VEGETABLE FOODS. 17 



Practically the same may be said of the carrot, turnip, 

 parsnip, and beet-root, all of which the dog is capable of 

 digesting, provided always the quantity is small and they 

 are properly cooked and well mashed. But while they 

 supply in limited amount a few of the materials required 

 by the body, for their nutritive and force-producing proper- 

 ties purely they are of small value to the dog, and for him 

 their highest importance lies in their tendency to assist in 

 keeping the constitution of the blood unimpaired. 



As for such vegetables as cabbages, the tops of turnips, 

 beets, nettles, spinach, dandelion and other " greens," 

 they contain but little real nutriment, nor is much of 

 them digested or absorbed ; still they favor the digestion 

 of " hearty " foods and possess all the properties of value 

 which have been conceded to the tubers. 



In a word, while not nutritious themselves they seem 

 to make other foods more nutritious ; moreover, being 

 largely composed of woody fibre and chlorophyl, which 

 are but slightly if at all soluble in the digestive fluids, they 

 act mechanically as stimulants to the bowels, and so tend 

 to keep them open and free. 



Under certain conditions of life, as when fed generously 

 but deprived of exercise sufficient to eliminate the waste 

 — composed of undigested foods and used-up matters — 

 the blood becomes overloaded with impurities, in which 

 state it is often, for convenience, termed inflammable by 

 physicians, while laymen are wont to say that it is "heated 

 up," the terms being suggested by the very strong ten- 

 dency which then exists to inflammations. And these, by 

 the way, are singularly liable to manifest themselves in 

 the skin where dogs are the victims of the accumulated 

 impurities. 



It is in such conditions as this that the vegetables in 

 question have a decidedly good effect by improving the 



