1890.] PUBLIC DOCUMENT — No. 4. 165 



we got the normal amount of butter from the cream, we felt 

 that Ave had met the difficulty. 



Secretary Sessions. I have another question here : 

 " Considering the magnitude of the poultry interest of our 

 country and the importance of artificial incubation to the 

 poultry keeper, why can we not have something done at our 

 experiment station for the benefit of this great industry ? " 

 I think Dr. Goessmann can answer that. 



Dr. Goessmann. That is something entirely out of my 

 line of investigation. 



Secretary Sessions. I have one other question here : 

 " Man being an animal, why should our food be cooked, at 

 a loss of its digestibility?" I believe Dr. Lynde under- 

 stands that question. 



Dr. Lynde. It ought not to be cooked at a loss of its 

 digestibility. The purpose of cooking food is to render it 

 more digestible. The human stomach is altogether a differ- 

 ent stomach from that of the ostrich, of the ox or of the 

 sheep. Its mode of operation is different. The juices that 

 it secretes that digest the food may be analogous to those of 

 the ostrich or those of the animal ; but when you ask the 

 human stomach to take uncooked root fibre, digest it, and 

 convert it into a pabulum which will nourish the tissues, 

 you are asking too much of it. The human stomach will 

 not do it. That food must be prepared for human use by 

 cooking, and by proper cooking it loses none of its impor- 

 tant elements ; its digestibility is wonderfully improved, 

 and the digestive juices that are secreted in the digestive 

 apparatus of the man are enabled to act upon that food, to 

 dissolve it, to pabulize it, and to put it into a soluble 

 condition, so that it can be absorbed into the system, be 

 assimilated by the tissues, and be used for the purposes of 

 nutrition, of repair, and for the purpose of maintaining that 

 most wonderful function of human bodies, animal heat. So 

 that it is important that the food which we eat should be not 

 only carefully selected, but that it should be well cooked, 

 properly cooked, not spoiled by cooking. It is from this 

 that we derive our power to work. Whether we work with 

 the muscles or with the brain, we derive our power from 

 the energy that has been stored in the food that we con- 



