Vol. XXII. No. 4.] 



POPULAR SCIEIiTCE NEWS. 



61 



iRrtttint anU Pbarmatp. 



THE NATURAL FOOD OF MAN. 



The question as to what constitutes the 

 proper diet for mankind is one that has been 

 hotlj- disputed. A small class of physiologists 

 claim that health and strength are to be found 

 in an exclusive meat diet, and that starch and 

 gastric disturbance are synonymous terms. 

 The much larger class of vegetarians abhor all 

 food "which has ever lived," forgetting that 

 the wonderful vital principle is just as surely 

 present in a grain of mustard-seed as in a 

 sheep or ox. Both classes, like most hygienic 

 reformers, fail to take into account the differ- 

 ent conditions which prevail in different local- 

 ities and with different persons. An Esqui- 

 maux would soon freeze to death on the diet 

 of rice which satisfies the Chinese cooly ; while 

 if the latter childlike individual attempted to 

 sustain life by the blubber and walrus meat 

 of his Northern brother, the Celestial mortality 

 tables would probably form very agreeable read- 

 ing for the average American statesman. 



The widelj- differing diets upon which differ- 

 ent races of men live and thrive show that the 

 human constitution is exceedingly- tolerant in 

 this as in manj- other respects ; but, as far as 

 the structure of the bod}' can give us anj- indi- 

 cation, it would seem as if the mixed animal 

 and vegetable diet which is in general use is 

 that best adapted to its welfare. The food 

 provided by nature for the nourishment of the 

 new-born infant is certainly an animal product. 

 The sharp incisors and canine teeth appear 

 first, while the heavj', blunt molars, so well 

 adapted for grinding up the soft and bulky 

 fruits and vegetables, appear later ; the last 

 "wisdom teeth," in fact, not being cut till 

 adult age is nearly attained. A comparison 

 of the human teeth with those of the carnivo- 

 rous dog or cat and the herbivorous horse or 

 ox will show very forcibly how the middle 

 ground which mankind occupy is indicated by 

 their dental formula, and the same relations 

 have been noted in the digestive and assimila- 

 tive organs. 



Admitting, then, that a mixed diet is the best 

 adapted to the human sj-stem, the question 

 arises. How shall the proper proportion between 

 the two classes of food be determined ? Within 

 reasonable limits we think this can best be left 

 to the feelings of the individual. A hard- 

 working laborer requires and relishes a more 

 nitrogenous and stimulating diet than the clerk 

 or shop-girl, whose labor is chiefly mental, and 

 whose occupation requires them to remain in- 

 doors the greater part of the time. But the 

 proper variety of food is also a personal pecul- 

 iaritj-. "What is one man's meat is another 

 man's poison ; " and if one relishes and digests 

 his food, and refrains from substituting stimu- 

 lants in its place, he may be tolerably certain 

 that his feelings will prove a safe guide, and he 

 need not concern himself about the proper pro- 

 portion of starches, sugars, or albuminoids in 

 his daily diet. , 



Cholera is known in Chili as "the flail," — a 

 very appropriate name. 



[Original in Popular Science News.] 

 "THE CATARRH." 



BY MAURICE D. CLARKE, M.D. 



The word "catarrh," from a Greek verb that 

 means to flow, defines properly, as used in medicine, 

 any inflammation characterized by an excess of 

 fluid secretion, although in this country it has been 

 very commonly restricted to such inflammations of 

 the upper air-passages alone. In France, however, 

 it is applied indiscriminately to diseases of all the 

 mucous surfaces (so called) ; and with us it is 

 much more in vogue to speak of a catarrh of the 

 lungs, catarrh of the intestine, etc., than it used 

 to be. A catarrhal inflammation of the lungs, for 

 example, is a well-defined condition, and one of 

 marked contrast to the fibrinous inflammation , which 

 is what we usually mean by the term "pneumo- 

 nia," — distinctions of much theoretical and practi- 

 cal importance to medical men, though of necessity 

 caviare to the multitude. Every-day speech, 

 again, has so far narrowed the meaning of the word, 

 that " the catarrh " is commonly supposed to be a 

 specific affection ; and when a patient comes to 

 the physician with the statement that he " has the 

 catarrh bad," the latter understands that he has 

 probably nasal or pharyngeal affection, or both, to 

 deal with. 



Of the fact that more or less of us in this region 

 " have the catarrh " to a greateror less degree, we 

 have aural and ocular evidences in excess. Were 

 we blind to other suggestions, we could not fail to 

 be impressed by the insistance of the newspaper 

 advertisements, whose loquacious and vivid descrip- 

 tion, minute as to detail and graphic as to fact, — 

 some of them as "fetid" as the "droppings" 

 they celebrate, — refuse us the boon of ignorance as 

 to the varied forms of unpleasantness the symptoms 

 of "the catarrh" assume. Suffice it to say that 

 the sympathizing albeit somewhat wearied reader 

 is borne along a torrent of woes until the climax 

 of a general systemic decay impends, when he is 

 devoutly grateful to learn that there is yet one hope 

 of rescue for these travellers in the valley of the 

 shadow of death, — A's pills or B's snuff or C's 

 lotion, as the case may be. There is a grim sug- 

 gestiveness of streaked floors and sawdust-filled 

 spittoons in the " Hawk and Spit," the name of a 

 bar-room not many miles from Boston. The nasal 

 twang of the Yankee has become a matter of tra- 

 dition, and not unjustly; while New-Englanders 

 are said, in popular parlance, to " talk through 

 the nose," though this is exactly what they do not 

 do. When we have a "cold in the head " (i.e., a 

 catarrh of the mucous membranes lining some of 

 the cavities of the head), the congestion and secre- 

 tion of those of the nose, when this is involved, 

 occlude the passage, so that the resonance of the 

 vocal sounds gained by the potency of this channel 

 of air-supply is lost, and the voice becomes what 

 we call nasal. We remember how Dr. Holmes has 

 celebrated one of our well-known horse-jockeys 

 as — 



" Budd Doble, wliose catarrhal name 

 So tills the nasal trump of fame." 



Now, probably most of us look upon the nose 

 as a double hole in the head by which we get, with 

 more or less acuteness, a sense of smell, and 

 through which we occasionally breathe. The intri- 

 cate mechanism, and the skilful adaptation of 

 means to end, which, in common with the other 

 organs of special sense, it exhibits, naturally do 

 not reveal themselves to any but the students of 

 anatomy and physiology. Its fourteen bones are 

 probably better hidden than any other fourteen 

 bones of the body, and assist in converting what 

 would otherwise be a mere channel of communica- 

 tion, into a series of cavities designed and adapted 



for particular purposes. The arch of four bones 

 which forms the bridge of the nose, and which is 

 of such strength as to enable the gymnast of the 

 circus to perform the feat of supporting with it a 

 man on a ladder, is pieced on with cartilage to 

 form the nostrils, thi-ough which the nose commu- 

 nicates with the outer air. Similar openings 

 behind connect it with the upper and posterior 

 parts of the mouth. The space between these an- 

 terior and posterior openings makes a large cham- 

 ber, divided by a vertical wall into halves, each 

 of which is still farther separated into three irreg- 

 ular cavities by three bones, called spongy, from 

 the porosity and delicacy of their texture. The 

 ceiling of these chambers is formed by a bone of 

 the thinness of paper, upon which lies the front 

 part of the brain, — a fact the Egyptians made use 

 of in embalming their corpses, easily crushing this 

 bone, and extracting the brain through the nostrils. 

 The bone is called cribriform (sieve-like) because 

 it is perforated by many minute holes, through 

 which, from the olfactory bulbs (specialized parts 

 of the brain in which is resident the capacity of 

 smell) that rest on its upper surface, issue the 

 delicate filaments of the olfactory nerves, to spread 

 themselves over the lining membrane of the two 

 upper spongy bones. It is in the upper chambers 

 of the nose, therefore, that the function of smell is 

 performed; the nerves that supply the lower spongy 

 bone being entirely iinconnected with the organs 

 of smell. Over these latter, however, sweep in 

 and out the currents of air when the act of respira- 

 tion is properly carried out, and it is these that are 

 especially concerned in its abnormal performance. 

 Usually but a very little of the volume of air that 

 traverses the lower chamber of the nose has any 

 influence upon its upper regions; and therefore, 

 when our attention is attracted by an odor, we 

 sniff, in order to bring a larger quantity of air into 

 contact with the higher parts of the nose, or olfac- 

 tory cavities, where odors are perceived. 



But the half has not been told of the anatomical 

 and physiological arrangements of the nose. By 

 minute openings its chambers have communication 

 with many other parts of the head, — with the 

 hollow that forms the greater part of the cheek- 

 bone; with the eye by a minute spout that carries 

 off the lachrymal secretion, unless the tears are so 

 abundant as to roll down the cheeks; with the 

 front of the roof of the mouth ; with the abundant 

 cells of the bone that makes the forehead, and the 

 congestion of whose lining membrane probably 

 accounts for the severe headache that so often 

 accompanies and aggravates a "cold in the head." 

 The gateway to the inner air-passages, its abun- 

 dant surfaces raise to the temperature of the body 

 the air inspired, supply it with the moisture it 

 lacks, and sift from it more or less of the mechani- 

 cal impurities with which the atmosphere of our 

 houses and shops is laden. 



It may easily be imagined that an apparatus so 

 complicated would be liable to disarrangement, 

 and that, exposed as it must be to all sorts of ir- 

 ritation, chemical, mechanical, and atmospherical, 

 it would show the effects of exposure. How sus- 

 ceptible it is to minor irritations, how readily we 

 sneeze when we do not want to, how quickly a 

 draught of air excites its secretion, we are daily 

 witnesses in our own persons. Trifling annoy- 

 ances of this sort we meet with every day. If, 

 however, the irritation be sharp enough, or repeated 

 often enough, there results an inflammation which 

 goes under the technical name of rhinitis, which 

 may be of any grade of severity, and may be either 

 acute or chronic. Acute rhinitis (acute coryza, as 

 it is sometimes called) is usually a temporary and 

 trifling matter, provoked most commonly by the 

 causes that provoke "colds," whatever these may 



