PART IV.] Value of Rice as an Article of Food in India. 669 



As already mentioned, a detailed statement of the dietary will be found in Table 

 XIII. The above table gives the chief proximate alimentary principles into which 

 the aggregate of the ingredients of each scale of diet may be resolved. The 

 mean of the two dietaries has been computed, and the nutritive values of the adapted 

 English Local Prison scales have been placed below for readiness of comparison. 

 It will be observed that the Burma diet scales, on which the prisoners have 

 been maintained in such excellent health, are, under all headings (except those 

 giving the value of the carbonaceous food) lower, and in most instances consider- 

 ably lower, than the " adapted " English scales. And yet out of 6,971 Burmese 

 prisoners who were weighed during 1880, 5,206 were found to have gained in weight. 



54. These results, moreover, speak strongly in support of the value of rice as an 

 article of food. In estimating the food-requirements of natives of this country facts 

 of the above character are of the greatest importance ; they demonstrate beyond all 

 question that the amount of nitrogenous food required, when the rations are properly 

 cooked and their issue carefully supervised, is considerably less than is commonly 

 supposed. In order to make sure that no mistake or misprint had occurred in the 

 published dietary statement of the province, the Inspector Greneral of Jails was asked 

 if the diet was correctly given ; and his reply was that, as regards the labouring diet 

 scales, the published statement was perfectly correct: As regards the larger proportion 

 of carbo-hydrates consumed, this experience will be accepted with satisfaction by those 

 physiologists who, during recent years, have strenuously advocated the importance of 

 a considerable preponderance of starchy and saccharine food as a means of nourish- 

 ment for those who have to undertake mechanical labour. Though nominally sugar 

 does not constitute an ingredient of the Burmese prison dietary, yet, as is well known, 

 the transformation of starchy into saccharine matter is one of the first steps in the 

 digestive process. 



55. As an illustration of the caution which should be observed in attributing 

 exceptional sickness and mortality amongst prisoners to insufficient food alone, the 

 experience furnished by the Punjab jails may be appropriately cited. As will be 

 found by a reference to Table IX in the appendix, the dietary in force for labouring 

 prisoners in that province is far from illiberal ; the lowest of the ordinary diet scales 

 contains 301 grains of nitrogen and over 5,000 grains of carbon ; and in two of the 

 largest jails, where the mortality has been highest, special scales were sanctioned, the 

 prisoners in the Eawal Pindi jail receiving a diet containing 342 grains of nitrogen 

 and 5,070 grains of carbon, whilst the prisoners of the Rupar jail received food con- 

 taining 500 grains of nitrogen and 6,771 grains of carbon. 



56. When the data given in the above table are compared with those given 

 under similar headings in the tables of dietaries of labouring prisoners in the Local 

 and Convict jails of England, it will be found that the prisoners in the Punjab 

 receive considerably more food than they do in England, and yet the mortality in the 

 jails of that province during 1878 and 1879 was, almost unprecedentedly, high. In 



