the economic uses and to the cooking of fish, and to the 

 art of combining other materials with it, in order to 

 supplement its natural deficiency in certain constituents 

 necessary to render it a complete and acceptable food. 



Most persons who have not acquired the rudiments of 

 that most useful and interesting branch of learning, which 

 treats of the structure and functions of the human body, 

 are surprised to learn that from two-thirds to three-quarters 

 of it, judging by weight, consist of water ; and this propor- 

 tion is the same, or nearly so, in all the land animals 

 which are consumed by man for his own support. 



Thus in every hundred pounds weight of healthy flesh, 

 not artificially fattened, whether beef, mutton, or poultry, 

 and from which the bone has been removed, about seventy- 

 five to seventy-eight pounds of water are present, and 

 are separated as such from the solid matter of the meat 

 in the processes of cooking and digestion. Twenty-five 

 pounds or a little less, that is to say, not quite a fourth 

 of the whole, alone are solid, and alone contain nutritive 

 material. Speaking roughly, these twenty-five pounds are 

 constituted as follows : 



About sixteen or seventeen pounds consist of the 

 essential elements of the flesh or muscle, and of the solid 

 part of the blood, which afford the important nitrogenous 

 constituents of food ; the " albuminoid," or " flesh-formers," 

 but not including another nitrogenous compound known 

 as " gelatine," which is a type of the next group. 



Of this gelatine, with some allied compounds, about one 

 to two pounds are present ; but although nitrogenous 

 compounds, they are distinct from the preceding class of 

 flesh formers, and possess much less nutritive value as 

 food. 



Of fatty matters, about two to four pounds may be 

 reckoned. 



