ELMWOOD HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 293 



case, and as " birds of a feather flock together," all the pork might 

 go to one part, all the chicken to another, and all the berries to 

 another; therefore I might have the ears of a cow, a strawberry- 

 nose and the whiskers of a pig. But, fortunately, such is not the 

 case, for the system has the marvelous power of transformation — of 

 taking all the various substances the human family use as food and 

 transforming them into human bone, muscle, blood, brains, etc. 

 Hence we see a wonderful variety in the diet of the human family, 

 and what a man may eat is not to be dictated to him by any physi- 

 ologist, however learned. True, there is a general principle that 

 cannot be ignored; for if the body is to be kept up to a healthy 

 standard, the food supplied to it must not be destitute of those 

 elementary principles which the system requires. But nature makes 

 a liberal provision for all the dilierent circumstances in which man 

 may be placed — difference of latitudes, climates, soils, etc., so that 

 there are few parts of the earth where man may not, by reasonable 

 industry, get the means of supplying his bodily wants. But all do 

 not eat the same kind of food, and " what is one man's meat may be 

 another man's poison." 



What are called the protein compounds are the most valuable, 

 as they contain the most nutriment. They have in their compo- 

 sition the four elements — oxygen, hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen. 

 Many articles of food contain little or no nitrogen, hence the pro- 

 tein compounds are termed the nitrogenous bodies. They are albu- 

 men, fibrin, casein, gluten and some others. They are sometimes 

 called the albumenoids. They form a large part of the human body, 

 do not crystallize, have a jelly-like form, and are coagulated by heat, 

 except casein, which is the curds of milk, and is coagulated by an 

 acid or by rennet. 



Albumen is found most concentrated in eggs. It also exists 

 largely in animal flesh, in grains and in milk. Gluten is found in 

 wheat and other grains, and is sometimes called vegetable fibrin. 

 The foregoing and a few others are called the flesh and muscle-form- 

 ing foods, and it will be observed that excepting gluten, they are 

 found abundantly in food of animal origin. 



Then, there is another group of articles called the heat-produc- 

 ing foods, the hydro-carbons, such as oil, butter, sugar (starch is 

 converted into sugar). These are derived, like the other groups, 

 from both the animal and vegetable kingdoms. They make adipose 

 tissue, give heat, and thereby warm the body; but as they contain no 

 nitrogen, they cannot alone supply muscular tissue. There are vari- 

 ous other things that help to make up the system, and many of an 

 inorganic nature to form bone, teeth, hair, etc. But even these min- 

 eral substances enter the body with organic compounds. The two 

 great groups I have named are considered, however, the chief neces- 

 sities for nourishing the body. Animal flesh, eggs, milk, wheat- 

 bread, cheese and butter, contain more nourishment, perhaps, than 



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