266 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
Such preparations therefore as the malt extracts can never add 
to the diet as much fattening and warming support as an 
equivalent in weight of ordinary cane sugar. Spermaceti, as 
obtained from the whale, used to be largely given for the purpose 
of making a thin person fat, but it has now dropped out of use. 
It was administered in the form of a powder, mixed with sugar, 
and three-quarters of an ounce could be thus taken daily, being 
well borne, and not difficult to absorb. Cream contains about 
20 per cent of fat, and three tablespoonfuls of it are more than 
equal in food value to one tablespoonful of cod-liver oil emulsion. 
Butter has 80 per cent of fat, and can be taken in considerable 
quantity if mixed with starchy food, such as mashed potato. 
As Dr. Hutchison says, “ There can be no doubt that mutton- 
fat, especially when hot, proves irritating to the stomachs of 
some persons ; and in them the eating of mutton pies, or Irish 
stews, is likely to be followed by bothering indigestion, or even 
acute catarrh of the stomach.” 
Sleep of itself seems to lessen the waste of bodily fat. A 
German writer goes so far as to assert that an extra hour's sleep 
at night is equivalent to the saving of two and a half pounds 
of fat in the year. A good homely form of fatty food at 
breakfast is fried bread. Take slices of brown bread, fry them a 
nice brown with some dripping (either of mutton, beef, or roast 
chicken), serve warm with pepper. ‘‘ You'll find,’ said the elder 
Mr. Weller to his son Sam, “that as you gets vider you'll get 
viser. Vidth and visdom, Sammy, always goes together.” 
Practically, when it is wished to increase the bodily weight and 
nutrition by laying on fat only, then the food increment must be 
made as regards giving fats, and carbohydrates (starches, and 
sweet things) ; but where one desires rather to enrich the body 
as to its muscular tissue, and complement of blood, thereby 
adding weight as well as vital force, or, in other words, to confer 
more proteids, then the proportion thereof in the daily food 
must be augmented; whilst what are termed proteid-sparers, 
or economisers, are also given, such as gelatin, and the like. This 
is the plan to be pursued in strengthless, nervous disorders. 
Lean fresh meat is to be regarded as the type of a natural proteid 
food. It contains about one-fifth of its weight of that con- 
stituent, the rest being made up chiefly of water; the proteids 
are not only rapidly consumed, but they cause a sympathetic 
increase in the consumption of sugars and fats; therefore an 
