BIONOMICS 213 



Combe and Dr. Ed. Ceresole, who regard meat foods as 

 exerting a putrefactive effect, whereas milk and carbohydrate 

 foods exert an opposite effect in the intestines. (Lancet, 

 13/9/13.) We are thus gradually coming to draw a vital 

 distinction between the various nitrogenous foods according to 

 their origin, and according to their biological adequacy. Thus 

 Dr. William Brady (Popular Science Siftings for May 30th, 

 1914) urges the beneficence of temporary or prolonged meat 

 fasts. Asked how he knew when a patient is consuming too 

 much meat, he answered: "I make a test. I find the toxic 

 waste products of animal protein left behind after the 

 digestive ferments in the alimentary canal have given up the 

 job and have been superseded by that indefatigable ally and 

 satellite of senility, the colon bacillus." 



He further says: "Vegetable protein, or the 'meat' of 

 beans, peas, rice, wheat, nuts, and cereals generally, digests 

 as easily as animal protein, and resists colon bacillus changes 

 much better than animal protein." 



It is not difficult to see, moreover, that a great sudden 

 evolution of force " due to the decomposition of nitrogenous 

 matter in an organic body " is scarcely conducive to permanent 

 and desirable (progressive) evolution. That such a production 

 of force by the use of nitrogenous (flesh) food in the case of 

 man is generally followed by a lengthened period of great 

 depression, has been experimentally verified by Dr. A. Haig. 



Nature in general does not countenance sudden develop- 

 ments. Only hasty climbers and parasites make excessive 

 ' ' explosive ' ' use of nitrogen, and these come to an untimely end. 

 The strenuous (non-accelerating) species rely upon balance and 

 slow, but permanent, evolution of force, which alone is com- 

 patible with the discharge of work, with systematic and 

 protracted activity. We have seen in the case of the lichen 

 what a startling difference from every point of view it makes 

 if a fungus re-enters the strenuous union of biological 

 symbiosis. Its composition changes with its usefulness, and it 

 matches many of the higher organisms in longevity. 



