400 Of Food. 



Since it has been known that water is not a simple 

 element, but a compound^ and capable of being decom- 

 posed, much light has been thrown upon many opera- 

 tions of nature which formerly were wrapped up in 

 obscurity. In vegetation, for instance, it has been ren- 

 dered extremely probable that water acts a much more 

 important part than was formerly assigned to it by phil- 

 osophers ; that it serves not merely as the vehicle of 

 nourishment, but constitutes at least one part, and 

 probably an essential part, of the food of plants ; that 

 it is decomposed by them, and contributes materially to 

 their growth ; and that manures serve rather to prepare 

 the water for decomposition than to form of themselves, 

 substantially and directly, the nourishment of the veg- 

 etables. 



Now a very clear analogy may be traced between the 

 vegetation and growth of plants and the digestion and 

 nourishment of animals ; and as water is indispensably 

 necessary in both processes, and as in one of them 

 (vegetation) it appears evidently to serve as food, why 

 should we not suppose it may serve as food in the 

 other ? There is, in my opinion, abundant reason to sus- 

 pect that this is really the case ; and I shall now briefly 

 state the grounds upon which this opinion is founded. 

 Having been engaged for a considerable length of time 

 in providing food for the poor at Munich, I was natu- 

 rally led, as well by curiosity as motives of economy, to 

 make a great variety of experiments upon that subject ; 

 and I had not proceeded far in my operations before I 

 began to perceive that they were very important, even 

 much more so than I had imagined. 



The difference in the apparent goodness, or the pala- 

 tableness and apparent nutritiousness, of the same kinds 



