CHAP. XXII.] DIET. 157 



If now we compare with these a dietary which has been found suf- 

 ficient for the support of health in a state of more or less confine- 

 ment, with a moderate amount of daily labour, we may fairly infer 

 that the proper allowance for persons not engaged in actual manual 

 labour lies between these extremes. In the union workhouses of 

 England, able-bodied men obtain about 25 ounces of solid food 

 daily, of which the quantity of meat does not exceed 5 or 6 ounces. 

 In prisons it has been found necessary to give a certain amount of 

 animal food to prisoners who are subject to hard labour. Each of 

 such prisoners, if confined for a term exceeding three months and 

 kept at hard labour, has a daily allowance of about 36 ounces of 

 food, of which meat constitutes only a very small portion, namely, 

 about 16 ounces in the week, four ounces on each of four days in the 

 week. The prisoner has obviously the advantage of the poor man, 

 whose only crime is poverty. But there is doubtless sufficient 

 justification for this, in the fact that the labour of the prison, and 

 the mental depression which long-continued restraint and confine- 

 ment induce, render a greater amount of nutriment necessary than 

 the indigent would require who seek in the workhouse a shelter 

 from absolute want. 



It is plain, then, that a daily amount of food, varying in quan- 

 tity between 35 and 25 ounces, is sufficient to maintain health; 

 but of this a fourth or a fifth ought to be animal food, especially 

 when bodily exertion is being used. An amount greater than this 

 is prejudicial, as affording material for the formation of new com- 

 pounds, which serve only as materies morli that may contaminate 

 various tissues or organs, and impair their physical and vital 

 properties. A lesser quantity, on the other hand, makes a poor 

 blood, weakens the cohesive power of its elements as well as the 

 attractive force of the tissues; and thus, in this latter case, materies 

 morli may be generated from the decomposition or the imperfect 

 composition of the elements of the blood, and the tissues will suffer 

 partly from not appropriating a sufficient quantity of the nutritious 

 elements contained in the blood, and partly from the inferior quality 

 of those elements themselves, which are probably also contaminated 

 by some new compound. 



In proportion as our knowledge of pathology or the intimate 

 nature of disease extends, we become better able to treat disease 

 with advantage on physiological principles; and it must be evident 

 to all, who fairly consider the subject, that nothing is more import- 

 ant than to determine the proper diet suitable to particular mala- 

 dies. We must not content ourselves merely with starving or feed- 



