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we have to concede that cheese in general, and skim-milk cheese 

 in particular, can claim a foremost place among our common 

 articles of food on account of their very high percentage of nitrog- 

 enous or blood-forming constituents. However, scientific inves- 

 tigations of a later date, and closer observations of a successful 

 practice in every-day life, have modified considerably the above 

 assumed standard for the determination of the relative value of 

 different nutritive substances. It has been proved that the com- 

 parative value of a food does not depend solely on its high per- 

 centage of nitrogenous constituents, but on a proper relative 

 proportion of its nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous elements with 

 the requisite amount and kind of saline constituents. Whatever, 

 therefore, is wanting in one kind of food has to be supplied by 

 some other, which completes the requirements of a normal diet. 

 Cheese cannot be considered a complete food of man in the same 

 sense as milk or bread. Its position is therefore a less important 

 one. Wherever, under normal conditions, a diet is used which 

 introduces nitrogenous constituents beyond a certain proportion, 

 it will be wasted. There are other points which claim attention 

 when a healthy diet is to be decided upon. A. suitable form is of 

 the utmost importance. In speaking in particular of the nutri- 

 tious value of cheese, it is but proper, also, to call attention to the 

 fact that it is not impossible that the peculiar process of fermen- 

 tation which causes the transformation of coagulated casein — 

 the curd — into cheese, may have impaired the value of the casein 

 of the milk. Milk and cheese operate quite dissimilarly in our 

 digestive organs ; for a child, as a general rule, prospers on the 

 casein of the milk, yet will be unable to assimilate it in the form 

 of cheese ; a more vigorous digestion, if I may use the expression, 

 is needed to turn cheese to account. The casein in the milk, 

 the curd and the cheese, are quite different forms of a nitrogen- 

 ous substance, and it would be singular if that difference should 

 be found not to extend farther ; a badly flavored cheese — the 



