PART IV.] Basis for Computation of Diet Scales. 68 



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standard dietaries ; but bearing in mind the respective parts played by these two 

 alimentary principles in the production of muscular force, the satisfactory results are 

 quite compatible with the present teaching of physiologists,* These results are, 

 moreover, quite in accord with every-day experience in this country, where men are 

 known to accomplish very great distances and bear a heavy burden on a dietary 

 consisting of even a still greater disproportion between the albuminates and the 

 carbo-hydrates, the amount of the former which is consumed being barely more 

 than has been estimated to be actually necessary for the renovation of the tissues 

 even when the body is at rest, whereas the amount of the starchy food consumed 

 is often very large. In the formulae for standard dietaries for Europeans, the 

 proportion of the nitrogen to the carbon ordinarily recommended is as 1 to 15 ; 

 but in the dietaries for labouring prisoners in English jails the proportion is 

 about as 1 to 20 : even this, however, is probably higher than the proportion in 

 which the albuminates are found in the ordinary food of the poorer classes in this 

 country, where the comparatively small amount of nitrogen present in the cheaper 

 cereals has to be supplemented by the addition of the richer, and more expensive 

 pulses. Seeing therefore that the labouring diet scales of the English Local 

 Prisons approximate very closely to the food of natives in this country, especially 

 as regards the proportion of it which is derived directly from the vegetable 

 kingdom, and as this dietary has been found to be compatible with exceptionally 

 favourable health returns, I have in a previous paragraph ventured to suggest that 

 it should be adopted as a standard for the construction of Indian jail diets. 



77. In adapting the scales of diet of any large body of men belonging to one 

 country to like requirements in another, it is usual to take the average weight of the 

 persons concerned as a leading basis for the computation, though, as has already 

 been pointed out, it is essential that the comparative activity as well as the com- 

 parative physique of these person? should be prominently borne in mind — a small- 

 built but exceptionally active race requiring, proportionately, more food, or at least 

 more of that kind of food which serves as the ultimate source of energy, than a heavier 

 but more indolent and apathetic one. In instituting a comparison, however, as to 

 the capacity for physical exertion between English and Hindu workmen, there cannot 

 be much doubt that the disproportion between the amount of work which the former 

 can perform, compared with that of the latter, is probably quite as great as, if not 

 greater than, the disproportion in their weights, so that taking weight alone as the 

 basis for the calculation would not be to the disadvantage of the native. The 

 average weight of the English prisoner has been assumed to be 145 lbs. and that of 

 the Indian prisoner to be 110 lbs., though probably the mean weight has been 

 somewhat understated in the former and somewhat overstated in the latter ; but this 



* Since this memorandum was in type, I have seen that Dr. Carpenter, the well-known writer on 

 physiology, has recently contributed some articles to Knowledge, in which he appears to have drawn public 

 attention to the importance of bearing this aspect of the diet-question more prominently in view than has 

 hitherto been the case (vide Saturday Bevieio, 19th November 1881). 



