I46 FOOD AND FEEDING. 



proper food there is stored up the potential energy, which in the 

 body is manifested as heat, constructive power, nervo-muscular 

 action, mechanical motion and the like ; while it also supplies the 

 materials necessary for the development and maintenance of the 

 body. But on the other hand, defective food produces many 

 diseases, which may be owing to defects in either quality or quantity, 

 and in the matter of quantity, there may be errors in either extreme. 

 Moreover, besides special diseases that may result from improper 

 food, the use of it is liable to produce a condition of the system in 

 which there is a great tendency to contract disease. And lastly, 

 errors in the method of treating the food, that is in feeding, no matter 

 how excellent the properties of the food, will produce disorders of, 

 the system. 



The composition of Food was first gone into, and as the phen- 

 omena of life are maintained by the use of proper food, since it pre- 

 serves the proper structure of the body, the composition of the 

 body from a chemical point of view was considered, before that of 

 the food. The various elements and compounds entering into the 

 structure of the body were referred to, the most important especially 

 so, an account of their functions being given. The derivation of 

 food from its ultimate elements was alluded to, showing how they 

 are converted into vegetable and animal tissue. Then an account 

 was given of the process of digestion, so as to show how the food is 

 adapted for the purposes of building up the human frame, and main- 

 taining the functions of the body. A description was given of the 

 process in different animals from the amoeba, at the foot of the scale 

 of creation, to man at the head. Especial attention was then drawn 

 to the various steps of the process seen in the several organs of the 

 human system. The paper next took up the composition of foods, 

 both microscopically and chemically ; the action of the digestive fer- 

 ments on the different elements of the food being shown, and also 

 that of heat, the artificial means used by all nations to render food 

 more digestible. The different classes of foods were then named 

 and their identity shown with the several classes of proximate prin- 

 ciples found in the animal body. It was also pointed out here, that, 

 " The design of the food is seen to be the maintenance of the struc- 

 ture of the body, by means of the albuminoid constitutents more par- 

 ticularly, and the production of heat and motion, more especially by 



