259 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Flood 

 Food 



through physiological functions or disease 

 only by food. For this function of food, 

 which, unfortunately, is often neglected in 

 the theoretical discussions, it is not the ca- 

 loric value, the latent energy, contained in a 

 substance, but its constructive value, i, e., 

 its power to take part in the building-up 

 of tne body, that is of importance. The 

 same holds good for all the substances serv- 

 ing as food for green plants, which consist 

 of completely oxidized compounds, and which 

 hence possess no fuel-value. Yet plants 

 live and breathe as well as animals; their 

 protoplasm shows irritability as well as 

 that of animals, and also develops heat and 

 other vital energies by its activity. In this 

 case we see the customary theory, that food 

 is the bearer of energy, does not hold good, 

 because here the nourishment does not con- 

 tain energy and can only serve to build 

 up the vegetable organism. 



Moreover, certain inorganic substances 

 are indispensable for the animal organism, 

 the growing as well as the full-grown one, 

 and these are in part the same, potassium, 

 calcium, magnesium, and iron compounds, 

 which the plants require for their growth. 

 These facts are inexplicable on the basis 

 of the theory that the purpose of food is 

 to furnish the body with energy, but they 

 are at once clear when we assume that 

 these combinations are used by the animal 

 as well as the vegetable organism for the 

 formation and replacing of protoplasm. 



The same is true with regard to the or- 

 ganic elements of animal food. As long as 

 we think they are simply consumed in the 

 fluids of the body for the purpose, as we 

 have heard, of furnishing material for heat 

 and energy, the doctrine of nutrition will 

 labor with a list of enigmas and contra- 

 dictions which submit to solution in the 

 simplest way as soon as we recognize the 

 other possibility that they are also em- 

 ployed for the construction and reconstruc- 

 tion of the living and working protoplasm. 

 KASSOWITZ Is Alcohol a Food or a Poi- 

 son ,? A paper, p. 9. (Translation by Mrs. 

 J. H. W. STUCKENBERG. ) 



1263. FOOD, FALLACIES REGARDING 

 Analysis of Substances in Raw State 

 Cookery Ignored Assimilation Unheeded. 

 A great many fallacies are continually per- 

 petrated not only by ignorant people, but 

 even by eminent chemists and physiolo- 

 gists. In many chemical and physiolog- 

 ical works may be found elaborately minute 

 tables of the chemical composition of cer- 

 tain articles of food, and with these the 

 assumption (either directly stated or im- 

 plied as a matter of course) that such 

 tables represent the practical nutritive 

 value of the food. The illusory character 

 of such assumption is easily understood. 

 In the first place the analysis is usually 

 that of the article of food in its raw state, 

 and thus all the chemical changes involved 

 in the process of cookery are ignored. 



Secondly, the difficulty or facility of as- 



similation is too often unheeded. This de- 

 pends both upon the original condition of 

 the food and the changes which the cookery 

 has produced changes which may double 

 its nutritive value without effecting more 

 than a small percentage of alteration in its 

 chemical composition as revealed by labor- 

 atory analysis. WILLIAMS Chemistry of 

 Cookery, ch. 1, p. 5. (A., 1900.) 



1264. FOOD, NATURAL CONSTITU- 

 ENTS NEEDED IN Gelatin Will Not Sup- 

 port Life The " Bone-soup " Experiments 

 of the French Academy. About fifty or 

 sixty years ago the French Academy of Sci- 

 ences appointed a bone-soup commission, 

 consisting of some of the most eminent 

 savants of the period. They worked for 

 above ten years upon the problem submit- 

 ted to them, that of determining whether or 

 not the soup made by boiling bones until 

 only their mineral matter remained solid, 

 is, or is not, a nutritious food for the in- 

 mates of hospitals, etc. In the voluminous 

 report which they ultimately submitted to 

 the Academy they decided in the negative. 

 Baron Liebig became the popular exponent of 

 their conclusions, and vigorously denounced 

 gelatin as not merely a worthless article of 

 food, but as loading the system with ma- 

 terial that demands wasteful effort for its 

 removal. The academicians fed dogs on 

 gelatin alone [and] found that they speedily 

 lost flesh, and ultimately died of starvation. 

 A multitude of similar experiments showed 

 that gelatin alone will not support animal 

 life, and hence the conclusion that pure gel- 

 atin is worthless as an article of food, and 

 that ordinary soups containing gelatin owed 

 their nutritive value to their other con- 

 stituents. WILLIAMS Chemistry of Cook- 

 ery, ch. 4, p. 36. (A., 1900.) 



1265. FOOD, NECESSITY OF, A CAUSE 

 OF MIGRATION Prevision of Unknown Peril 

 Food, and the necessity for obtaining it, 

 have been adduced as the principal causes 

 of migration from north to south or from 

 east to west, and to a certain extent this is 

 true. The birds which breed in the arctic 

 regions, and along the shores of Russia, Si- 

 beria, and the " barren lands " of North 

 America, the snow buntings, the geese, the 

 ducks, the turnstones, and a host of others, 

 must necessarily seek milder latitudes if 

 they are to live when the snow covers their 

 feeding-grounds, while it is equally evident 

 that insect-eating birds, like the swallow, 

 cannot remain long in regions from which 

 insect life disappears for several months in 

 the year. BROWN Nature- Studies, p. 16. 

 (Hum., 1888.) 



1 266. FOOD OF DEEP-SEA ANIMALS 



Must Descend from Surface. The absence 

 of vegetable life is an important point in 

 the consideration of the abysmal fauna, for 

 it is in consequence necessary to bear in 

 mind that the food of deep-sea animals must 

 be derived from the surface. It is possible 

 that deep-sea fish, in some cases, feed upon 



