PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 13 



Work of au analogous character to that which Wolff of Hohenheira performed with 

 reference to the science of cattle-feeding, has been accomplished in the case of the human 

 species by Konig of Miinster. In his work " Die menschlichen Nahrungs und Genuss 

 mittel " (Human food and condiments), he has concentrated the results of the most recent 

 investigations regarding nutrition, collected and recalculated all the known analyses of 

 hitman food, described most minutely the nature of these and their adulterations, and 

 developed a system for determining their relative value, which promises to have a wide 

 practical ajiplicatiou. Here, again, actual experiment and experience have been made the 

 foundation of a new science, which had lîreviously been a neglected branch of physiology. 

 Even now, in England and Canada, the best plan of feeding cattle receives a much larger 

 share of attention and study than the proper method of nourishing human beings, and 

 there is, perhaps, no subject upon which a greater amount of ignorance prevails in our 

 schools and households. This ignorance is the cause of much waste ; in the case of the 

 higher classes, by the use of too large a proportion of nitrogenous food for the amount of 

 energy exerted ; and in the case of the families of workingmen, partly from the purchase of 

 high-priced articles of low nutritive value, and partly from the injudicious selection and 

 combination of their daily food. It is not unlikely that indulgence in stimulants may in 

 some cases be consequent ui^on the use of a badly selected and innutritions diet. It is 

 almost exclusively to the Grermans that we are indebted for clearing up this subject and 

 placing it on a thoroughly scientific foundation. Time will not permit me to summarise 

 the restilts of their investigations, but I may say that we are now in a much better 

 position than ever before for understanding tVie proximate composition of food, the 

 different functions performed by its various nutritive constituents in building up and 

 sustaining the system, and the relative proportions in which they ought to exist in the 

 daily rations of different individuals under different circumstances. I may also state that 

 these proportions give no countenance to the assertion of certain vegetarians that a suffi- 

 cient quantity of nourishment can be obtained from vegetable food alone. This, however, 

 is only confirmatory of common experience, for we know that the Scotch ploughman must 

 have whole milk to his brose ; the Irish peasant, buttermilk with his potatoes ; the Bavarian 

 holz knecht "schmalz" with his " mehlspeisen ; " and the Canadian axe-man, pork with 

 his bread. Still it is satisfactory to have such experience confirmed by scientific proof. 

 Besides establishing standard rations for the human species under different circumstances, 

 corresponding to the feeding standards for the domestic animals, Konig has endeavoured 

 to establish a method for determining the relative nutritive value of various foods. He 

 starts from the market prices of these in the large cities of Germany, and after givino- due 

 weight to certain physiological considerations, comes to the conclusion that, in human 

 food, fat possesses three times, and albumenoids five times the value of carbo-hydrates. On 

 multiplying the number of grammes of fat and albumenoids contained in one kilo^'ramme 

 of the food by the above figures, and adding the products to the carbo-hydrates, he obtains 

 the number of units of nutritive value contained in a kilogramme. Then this number, 

 divided by the price of a kilo in marks, gives the number of units of nutritive value 

 obtained for one mark. The following are a few of Konig's results. Among animal foods, 

 the number of units of nutritive value obtainable for one mark in the case of some articles 

 in ordinary use is here given : — 



