1853.] OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTION. 315 
that any animalaliment is. After alluding to the mineral ingredients, 
attention was directed to a diet-table, which contained some mo- 
difications, but was based on the one published in the Agricultural 
Cyclopedia under the article Diet: the table as shown being used in 
the calculation of the dietaries. 
The old mode of estimating the value of dietaries, by merely giving 
the total number of ounces of solid food used daily or weekly, and 
quite irrespective of its composition, was shown to be quite erroneous; 
and an instance was given of an agricultural labourer in Gloucester- 
shire, who in the year of the potato famine subsisted chiefly on flour, 
consuming 163 ounces weekly, which contained 26 ounces of flesh- 
formers. When potatoes cheapened he returned to a potato-diet 
and now eat 321 ounces weekly, although his true nutriment in 
flesh-formers was only about 8 or 10 ounces. He showed this 
further, by calling attention to the six pauper dietaries formerly 
recommended, to the difference between the salt and fresh meat 
dietary of the Sailor, &c., all of which, relying on absolute 
weight alone, had in reality no relation in equivalent nutritive 
value. 
Attention was now directed to the diagrams exemplifying dietaries. 
Taking the Soldier and Sailor as illustrating healthy adult men, they 
consumed weekly about 35 ounces of flesh-formers, 70 to 74 ounces of 
carbon, the relation of the carbon in the fiesh-formers to that of the 
heat-givers being 1:3. If the dietaries of the aged were contrasted 
with this, it would be found that they consumed less flesh-formers 
(25—30 ounces), but rather more heat-givers (72—78 ounces) ; the 
relation of the carbon in the former to that of the latter being about 
1:5. The young boy, about ten or twelve years of age, consumed 
about 17 ounces weekly, or about half the flesh-formers of the adult 
man; the carbon being about 58 ounces weekly, and the relations of 
the two carbons being nearly 1:54. The circumstances under which 
persons are placed influence these proportions considerably. In 
‘workhouses and prisons the warmth renders less necessary a large 
amount of food-fuel to the body; while the relative amount of 
labour determines the greater or less amount of flesh-formers. 
Accordingly it is observed that the latter are increased to the 
prisoners exposed to hard labour. From the quantity of flesh- 
formers in food, we may estimate approximatively the rate of 
chdnge in the body. Nowa man weighing 140l]bs. has about 4]bs. 
of flesh in blood, 274]bs. in his muscular substance, &c., and about 
5lbs. of nitrogenous matter in the bones. These 37 lbs. would be 
received in food in about eighteen weeks; or, in other words, that 
period might represent the time required for the change of the 
tissues, if all changed with equal rapidity, which is, however, not at 
all probable. 
All the carbon taken as food is not burned in the body, part of 
of it being excreted with the waste matter. Supposing the re- 
spirations to be 18 per minute, a man expires about 8,590z, of 
