250 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
such as exists naturally in nerve tissues, also in the blood, in fish 
sperm, and in certain of the cereals, as wheat and maize. When 
supplied in the yolk of eggs it stimulates the appetite, and leads 
quickly to an increase of bodily weight. The Medical Record tells 
passim that from the University of Chicago there has been issued 
a recipe for bringing about bodily bigness ; and that the age of the 
race of giants is about to begin again. Henceforward there will 
be no pigmies, because of a wonderful food-substance which 
makes men and animals grow fast, and large. This new food 
is lecithin. Dr. Hatai has experimented with it on white rats, 
and by feeding them with such nutriment made them grow sixty 
per cent faster than they grow ordinarily, the same being done 
even under atmospheric conditions and general surroundings 
which were unfavourable. Scientists say that lecithin will have 
a similar effect on human beings. The Professor named above 
finds that the growth induced thereby is normal, and embraces 
all parts, including bigness of heart, and of body, as well as 
of head. Furthermore distinct traces of arsenic are found by 
the chemist to be present in eggs. 
A sagacious maxim teaches that ‘‘eggs (should be) of an 
hour, fish of ten, bread of a day, wine of a year, a woman 
of fifteen, and a friend of thirty.” 
In an egg laid only a few hours before, the white is milky, 
which circumstance sometimes leads to such egg being erroneously 
considered stale. When an egg has been newly laid it is always 
damp, and observation shows that the longer it remains wet, or 
is kept thus, by so much does it remain fresh ; obviously, there- 
fore, eggs for preservation should be packed wet. The fats of 
egg yolk differ chemically from ordinary fats, they also contain 
a large measure of phosphorus, which is easy of assimilation. 
But the absence of other carbohydrates (starch, sugar, etc.) 
prevents eggs from being in any sense a complete food. It 
would moreover require twenty of them daily to supply even 
the amount of proteid necessary for a healthy man. The egg 
shell is mainly carbonate of lime; that of the ostrich’s egg 
is so thick, and hard, that it may seriously wound a man if 
the egg becomes rotten and explodes by reason of its com- 
pressed gases produced by decomposition. 
“* Dumptius in muro sedet teres, atque rotundus, 
Humptius, heu ! cecidit ; magna ruina fuit. 
Non homimes, non regis equi—miserabile dictu ! 
Te possunt sociis reddere, Dumpti, tuis.”’ 
