of changes before it can be converted into blood. 

 Nor is the business finished there. We are errone- 

 ously accustomed to consider blood as the final stage 

 of food, previous to its assimilation. Physiologists 

 trace the story of Digestion up to this point, and there 

 leave it ; as story-writers leave their heroes married, 

 thereby indicating that nothing more remains to be 

 said. But just as marriage is the beginning of a new 

 act in the drama, and the act in which all life cul- 

 minates, so is this blood-formation but the commence- 

 ment of a new series of changes, and these the most 

 important. I think it can be shown that the blood 

 itself is not more immediately and directly assimilable 

 than the mutton-chop from which it was formed. In its 

 passage through the walls of its vessels, it undergoes 

 specific changes, fitting it for assimilation ; without 

 such changes it is not assimilable ; blood, as blood, 

 nourishes no tissue, but lies on it like any other foreign 



