FATS. 265 
a useful and palatable form. ‘‘ Take several slices of stale bread, 
choosing them not too much dried up, chop off the crusts, cut the 
crumb into neat finger lengths, dip them rapidly in, and out of a 
basin of cold milk, drain them, brush them over with white of 
egg, and dredge them thickly with flour. Melt three table- 
spoontuls of clarified beef-dripping in a small saucepan, and bring 
it to the boil, lower the fingers separately into this, and cook 
them until crisp, and brown. Build them up as a small pyramid 
in the centre of a heated dish, and pour over it a teaspoonful or 
two of strong beef gravy, or of a flavoured brown sauce.” 
All children need a liberal allowance of heat-producing food, 
but most of them have a dislike of fat; therefore they naturally 
crave for sugar as a substitute. Thus their desire for sweets is 
the cry of nature for what she wants; and this voice of nature 
should be obeyed ; nevertheless fatty foods are good for prurigo, 
and other skin troubles of children. 
Dr. R. Hutchison, in a recent lecture before the National 
Health Society of London, “‘ had a-good word to say for Margerine 
as physiologically equal to Butter; than which latter substance 
there is no food stuff of higher value!” His emphatic opinion 
is that there is too much starch, and too little fat in the national 
diet system, and that therefore a stunted race of the working 
classes is growing up. Dripping used to be given liberally to the 
children of the poor ; bread and dripping was the staple article of 
their food ; but this has now given place to cheap jams, which do 
not possess the same nutritive value as the said fatty substance, 
(whereto the homely bloater likewise may be profitably compared), 
these things being supplemented with lentils, oatmeal, haricot 
beans, and a certain amount of animal food; for it cannot be 
doubted that together with the carbohydrates, such as starches, 
sweets, cream, etc., an adequate allowance of nitrogenous nutri- 
ment in the form of fresh meat, eggs, casein of cheese, gluten 
of cereals, and vegetable nitrogens, helps materially to lay on 
fat ; indeed, is essential for the purpose. At the same time a 
considerable amount of bodily exercise, chiefly out of doors, must 
indispensably accompany this dietary, unless it is prohibited by 
a previous wasting of the muscles during some acute disease, 
with as yet insufficient convalescence. 
Dr. Hutchison further-says, there is no sort of carbohydrate 
food more fattening than sugar, because, unlike any other such 
food, this contains no water, the nourishing value whereof is nil. 
