RICE, 589 
of cellulose which they contain. If the bulk be small, and the 
amount of cellulose scanty, as with white bread, rice, and 
macaroni, then the intestinal digestion is very complete. On 
the contrary, if the food is bulky, and full of cellulose, then 
intestinal digestion, and absorption, are much less thorough. 
The cellulose is not only almost useless for purposes of nutrition, 
but it largely prevents the access of the digestive juices to the 
nourishing ingredients which it encloses. “The reign of 
vegetables,” said Punch, July, 1901, “is at hand, but we need 
a crusade to bring it in. Let noble verse be set to noble music 
for that end. Let us begin by glorifying Rice! That Rice is 
superior to flesh meat is easily proved. Who would throw 
mutton chops at a newly-married couple? No, we all thus 
acknowledge that innocent Rice is superior to mutton chops. 
‘“ How nice 
Is Rice! 
How gentle, and how very free from vice 
Are those whose fodder is mainly Rice ! 
Rice! Rice! 
Succulent Rice ! 
Really it doesn’t want thinking of twice: 
The gambler would quickly abandon his dice, 
The criminal classes be quiet as mice, BP 
Tf carefully fed upon nothing but Rice. am 
Yes; Rice! Rice! 
Beautiful Rice! 
All the wrong in the world would be right in a trice 
If everyone fed upon nothing but Rice.” 24 
he 
There are persons to whom Rice, in whatever form, or in 
however small a quantity, seems to be almost poisonous ; cases 
are on frequent record where this grain, taken carefully cooked, 
has nevertheless produced extreme distress ; even, in one instance, 
when some soup (as it was afterwards discovered) had been 
thickened with ground rice ; and in another when bottled beer 
drunk at lunch was the cause of offence, the event showing that 
a few grains of rice had been put beforehand into the bottle for 
exciting a second process of fermentation in the beer. ‘ Foods 
made with rice” (quoth Dr. Tobias Venner, 1620), “all are 
somewhat of hard concoction, and of an astringent facultie; to 
the aged, and such as are molested with phlegme, and obstruc- 
tions, they are very hurtfull.” Boutins, 1779, in an account 
of the diseases common in the East Indies, has stated that 
where rice is eaten almost exclusively the vision becomes 
