22 QUANTITY OF FOOD REGULATED. 



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 dis- 

 appearance of his appetite, previously a source of fre- 

 quently 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 ac- 

 customed 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 res- 

 pirations by active exercise, 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 de- 

 gree 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 oxidizing 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 dis- 

 eased organs of digestion have sufficient power to place 

 the diminished amount of food in equilibrium with the 

 inspired oxygen ; in the colder climate, the organs of 

 respiration themselves would have been consumed in 



