296 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
to the authoritative advice of a leading medical text-book. 
But in refutation of this advice, Dr. R. Hutchison now enters 
his protest as follows: “ Blood is a dilute fluid in animals, and 
man, having in every 100 parts from 78 to 82 of water. It is 
not of itself the food of the tissues to which it is circulated in 
the body, but merely the vehicle by means of which nourish- 
ment is carried from the intestines to the places where it is 
required in the body. One might as well expect a spoon to be 
of nutritive value because it conveys food from the plate to the 
mouth.” Two French experimenters found that fresh blood 
when administered to dogs, even in the liberal allowance of two 
pounds daily, did not suffice to maintain the life of the animals 
for more than a month. Blood, in fact, from a chemical point 
of view, is not so much thicker than water after all: in its solids 
there is plenty of proteid (primary food), but the other nutritive 
constituents needed to sustain life, as fat, and sugar, starch, 
and glucose, are only in quite an inappreciable amount. Further- 
more, the red colouring matter (hemoglobin) which makes up 
the larger part of the proteid, is a substance which is very far 
from being completely absorbed. Thus it happens that though 
blood may be used dietetically without much harm, yet at the 
same time it will be without much benefit, as given in black 
puddings, and similar culinary preparations; this being true 
also of the use of animal blood for the sick as a source of 
iron. 
Importance should be attached to the proper and wholesome 
feeding of fowls which are served for the invalid. They are 
affected healthfully, or otherwise, as to their quality of flesh, 
by the care exercised in feeding them, and the character of the 
fodder which is supplied to them. Recently a French experi- 
mentalist kept some domestic fowls in cages, exclusively on 
hashed meat (previously stripped of sinew, and fat), with as 
much water as they liked to drink. At first this diet seemed to 
suit well enough; but after some time (in from three to five 
months) the fowls began to show positive signs of gout; their 
legs became weak, and their gait uncertain; their joints were 
seen to be manifestly swollen, whilst on some days the birds re- 
mained lying down, and would not take any food. Attacks of 
this nature became more and more frequent, and finally the fowls 
grew thin, and died. Deposits of urates were found around the 
joints, as well as in the sheaths of the tendons; likewise some 
