644 Dietaries of Labouring Prisoners in Indian Jails. [part iv. 



observations, it may not be strictly accurate to compare the relation of the food to 

 the body with that of the fuel to the steam engine, still the modified form of the 

 popular illustration which has been suggested by two prominent authorities on this 

 subject — Professors Fick and Wislicenus — may serve to aid in rendering the subject 

 more intelligible without being materially misleading as regards the more salient facts. 

 A bundle of muscular fibres may be looked upon as a kind of machine, consisting of 

 albuminous material, just as a steam engine is made of metal. Now, as in the steam 

 engine coal is burnt in order to produce force, so in the muscular machine carbon- 

 aceous material is burnt for the same purpose. And in the same manner as the iron, 

 etc., of which the engine is constructed is worn away and oxidised, so also is the 

 constructive material of the muscle worn away. In a steam engine moderately fired 

 and ready for use the oxidation of iron, etc., would go on tolerably equably and 

 would not be much increased by the more rapid firing necessary for working, but 

 much more coal would be burnt when it was at heavy work than when the work was 

 only trifling. 



9. As excessive work in the case of the engine implies a slight increase in the 

 wear and tear of its constructive material, so it has been experimentally demonstrated 

 that some slight increase also occurs in the expenditure of the albuminous structures 

 of the body as well as of the carbonaceous elements of food during severe physical 

 exercise, so that it would seem that something more than a preponderance of the 

 non-nitrogenous principles is required to sustain the body under such conditions, and 

 this conclusion, as Pavy expresses it, "corresponds with the promptings of our 

 instinctive inclination."* But there can be little doubt that the extent of this 

 instinctive inclination to have recourse to more albuminoid food on account of 

 extra labour than under ordinary circumstances is customary, depends very much on 

 the habits of a people and even on idiosyncracies of the individual. Nothing could 

 well illustrate this more forcibly than the diametrically opposite methods resorted to 

 in the training of athletes in Europe and in India. Dr. Carpenter t mentions that 

 the lean parts of beef and mutton constituted the principal food given by Jackson, 

 -a celebrated trainer of prize-fighters in modern times, and that stale bread was 

 the only vegetable allowed; and Letheby | mentions that King, the pugilist, whilst 

 training, partook largely of lean beef and mutton, with toast or stale bread, but with 

 very little potato or other vegetable ; sugar was scrupulously avoided. On the other 

 hand, the ordinary training food of professional wrestlers in this country, at least of 

 Upper India, consists largely of sweetmeats, fat (ghee or clarified butter), and milk. 

 Thus, the training-food of the European prize-fighter is of a highly nitrogenous 

 character, whilst that of the Hindoo wrestler is decidedly carbonaceous. The in- 

 habitants of mountainous districts in Central Europe also are said to place greatest 



* The Lancet, 1876. Also A Treatise on Food and Dietetics— 2nd Edition, 

 f Human Physiology— Sth Edition, page 99. 

 J Lectures on. Food — ^2nd Edition, page 121. 



