282 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



called into action by its stimulus. He does not believe in the 

 efficiency of carbonaceous foods when alone, which recent experi- 

 ments might seem to indicate. Fick and Wislicenus, he says, 

 drew upon the store of nitrogenous matter in their s^^stem when 

 they cut it off in their food, and he maintains that carbon foods 

 can only be efficient in the presence of nitrogenous matter. When 

 a muscle loses nitrogen, fat is probably formed, and thus a muscle, 

 disintegrating during the period of rest, may form a store of fat 

 in its texture, which may become efficient at the next addition of 

 nitrogenous matter as a source of force. The argument as to the 

 oxidation of nitrogenous matter being insufficient to account for 

 work is true enough ; but oxidation is not the only chemical change 

 taking place in the blood, as Berthelot has shown ; the appropria- 

 tion of albumen-nitrogen, and its change into muscle-nitrogen, 

 may, and probably does, initiate the other chemical changes in 

 which carbonaceous foods become efficient as sources of force. 

 One thing is to be regretted in all experiments on this subject with 

 human beings, — in them the evolution of cerebral force is as va- 

 riable as that of muscular force, and cannot be regulated or taken 

 into account. It must, equally with muscle work, modify the 

 elimination of nitrogenous matter and carbonic acid, and yet there 

 appears to be no means of guarding against it as a source of error. 

 The brain may be more active during the period of muscular rest 

 than during muscular exertion. — Quarterly Journal of Science, 

 January f 1868. 



DEFECTIVE ALIMENTATION. 



In an article on *' Defective Alimentation a Pnmary Cause of 

 Disease," by J. H. Salisbury, ]\I.D., Cleveland, Ohio, the follow- 

 ing are some of the diseases excited by defective feeding, — Veg- 

 etable dyspepsia: Tiiis arises from the too exclusive and too long 

 continued use of vegetable, and especially amylaceous and sac- 

 charine food. Sooner or later the filamentous stage of yeast 

 vegetation begins, ushering in the acetous fermentation, produc- 

 ing acid stomach, and sour eructations. Yeast plants are rapidly 

 developed in the organ, and every particle of vegetable food that 

 is taken in immediately begins to ferment, the stomach being 

 converted into an apparatus for manufacturing beer, alcohol, vin- 

 egar, and carbonic acid. Chronic Diarrhoea : This disease, with 

 the other intercurrent abnormal states that arise from the too ex- 

 clusive use of a dry, amylaceous diet, may be conveniently 

 divided into three stages, — the incubative, the acute, and the 

 chronic. 



The following interesting facts are developed on the micro- 

 scopic examination of the faeces : 1st. That as soon (after begin- 

 ning to subsist on amylaceous diet) as gases begin to develop in 

 the intestinal canal, yeast plants begin to develop in the alimentary 

 matters to an abnormal extent. 2d. That this development of 

 yeast plants is evidence of the inauguration of fermentative change 

 in the amylaceous food. 3d. That fermentation and the develop- 



