PART IV.] Observations as to Food Requirements of the Body at Rest. 645 



reliance on food of the latter character — bacon and sugar being favourite provisions when 

 they have arduous journeys to perform.* That prolonged exertion is not incompatible 

 with a food in which carbonaceous elements greatly predominate is further evident 

 from the fact that nearly all beasts of burden are herbivorous ; and bees, though constantly 

 in motion, feed on saccharine material. Moreover, as the proportion of carbonaceous 

 materia] contained in animal food is so very much smaller than what is contained in 

 vegetables, and as only a certain, comparatively small, quantity of the nitrogenous element 

 can be advantageously utilized by the system, it is wasteful to resort to very highly 

 nitrogenised forms of food for the supply of the large amount of carbon which is required 

 — and not only is it wasteful but injurious also, seeing that an unnecessary strain is 

 thrown upon the excretory organs in getting rid of the surplus nitrogen before the 

 carbon which is combined with it in the food can be made available for the production 

 of force. 



10. So far as I am aware, no systematic series of observations has been conducted 

 on the precise food-requirements of the inhabitants of this country when undergoing 

 laborious exertion as compared with the requirements when the body is at rest, so 

 that (apart from what observation teaches as to the habits of the people generally) 

 all inferences as to what these requirements are, are based on experiments made in 

 Europe and on people accustomed to a far larger proportion of animal food than the 

 great majority of the inhabitants of Eastern countries. In the light of what is now 

 known as to the respective parts played by the nitrogenous and carbonaceous ingredients of 

 food in the production of muscular action, it is doubtful whether the data which have been 

 acquired by experiments on men accustomed to partake of a large proportion of albuminous 

 principles in their food are strictly applicable to the poorer classes of this country. When 

 such data are resorted to as a basis whereupon to frame dietaries suitable for native pri- 

 soners, it is found that the proportion of albuminates is considerably higher than the poorer 

 classes are accustomed to, especially such of them as are habitually rice-eaters. A 

 like discrepancy is found when the food of different classes in European countries is 

 compared ; and the effect of habit, as regards the amount and quality of food which 

 is requisite for the maintenance of health, is strikingly shown in the case of soldiers 

 when confined in civil prisons in England. It appears that they almost invariably 

 lose weight, whilst civilians of their own age and former position in life do remarkably 

 well on the prison dietary. The most obvious explanation of this discrepancy seems to 

 be that the soldier since he joined the ranks has become accustomed to a diet con- 

 sisting to a greater extent of animal food than he obtained before. It would, however, 

 not be desirable, or indeed just to the public at large, that the acquired wants of 

 the soldier should serve as the standard in providing for the ordinary food-requirements 

 of the general prison population. 



* Hermann's Phynology — Translated by Gamgee— 2nd Edition, 1879. 



