886 FOOD AND LABOUR [BOOK n. 



that future research may suggest minor changes in the various 

 components of a normal diet such as would lessen the strain during 

 labour on this or that part of the body, on the muscles as well as 

 on other organs, our present knowledge would rather lead us to 

 conclude that what is good for the organism in comparative rest is 

 good also for the organism in arduous work, that the diet, normal 

 for the former condition, would need for the latter a limited total 

 increase but no striking change in its composition. In preparing 

 the body for some coming arduous labour in "training" as it is 

 called, an increase of proteid food, for the purpose of hurrying on 

 the general metabolism of the body, and thus of making 'new 

 flesh ' and renovating the body, so to speak, in view of the strain 

 to be put upon it, may perhaps suggest itself; but even this is 

 doubtful. 



The principles of such a conclusion with regard to muscular 

 work may be applied with still greater confidence to nervous or 

 mental work. The actual expenditure of energy in nervous work 

 is relatively small, but the indirect influence on the economy is 

 very great. The closeness and intricacies of the ties which bind 

 all parts of the body together is very clearly shewn by the well- 

 known tendency of so called brain work to derange the digestive and 

 metabolic activities of the body ; and if there be any diet especially 

 suited for intellectual labour it is one directed not in any way 

 towards the brain, but entirely towards lightening the labours of 

 and smoothing the way for such parts of the body as the stomach 

 and the liver. 



