123 REPORT — 1864. 



from a porous tube. Cigars, indeed, are more injurious tliau any form of pipe ; 

 and the best pipe is unquestionably what is commonly called a " churchwarden "' or 

 "long clay." After the clay pipe, the meerschaum is ne.xt in wholesomeness. A pipe 

 with^a meerschaum bowl, an amber mouth-piece, and a clay stem easily removable 

 or changeable for a halfpenny, would be the beau-ideal of a healthy pipe. All 

 attempts to construct pipes so as to condense the oil have failed. To be effective 

 they must be very large and inconvenient. It is of no slight importance, if a 

 man must smoke, for him to be careful of the manner in which it is done. A man 

 may, by practice, become habituated to a short foul pipe ; but he never fails to 

 suffer from his success in the end, nor, unless the habit of actual stupefaction be 

 acquired, is any pleasurable advantage derived. What may be called the soothing 

 influence of tobacco is as well brought about by a clean porous pipe, or well-niade 

 cigarette, as by any more violent and dangerous system, while the harm that is in- 

 flicted is of an evanescent character. 



What is the Best Method of Estimating the Nutritive Values of Foods and 

 Dietaries ? By Dr. Edward Smith, F.R.S. 



There are four methods in use for the estimation of the nutritive value of foods : 

 (1) the weight of the food ; (2) the nitrogenous and carboniferous elements in 

 food ; (3) the nitrogenous food, carbon and hydrogen (reckoned as carbon), in food ; 

 (4) the nitrogen and carbon in food. 



Dr. Smith concluded by putting the question, How shall we estimate the food 

 which is necessary to the system ? — by that which any given class of persons is 

 known to obtain, or by that which a scientific inquiry into the excretions, conjoined 

 with a knowledge of the state of the health, would supply ? He said : — The former 

 is open to the fallacy that the persons in question may be over-fed or under-fed, 

 since their measure of the food is, within limits, that of the means to acquire it ; 

 and yet it offers these positive facts, that those persons do live on the dietary in 

 question, and, under its influence, have a certain duration of life and a certain yearly 

 amoimt of sickness — values which can be duly estimated when compared with those 

 of other sections, or of the whole community. Assuming that the class in question 

 stood high in these evidences of health as compared -with other classes, our confi- 

 dence woidd be high also ; but it would not thence follow but that another dietary 

 might yet further tend to improve health and prolong life. The best class in this 

 and other communities may not have reached the ultima Thtde of health and lon- 

 gevity. But, with all its defects, it is most desirable that this information should 

 be within our reach, and that Government should be induced to institute such in- 

 quiries upon a large scale. Science is under obligations to our own Grovernment 

 for ha\'ing taken some steps in this direction ; but it remains to urge them to ad- 

 vance stiil further. So far as I know, no other nation has seriously entered on the 

 inquiry. The latter method is conclusive when the investigation refers to the 

 effects of different foods ; for by it, it may be demonstrated what proportion of each 

 enters the circulation, and in what degree it influences the vital transformations ; 

 but when the aim is to ascertain the degi'ee of sufficiency of a whole dietarj', it is 

 too limited in its scope, since it must be made upon one or a very few individuals, 

 and could be regarded as undoubted in the conditions only in which it is made ; and 

 it assumes that which recent inquiries disprove — that there is not gTeat diversity 

 in the amount of food which large masses of the people obtain — that the differences 

 lie within not wide limits. 



On Obliteration of the Sutures in One Class of Ancient British SkuUs. 



By Dr. J. Thitenam. 

 The skulls from the Long Barrows of the stone period gave indications of synos- 

 tosis as a race-character ; and in connexion with this fact, it was worthy of notice 

 that the great longitudinal sutures close earlier in the inferior than in superior races, 

 and that their early obliteration was an African pecidiarity. A comparison of a 

 number of skulls showed that the elongated form was often coincident with the 

 early obliteration of the sagittal suture ; but the two things did not usually stand 

 in the relation to each other of cause and effect, This was only the case when the 



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