548 A MANUAL OF PHYSIOLOGY 



in the following tables, which give the ration of the German 

 soldier in peace and war and the minimum allowance per ' statute 

 adult ' prescribed in the British regulations concerning passenger 

 ships from Great Britain to America. 



Ration of the German Soldier. 



Peace. War. 



Bread - 750 grammes. Bread - 750 grammes. 



Meat - 150 Biscuit - - 500 



Rice - 50 



or barley groats 120 



Legumes - 230 



Potatoes - 1500 



Meat - 375 



Smoked meat 250 



or fat - 170 



Rice - 125 



or barley groats 125 



Legumes - 250 



Minimum Ration for Passenger Ships. 



Bread or biscuit - - 227 grammes. 



Wheaten flour - 65 



or bread - 81 



Oatmeal - 97 



Rice - 97 



Peas - 97 



Potatoes - - 130 



Beef - - 81 

 Pork or preserved meat - 65 



Sugar - 65 



or treacle - 97 



Tea - 8 



or coffee or cocoa - - 14 



Salt - 8 



Mustard - 2 ,, 



Pepper- i 



Vinegar or pickles - 20 c.c. 



In prisons the object is to give the minimum amount of the plainest 

 food which will suffice to maintain the prisoners in health. A 

 ' hard work ' prison diet in Munich was found to contain 104 

 grammes proteins, 38 grammes fat, and 521 grammes carbo- 

 hydrates ; a ' no-work ' diet, only 87 grammes proteins, 22 grammes 

 fat, and 305 grammes .carbo-hydrates. Here we recognise the 

 influence of price ; carbon can be much more cheaply obtained in 

 vegetable carbo-hydrates than in animal fats ; the cheapest possible 

 diet contains a minimum of animal fat and proteins. 



Many poor persons live on a diet which would not maintain a 

 strong man, for an emaciated body has a smaller mass of flesh to 

 keep up, and therefore needs less protein ; it can do little work, and 

 therefore needs less food of all kinds. A London needlewoman, 

 according to Playfair, subsists, or did subsist thirty years ago, on 

 54 grammes protein, 29 grammes fat, and 292 grammes carbo- 

 hydrates. But this is the irreducible minimum of the deepest 

 poverty, not so much in the protein content, perhaps, as in the 

 very low heat equivalent (1,600 calories) ; and a woman, with a 

 smaller mass of flesh and leading a less active life than a man, 

 requires less food of all sorts. Even the Trappist monk, who has 

 reduced asceticism to a science, and, instead of eating in order to 



