REGULATES THAT OF FOOD. 23 



Without temporary or permanent injury to health, 

 the Neapolitan cannot take more carbon and hydro- 

 gen in the shape of food than he expires as carbonic 

 acid and water ; and the Esquimaux cannot expire 

 more carbon and hydrogen than he takes into the 

 system as food, unless in a state of disease or of 

 starvation. Let us examine these states a little 

 more closely. 



The Englishman in Jamaica sees with regret the 

 disappearance of his appetite, previously a source of 

 frequently recurring enjoyment ; and he succeeds, 

 by the use of cayenne pepper and the most powerful 

 stimulants, in enabling himself to take as much food 

 as he was accustomed to eat at home. But the 

 whole of the carbon thus introduced into the system 

 is not consumed ; the temperature of the air is too 

 high, and the oppressive heat does not allow him to 

 increase the number of respirations by active exer- 

 cise, and thus to proportion the waste to the amount 

 of food taken; disease of some kind, therefore, ensues. 



On the other hand, England sends her sick, whose 

 diseased digestive organs have in a greater or less 

 degree lost the power of bringing the food into that 

 state in which it is best adapted for oxidation, 

 and therefore furnish less resistance to the oxidis- 

 ing agency of the atmosphere than is required in 

 their native climate, to southern regions, where the 

 amount of inspired oxygen is diminished in so great 

 a proportion ; and the result, an improvement in the 

 health, is obvious. The diseased organs of digestion 



