THE HYGIENE OF NUTRITION 219 



Hawk, of the University of Illinois, has made a number of 

 trials which are entirely favorable to the practice of drink- 

 ing all the water that one chooses with meals. He has 

 shown that the fecal nitrogen is lower when water is taken in 

 large volume than when it is forbidden. This fact he holds 

 to indicate more complete digestion and more thorough ab- 

 sorption. His subjects were in the best of health, and his 

 results do not contradict those of physicians who have found 

 the restriction of water beneficial in particular cases. 



The opinion is commonly held that drinking much water 

 favors increase of weight. To a limited extent such in- 

 crease of weight may result from actual retention of water. 

 We can see that a definite addition to the adipose 

 tissue may proceed from the tendency to eat more food 

 when water is taken freely. Perhaps the converse of this 

 form of statement is more accurate; namely, that weight 

 is lost when water is restricted and the quantity of solid 

 food unconsciously diminished. Sometimes an erroneous 

 inference may have been drawn from the fact that stout 

 people drink a great deal of water. This is in part a 

 consequence rather than a cause of their condition. Sub- 

 cutaneous fat is a hindrance to the escape of heat from the 

 body, and its presence during warm weather necessitates 

 an unusual amount of perspiration. This, in turn, pro- 

 duces thirst. 



Meat. Much that is written tends to create the im- 

 pression that meat is entirely unlike any other food. Its 

 peculiarities are constantly exaggerated. When Erasmus 

 Darwin excused himself from Lenten abstinence on the 

 ground that "all flesh is grass" he perverted Scripture, but 

 uttered a physiologic truth. Meat has two distinctive 

 characters: it is very rich in proteins and in extractives. 

 It is not any richer in protein than are peas and beans, but 

 while these vegetables contain a large proportion of carbo- 

 hydrates, lean meat contains these bodies very scantily. 

 A diet of lean meat, therefore, comes near to being a 

 straight protein diet. A plate of beans is equivalent in 

 composition to a plate of meat and potato. 



