PART IV.] Summary of the 1879 Dietary in the Bengal Prisons. 665 



is contained in it would, on the English Local Prison standard, suffice for labouring 

 prisoners of an average weight of something over 125 lbs., and the proportion of 

 carbonaceous food should suffice for men of about ten pounds heavier. Those of 

 the Behari prisoners, whose habits when at large gave them a claim to be put 

 on animal food when in jail, obtained rations which should suffice for men of an 

 average weight of 130 lbs. There has been no curtailment as regards the amount 

 of common salt issued — half an ounce per diem being the ordinary allowance in India, 

 except in the North-Western Provinces where it is 100 grains, and in Madras [central 

 jails] 1 oz. 



48. During 1879 the health returns of the prisoners in Bengal, as in several other 

 provinces, were exceptionally unfavourable ; and as the period during which the new 

 dietary was in force coincided with the period of maximum mortality, it was con- 

 cluded that the high sickness and mortality in this particular province was attribut- 

 able to insufficient food. In consequence of this inference extra rations were issued 

 from March 1880 until July 1881, when completely new scales of diets were introduced 

 with the sanction of the Local Grovernment. 



49. A detailed statement of the different forms of this dietary will be found in 

 Table IV in the appendix, and their values in terms of nitrogen and carbon. A brief 

 account of the dietary may, however, find a place here. The scales present much in 

 common with those which were in force in this province between 1860 and 1879, 

 but the animal food which constituted a part of the regular dietary of labouring 

 prisoners (and was only issued to prisoners who were accustomed when at large to eat 

 meat or fish when the "Conference diet" was in force) is now sanctioned for general 

 issue at the discretion of the local jail officials. But when animal food is issued, 4 

 ounces of pulse (now increased to 6 ounces daily) is to be omitted. The amount 

 of rice is increased by 2 ounces per diem, and the quantity of oil has been brought 

 up to nearly the amount given in Dr. Mouat's scale. A new feature in the dietary 

 is the issue of a morning meal consisting either of 3 ounces of soaked gram* or 

 of 4 ounces of rice, bringing the daily quantity of rice up to 26 ounces when this grain 

 is also adopted for the morning meal. The dietary is further enriched by the daily 

 issue of an ounce of molasses and of half an ounce of tamarind. 



The scales for Bengalis and Beharis are alike, with the exception that the staple 



* Although the addition of this soaked gram (in some provinces parched gram is issued) materially in- 

 creases the quantity of nitrogenous substances given to the prisoners, it is questionable v?hether more than a 

 small proportion of the food contained in the gram is assimilated. Dr. Wm. Roberts, F.R.S,, in his"Lumleian 

 Lectures " (^Lancet, 10th April 1880), says : — " In the rav? state, starch is to a man an almost indigestible substance ; 

 but, vi'hen previously subjected to the operation of cooking, it is digested with great facility. Diastase has only 

 a feeble action on the unbroken starch granule, even at the temperature of the body. In the lower animals, and 

 in germinating seeds, the starch granule is probably attacked in the first instance by some other solvent, which 

 penetrates its outer membranes, and thus enables the diastase to reach and act on the starchy matter contained 

 within. By the aid of heat and moisture in the process of cooking the starch granule is much more effectively 

 broken up. Its contents swell out enormously by imbibition of water, and the whole is converted, more or less 

 completely, into a paste, or jelly, or mucilaginous gruel. It is in this gelatinous form exclusively, or almost 

 exclusively, that starch is presented for digestion to man, " 



