( io 3) 



Beverages, including Chocolate. Cases 65-69. — These 

 are represented by both the alcoholic and non-alcoholic 

 classes. Of the latter, one of the most important is pure 

 or nearly pure drinking water obtainable from the hollow 

 leaf-stems of the traveler's palm, from the stems of some 

 tropical vines, from young cocoanuts, and some other 

 plant parts. Other non-alcoholic beverages represented 

 are tea, coffee, mate or Paraguay tea, and various fruit 

 juices. Of the alcoholic group, malt liquors, such as beer 

 and ale, many wines and distilled liquors are shown. In 

 our Guide to the Economic Museum may be found suitable 

 references to the origin and manufacture of these beverages 

 and to their special effects on the human system. 



Proximate Principles or Plant Constituents. Cases 70- 

 75. — These cases contain the most valuable, as well as 

 the most instructive set of collections in our Museum. 

 A "proximate principle" of a plant, or animal, is any sub- 

 stance having a definite and fixed chemical composition 

 as it exists naturally in the living body. As illustrations 

 of such substances, we may mention starch, sugar, cellulose, 

 saponin, castor-oil, and quinine. It will be noted that 

 they represent nutrient as well as medicinal substances. 

 In fact, it is the proximate principles of plants which 

 give to them any useful properties that they possess when 

 absorbed into the human system. When any vegetable 

 food is eaten, it is only its nutrient proximate principles 

 which are extracted and absorbed by the digestive organs, 

 the remainder being excreted as waste. When vegetable 

 substances are used as medicines, a similar process takes 

 place. The medicinal constituent or constituents are 

 extracted by the system and produce their medicinal 

 effects, either on the entire body or on the particular tissue 

 or organ for which they have their selective affinity, the 

 rest of the plant being non-assimilant. It is often pre- 

 ferable, instead of giving the entire vegetable substance, 

 either as a food or medicine, to extract the useful proximate 

 principles and use them in their purified form. This very 



