FOOD. 7 



worth reflecting, that children are particularly fond of saccharine 

 substances, and dislike the oleaginous, at least fat. 



More or less of common salt exists in the food of all animals. It 

 is equally desired by the greater number, and many traverse im- 

 mense tracts and encounter great difficulties to obtain it. Dr. 

 Prout, I may mention, considers it, or the muriatic acid or chlo- 

 rine which it affords, of the highest importance in the animal 

 economy. How far a certain supply of other substances, as 

 earths, metals, phosphorus, &c. from without is necessary, is not 

 accurately known. Water is indispensable to vegetables and 

 most animals. 



Dr. Prout considers it as a general rule, subject, indeed, to 

 many exceptions, that the food of organised beings is substances 

 lower than themselves in the scale of organisation. Vegetables 

 live chiefly on water and gases ; and the animal or vegetable 

 matters which also are their food, certainly must be in a state of 

 entire decomposition. Some animals eat organised matter partly 

 decomposed. The greater part live on animal or vegetable 

 matter unchanged ; and the animal matter is usually obtained 

 from animals inferior in bulk or intelligence, from animals with 

 inferior powers of resistance. Man eats both animal and vegetable 

 matter undecomposed, of infinite variety, all derived necessarily 

 from beings inferior to himself. q 



*i M. Rastail, in a work published last year, at once profound, bold, and 

 original, and containing the substance of various memoirs printed during the 

 previous six years, entertains views very similar to those of Dr. Prout, though 

 much more imperfect. He states, that proximate principles must be combined 

 to become nutritious that neither sugar nor gluten alone affords support, but 

 that when combined they are alimentary. He offers the same objections to 

 Dr. Magendie's conclusions respecting gum and other unazotised substances, 

 which I have offered for many years. Nouveau Systeme de Chimie Orgardqtie, 

 fondSsurdes Methodes Nouvelles d' Observation. Par F. V. Rastail. Paris, 1833. 



F 4 



