1874.] Notices of Books. 239 
appeal to a large number of readers, is very readable, and will 
certainly be a great boon to the members of the Aéronautical 
Society. 
Fruits and Farinacea ; the Proper Food of Man. By the late 
Joun Smiru, of Malton. Manchester: John Heywood ; 
London: F. Pitman. 1873. 112 pp. Crown 8vo. 
Tus small work, which has been edited by Professor William 
Newman for the Vegetarian Society, contains the substance of a 
work bearing the same title first published in 1845. It is an 
essay on vegetarianism, and endeavours to prove that vegetables 
were the original, and are the natural and best food of man. 
That such diet was originally adopted by mankind the author 
tries to show by various quotations from Genesis and other early 
writings. In the second chapter proofs are derived from our 
organs; the teeth are said to be unsuited to the mastication of 
animal food; and the argument is forwarded by the alleged in- 
appropriateness of our salivary g glands, alimentary canal, stomach, 
colon, czecum, and liver. We “really begin to wonder how man 
can have lived for centuries on an omnivorous diet if all his 
organs are unsuitable for anything but a vegetable diet. A curious 
table is given in the third chapter, showing the various times 
which different substances take to digest, after Dr. Beaumont. 
The amount in each case is not mentioned,—presumably equal 
weights; if so, it is not to be wondered at that soft boiled rice 
should digest in one-third the time of beef or mutton. Surely 
the composition of the various kinds of food should be given, in 
order to enable one to form ajust estimate. We select a few 
substances :— 
Hours. Mins. 
Rice, boiled soft : I O 
Tapioca, stale bread, milk . 2 oO 
Apple dumpling . . see fo) 
Potatoes and turnips boiled, butter . 3 30 
Venison . t Vous I 35 
murkey  . 2 30 
Boiled pork, “hard- boiled eg Bes. B) 30 
Salt pork, boiled : 4 30 
_ Veal, roasted 5 30 
This table is surely no great support to our author’s argument, 
when we find that venison takes a shorter time to digest than 
tapioca, bread, cabbage, and milk, while boiled potatoes and 
turnips take longer than beef and mutton, and actually as long 
as that notoriously indigestible substance, boiled pork. Among 
other things, an attempt is made to prove that vegetable diet is 
es favourable to the moral state ;”’ the use of wine is said to follow 
the stimulus of animal food. Noah drank wine and became 
