PROCEEDINGS OF THE POLYTECHNIC ASSOCIATION. 529 



from feeding on garbage and disorganized food, then any person 

 who eats of them, or of their butter, milk or eggs, is the same 

 way affected as if he had eaten the disorganized food or garbage, 

 such as was eaten by the malorganized butchered beast, or of the 

 milk, butter, veal or eggs derived from such feed. 



On the contrary, if beasts to be butchered are fed on such food 

 as is most agreeable to man, such as the cereals, corn and wheat, 

 then their flesh, milk, butter or eggs not only taste most pleasantly 

 to mankind, but both the beasts and such persons as feed on 

 them are most healthy, happy and prolific. Yet cattle and hogs, 

 equally fleshy on acorns, shady grass, or pungent twigs and roots, 

 afford unsavory flesh ; but when cattle, hogs or poultry have been 

 mostly raised on unsavory food or disorganized garbage, they 

 may be rendered of excellent quality by feeding them a few 

 months, just before they are butchered, with the cereals or very 

 pleasant vegetables. Moreover, by the same reasoning that a 

 cow that eats distillery slops, putrid cabbages, and mouldy grain, 

 is declared to produce unhealthy milk and injurious veal and 

 cheese; by that same rule we must conclude that the children 

 whose wet nurses eat charred roast beef, extracted lard, fermen- 

 ted or alkaline bread, or thoroughly extracted soups, are swill 

 milk fed of the worst kind, &c., and in a fair way to try the 

 whole catalogue of diseases. 



But the particular practical circumstances to which I wish to 

 direct attention, is that it matters not by what kind of disorgani- 

 zation food has been affected, whether by fermentation, putrifac- 

 tion, evaporation, dissolution or combustion. In other words, I 

 mean to say that in my opinion food is equally spoiled and ren- 

 dered injurious to all that eat it, by either or any of the analyti- 

 cal processes of mow-burning by fermentation; or putrifactiori 

 into carrion or muck; or evaporation into soot or ether; or dis- 

 solution in the strong acids or alkalies or hot liquids ; or of 

 charring by combustion. 



The conclusions derived from my observations and experiments 

 on these subjects, indicate that we ought to select, preserve and 

 cook our food in such a manner as always to keep every particle 

 of it in the same state of organization that it had in the healthy 

 vegetable or animal in which it grow. Hence all cooking should 

 be so accomplished as merely to render the food more easily 



[Am. Inst.] HH 



