TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 117 



the Transactions for 1863, shows that the absence of meat and fat from the Indian 

 dietaries is far less the effect of the climate than of poverty, and that, with the 

 exception of the high castes, as Brahmins and others, who reject meat from 

 religious scruples, flesh of almost eveiy kind is eaten throughout that vast empire 

 when it can be obtained. The rivers are scom-ed for fish so small and insignifi- 

 cant as woidd be rejected by our poor, and is eaten both in its fresh and putrid 

 state. Beasts of prey, carrion birds, nay, even snakes, and the most repulsive 

 kind of flesh, are eagerly sought for by the low-caste Mahomedans and eaten, 

 whether it has died a natiu'al death or otherwise ; nay, in Bm-mah the inhabitants 

 refuse to take life, but the animal having died, its flesh is eagerly eaten. More- 

 over, the quantity is as large as the supply will afford, without any reference to 

 theories as to the requirements of climate. Similar information has been afforded 

 by Dr. Livingstone in the hot climates in which he has travelled, but there the 

 mania for flesh-eating was far greater than anj-thing sho-um in the Indian 

 Reports. So, on the other hand, the Reports of Dr. Kane and other Arctic 

 travellers have abundantly proved that the absence of vegetables in the food of 

 the Laplanders is because such food is not obtainable, for they enjoyed the white 

 bread of the travellers ; and the exclusive use of flesh and fat is not only because 

 it is appropriate to the climate, but because it alone can be procured. In the 

 northern and less rigorous climate of Sweden the peasantry take mixed food very 

 similar to that of the people of our own country. 



The effect of exertion over the transformation of food is now well and precisely 

 established, and our knowledge difi'ers somewhat from that of an earlier period. 

 Thus, because the muscles are used in making exertion, and they are composed of 

 nitrogenous tissues, it was afErmed, with a great show of truth, that the excretion of 

 nitrogen in the form of urea must thus be increased ; but it has been proved that the 

 excretion of carbonic acid by the lungs is the measure of the exertion (for you 

 cannot move your finger repeatedly ■ndthout increasing the quantity of carbonic acid 

 evolved), whilst the lu-ea is not at all or only slightly increased with the most 

 severe exertion. The former has been most minutely proved by my own experiments, 

 and the latter has been established not only by myself, but by Bischoff and Yal on 

 the Continent ; for, singularlj-, whilst I was pro^-iug this by experiments on prisoners 

 at the tread- wheel, they proved it by a dog working a spit- wheel until exhausted — 

 both similar and most severe kinds of exertion. The explanation of this latter fact 

 was given by me in the ' Philosophical Transactions ' iov 1861, viz. that urea is a 

 mixed product of food and tissue, and if muscles during action throw off a larger 

 quantity of nitrogenous material than occurs at rest, they must absorb and appro- 

 priate an equally large quantity of nitrogenous food, or they would diminish in 

 size and weight, and hence the total excretion of the mixed product, viz. of urea, 

 will be the same. 



On the Alimentary Character of Nitrogen Gas. By Francis Baeham. 



On the Physiolor/ical Aspect of the Sewerage Question. By J. Hughes 

 Bennett, M.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of the Listittttes of Medicine in the 

 University of Eclinhurgh, ^x. 



In recent times it has been maintained that the gases originating from decom- 

 posing animal and vegetable matters, bad drains, overcrowding, &c., are not only 

 injurious to health, from the deterioration of atmospheric air, but that they are 

 the especial causes of certain specific fevers. It has also been supposed that bad 

 smeDs, especially the smell of frecal matters or of drains, are the evidence of the 

 existence of these specific morbific causes. Sanitarians and municipal authorities 

 have succeeded in exciting at the present time a public /eo'ore on this subject, and 

 a result which, for extravagance and uselessness, can only be compared with the 

 railway mania which existed some years ago. Gigantic works are being constructed, 

 having for their object, not the utilization of human excreta, but channels by 

 which they may be effectually wasted. Millions of pounds are thrown away in 

 conveying that matter, so necessary for the land and for agricultural purposes, into 

 our rivers and seas, under the idea that the smells and emanations arising from it 



