PART IV.] Suitability and Nutritive Values of the Dietaries. 



649 



The average, daily nutritive values of the dietaries of labouring prisoners in the 

 Local Prisons of England and Wales. 



These computations have been made from the weekly totals of the several ingredients 

 which form the dietaries, and are, as regards the average daily amount of nitrogen, 

 almost identical with the results obtained by the committee — the committee's nitrogen- 

 figures being 216 and 270. The amount of carbo-hydrates in the dietaries, as 

 estimated by the committee (16*65 and 20-17 oz.), is somewhat higher than is 

 indicated in the above table, owing chiefly to the high carbon value accorded by the 

 committee to bread. Dr. Parkes gives the percentage of carbo-hydrates in bread as 

 49*2, and this factor has been adopted in computing the value accorded to it in the 

 present memorandum.* The nitrogen is to the carbon in round numbers as 1 to 20, 

 The first diet contains a little over an ounce of fat, and the second a little over an 

 ounce and a quarter. 



17. As regards the suitability of these dietaries to the classes for which they were 

 proposed, the following extract from the Second Report of the Commissioners of 

 Prisons (July 1879), para. 58, may be cited: — "The deaths from natural causes 

 during the year ended March 31st, 1879, were 167 in number, giving a ratio of 8'3 

 per 1,000 of the daily average population. This death-rate is lower than that of any 

 year on record, and is as much as 2 per 1,000 lower than the average death-rate of 

 the previous five years. It would perhaps be premature at present to connect this 

 diminished mortality with any particular cause ; but it is important to note the fact 

 because the health of the prisoners forms one very valuable test of the effect of some 

 of the changes which have been introduced, especially of the uniform diet, and because 

 an improvement in this regard has been the direct object of many of the steps which 

 have been taken, and the Commissioners cannot therefore regard it as otherwise than 



* In some recent analyses of bread by Dr. De Chaumont the carbo-hydrates were found to be equal to 

 45-9 per cent. — Army Medical RejMrts^ Vol. XVIII, page 223. 



