332 CRITICAL NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS, 
himself, they were indigenous with the diet. Such well-known 
- facts suggest the policy of learning to increase and to economize the 
materials of nourishment, many of which are wasted or neglected in 
great abundance: a circumstance more discreditable to the intelli- 
gence of the country than to its ignorance, from which last it can- 
not entirely proceed, as general science possesses the means of vastly 
multiplying wholesome food from sources which it were sinful to 
neglect longer. However pernicious may be intemperance and ex- 
cess on individuals—and circumstances tend to make both those 
terms arbitrary in particular cases—it is certain that, on the whole, 
luxury and refinement, as the fruits of intelligence, are favourable 
to health and longevity ; and we are truly taught by reasoning and 
observation that quantity of food affects the health more directly 
than its quality, due regard being taken to ensure those advantages 
of preparation which do not significantly add to its cost, yet greatly 
augment its pleasant sapidity, and neutralize or modify an il] fla- 
vour, and subserve to diminish the waste of unemployed portions. 
It may be necessary that our knowledge of the function of diges- 
tion, and the process of renovation or nutrition, shall be greatly in- 
creased, before we can say with certainty to what extent science 
may render subsidiary to the sustentation of man, a long catalogue 
of articles of natural and artificial production, which, in the prodi- 
gality of his present resources of civilization, he rejects or entirely 
overlooks. 
Physiology cannot be more usefully employed than in enlightening 
a subject of such invariable interest as enquiring into the nature of 
digestion and nutrition, and deducing therefrom conclusions which 
will assist him in the choice, preparation, and economy of food. In 
investigations for this purpose, none have approached in certainty 
and usefulness the observations and experiments of Dr. Beaumont, 
which gave results wholly unaffected by those disturbing causes in 
physiological experiments of which we shall presently, with justice, 
complain. 
The pursuit of physiological studies demands untiring zeal, not 
far removed from enthusiasm, combined with habits of industry, pa-~ 
tient research, and abstinence from a tendency to hasty generaliza- 
tion. The sense of vision should be acute, and that of hearing not 
less so ; for both those faculties are often called into requisition, as 
is also a correctly discriminating power of smelling, and an exquisite 
delicacy of manipulation in performing experiments on the minute 
structures and objects which are the subject of inquiry. 
It is probable that to deficiency in some or all of those pre-requi- 
sites we owe the discouraging and dissimilar results from identical 
investigations ; and it cannot be otherwise than that too often a 
new and disturbing element, more or less fatal to the accuracy of 
the results, is introduced in the way we are about to describe. Our 
objection has oftener been anticipated or overlooked than obviated or 
corrected. In experiments performed on living animals, the deduc- 
tions must be frequently faulty, or altogether fallacious; for, how- 
