IN HUMAN PHYSIO L OGY. 173 



5. What should be the food of a man recovering from a 

 fever? 



It should be that which is nutritious, easily digested, 

 and not over-stimulating. Beef-tea or essence* is gener- 

 ally commended. As soon as the patient will bear it, 

 beefsteak, tender, broiled, and not over-done, is most 

 beneficial. 



6. Is a cup of black coffee a healthy close to a hearty 

 dinner ? 



The tannic acid contained in tea and coffee (see Chem- 

 istry, pp. 211, 215) is neutralized by the milk generally 

 used with these beverages. In cafe noir, black or 

 clear coffee, the tannic acid acts unfavorably on the 

 mucous membrane lining the stomach. Besides, the 

 coffee, like a dessert, is superfluous, the appetite being 

 already satisfied. It therefore, both actively and nega- 

 tively, tends to delay the digestion of the meal. The 

 glass of wine sometimes taken to aid digestion merely 

 deadens the sensibility of the stomach, so that the food is 

 hurried, half-digested, out into the intestines.! 



7. Should ice-water be used at a meal ? 



Only a person in robust health can endure the shock 



* Dr. Martindale gives the following recipe for making this essence : 

 Cut a quantity of lean beef into small pieces, put it into a strong bottle, 

 without water, cork it loosely so that the steam can escape, and immerse the 

 bottle to its neck in a vessel of cold water. Place on the fire and boil for two 

 hours ; then pour off the essence. 



t Mix some bread and meat with gastric juice ; place them in a phial, and 

 keep that phial in a sand-bath at the slow heat of 98 degrees, occasionally 

 shaking briskly the contents to imitate the motion of the stomach ; you will 

 find, after six or eight hours, the whole contents blended into one pultaceous 

 mass. If to another phial of food and gastric juice, treated in the same way, 

 you add a glass of pale ale or a quantity of alcohol, at the end of seven or eight 

 hours, or even some days, the food is scarcely acted upon at all. 



