362 APPENDIX. 



formed, the whole meal or grain of \vheat contains one-fifth 

 more than the finest flour does. For maintaining muscular 

 strength, therefore, it must be more valuable in an equal pro- 

 portion. 



3. Bone material and saline matter. A thousand pounds of 

 bran, whole meal, and fine flour contain respectively 



Bran 700 Ibs. 



Whole meal 170 ,, 



Fine flour 60 



So that in regard to this important part of our food necessary 

 to all living animals, but' especially to the young during their 

 growth, the whole meal is three times more nourishing than 

 the fine flour. 



Taking the three essential elements of a nutritive food, thus 

 existing in wheat, and comparing their respective amounts in 

 the whole meal and in the fine flour, we find that on the whole 

 the former is one-half more valuable for fulfilling all the pur- 

 poses of nutrition than the fine flour. 



"It will not be denied," says our author, "that, it is for a 

 wise purpose that the Deity has so intimately associated in the 

 grain the several substances which are necessary for the com- 

 plete nutrition of animal bodies. The above considerations 

 show how unwise we are in attempting to undo this natural 

 collocation of materials. To please the eye and the palate, we 

 sift out a less generally nutritive food and to make up for 

 what we have removed, experience teaches us to have recourse 

 to animal food of various descriptions. 



"It is interesting to remark, even in apparently trivial 

 things, how all nature is full of compensating processes. We 

 give our servants household bread, while we live on the finest 

 of the wheat ourselves. The mistress eats that which pleases 

 the eye more, the maid what sustains and nourishes the body 

 better." 



These remarks are followed by an allusion to the ex- 

 periments of Majendie and others, who found that animals 

 died in a few weeks if fed only on fine flour, but lived long 

 upon whole meal bread. Thus the coarse bread given to pri- 

 soners is in fact a mercy to them ; for being restricted from 

 all other food, there would not be sufficient nutriment in fine 

 white loaves long to sustain life. The nutritive properties of 

 bran are shown in its effects in fattening pigs, &c. ; and thus 

 this apparently woody and useless material is found to produce 

 valuable results. 



Wheat, taken in the natural mixture found in the whole 



