Polytechnic Association. 7 71 



and that it is a great mistake to feed a sick person for days or weeks 

 upon nothing but gruels and liquid food. In using the extract of 

 beef, I do not think it should be used alone ; but that solid matter, 

 vegetables or meat should be mixed with it. 



Dr. Yan der Weyde— The gentleman is perfectly correct. No doubt 

 solid food is necessary. One of the best things is to take good bread, 

 toast it quite hard, and put it in the beef tea. The great point in 

 diet is to balance properly the three kinds of food that we need, the 

 carbonized food, the nitrogenized food, and the fresh vegetables. 

 When we are sick the first thing that gives out is the muscles. Our 

 flesh wastes away, and the shortest way to replace it is with the flesh 

 of animals. Men cannot afford to change vegetable food into the 

 more highly organized muscles. I have noticed that people who try 

 the vegetable diet after a while get exhausted, and return to animal 

 food. To change vegetable tissue into animal tissue, nervous action 

 is necessary. It is, therefore, a greater tax upon our nervous system 

 to digest vegetable food. Man cannot afford that tax, while there 

 are animals whose life is spent in doing 'the work for us. When I 

 see a cow lying in the pasture chewing its cud, I think, " that cow is 

 making animal tissue for me." Then we must have carbonaceous 

 food. Consumptive people, whose lungs are weak, require a great 

 deal of fat. They need plenty of fuel, and that is the advantage of 

 cod-liver oil. We require fresh vegetables to stimulate the liver and 

 kidneys ; and, besides, fresh vegetables contain a great many alimentary 

 substances that we need. 



Dr. H. D. Sheppard — I only want to criticise one expression. It 

 is said that beef tea " acts " in a certain manner. Is it not rather the 

 fact that whether in food, or drink, or medicine, it is always the living 

 system that acts, and not the dead matter taken into it ? If this were 

 merely a question of the use of terms, I should not consider it impor- 

 tant ; but I believe that this mistaken mode of speaking, leading people 

 to believe that substances act upon the system, is the cause of the 

 foolish and injurious taking of tons of medicine. 



Professor Phin — The action is reciprocal, as in the case of a flame. 

 We may burn gas in the air, or we may burn air in a receiver filled 

 with gas. Substances act upon the body, and the body acts upon 

 them. 



The President — It will probably be found that the true explanation 

 of the value of the extract of beef is that given by Dr. Ott, that it 

 contains an excess of alkalies, which are stimulating, and, if taken in 

 large quantities, detrimental. 



