NON-NITKOGENTZED ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 57 



seventy parts per hundred. It is most abundant in rice, 

 which contains, after desiccation, 88*65 parts per 100. 1 



The proportion of starch in the various vegetable articles 

 has assumed considerable interest from the fact that in the 

 mode of treatment of diabetes already referred to, In which 

 it is the object to prevent the ingestion of sugar or any thing 

 which may be transformed into sugar, it is proper to allow 

 certain vegetables, which contain no starch, or a very small 

 quantity. Payen gives the following list of articles, arranged 

 in order according to their proportion of starch : 



" 1. Parsnips, which contain in their natural condition 

 6, and desiccated, 29*38 parts per 100 of starch ; 



"2. Carrots; 



" 3. Pods of string-beans : starch exists in the substance 

 of the walls of the carpelles? as well as in the young green 

 beans; but it is not found in appreciable quantity in the 

 parenchyma which surrounds the beans ; 



" 4. Turnips : starch is found principally in the cortical 

 portion of these tuberous roots ; 



" 5. Cabbages : the presence of starch in very small 

 quantity is recognized in the ribs of the leaves ; 



" 6. Cauliflowers : it is at the upper extremity of the atro- 

 phied buds, forming the head of this horticultural product, 

 that slight traces of starch are observed. 



" "We have not found starch in romaine, lettuce, chiccory, 

 in the leaves of sorrel, spinage, in asparagus, artichauts, leeks, 

 nor in the large, early, white onion." s 



1 Ibid., p. 265. 



8 This is a name given by De Candolle to the elementary organs, free or ad- 

 herent to each other, the reunion of which gives rise to the pistil, and each one 

 of which has been regarded as a little leaf folded upon itself. (NYSTEN'S Did.) 



3 PAYEN, op. cit., p. 387. In the treatment of diabetes by the exclusion of 

 saccharine and amylaceous articles of food, it is, of course, important to secure 

 the greatest possible variety of diet ; and though this is a question of therapeu- 

 tics, we have thought it not uninteresting nor inappropriate to give a list of vege- 

 tables which contain no starch, or so little that they may be supposed to furnish 

 no material for the formation of the sugar which is discharged from the body. 



