NATURE AND DESTINATION OP FOOD. 387 



discontented, when put on a short allowance of 8 Ibs. of meat a day; their 

 usual consumption being from 12 to 20 Ibs. That a much larger quantity of 

 food than that formerly specified, may be habitually taken with perfect freedom 

 from injurious consequences, under a particular system of exercise, &c., appears 

 from the experience of those who are trained for feats of strength, pugilistic 

 encounters, &c. The ordinary belief that the Athletic constitution cannot be 

 long maintained, appears to have no real foundation; nor does it appear that 

 any ultimate injury results from the system being persevered in for some time. 

 That trained men often fall into bad health, on the cessation of the plan, is 

 probably owing in part to the intemperance and other bad habits of persons of 

 the class usually subjected to this discipline. The effects of trainers' regimen 

 are hardness and firmness of the muscles, clearness of the skin, capability of 

 bearing continued severe exercise, and a feeling of freedom and lightness (or 

 "corkiness") in the limbs. During the continuance of the system, it is found 

 that the body recovers with wonderful facility from the effects of injuries; 

 wounds heal very rapidly; cutaneous eruptions usually disappear. Clearness 

 and vigor of mind, also, are stated to be results of this plan. 1 



409. It is not enough for the healthy support of the body, that the Food in- 

 gested should contain an adequate proportion of alimentary constituents; it is 

 important that these should be in a wholesome or undecomposing state. Put- 

 ting out of view all impregnations with deleterious substances, which the articles 

 used as food may have received from various external sources, it cannot be 

 questioned that they may derive a poisonous character from changes taking place 

 in their own nature and composition. Thus it is a fact very familiar to German 

 Toxicologists, that cheese, bacon, sausages, and other articles, may spontaneously 

 undergo such deleterious alterations, as give rise, when they are employed as 

 food, to all the symptoms of irritant poisoning, which may even pass on to pro- 

 duce fatal consequences; that such occurrences are very rare in this country, is 

 probably to be attributed to a difference in the mode of preparation. This 

 change does not appear to consist in simple putrescence; for the effects which 

 the cheese-poison, sausage-poison, &c., produce on the animal economy, are far 

 more potent than mere putrescence could occasion ; and it is supposed by Liebig 

 to consist in the generation of a peculiar ferment, which the stomach is not able 

 to decompose. Similar changes in ordinary flesh-meat seem to be sometimes 

 consequent upon the previous existence of a diseased condition in the animal 

 which furnished it. Many instances of this kind have been recorded ; 2 and 

 the risk is quite sufficient to justify a strict prohibition of the use of any such 

 article. That meat which is simply putrescent is to be considered as injurious 

 per se, when habitually employed, is scarcely a matter of reasonable doubt. It 

 is true that some nations are in the habit of keeping their meat until it is tainted, 

 having a preference for it in that condition, which seems to have grown out of 

 the supposed necessity for thus employing it (a preference which has its parallel 



1 The method of training employed by Jackson (a celebrated trainer of prize-fighters in 

 modern times), as deduced from his answers to questions put to him by John Bell, was to 

 begin on a clear foundation, by an emetic and two or three purges. Beef and mutton, the 

 lean of fat meat being preferred, constituted the principal food ; veal, lamb, and pork were 

 said to be less digestible ("the last purges some men"). Fish was said to be a "watery 

 kind of diet :" and is employed by jockeys who wish to reduce weight by sweating. Stale 

 bread was the only vegetable food allowed. The quantity of fluid permitted was 3 J pints 

 per diem ; but fermented liquors were strictly forbidden. Two full meals, with a light 

 supper, were usually taken. The quantity of exercise employed was very considerable, 

 and such as few men of ordinary strength could endure. This account corresponds very 

 much with that which Hunter gave of the North American Indians, when about to set out 

 on a long march. 



2 See "Ann. d'Hygiene," 1829, ii. p. 267 ; 1834, ii. 69 ; also Taylor in Guy's Hospital 

 Reports," April, 1843. 



