SUGAR AS A MUSCLE FOOD. 
DR. J. N. HALL, DENVER, COL. 

For those not accustomed to severe mus- 
cular exertion, who are suddenly called 
upon for much more than the usual exer- 
cise, aS in camping and hunting trips, the 
value of sugar as an accessory food is not 
generally appreciated. Physiological ex- 
periments have shown that dogs to whom 
sugar is fed in addition to other food bear 
up much longer under severe continuous 
muscular work, as in a tread-mill, thai 
those not so fed. Sugar is more promptly 
taken up and utilized under such condi- 
tions than anything else. 
To one whose digestive organs are in 
proper training for digesting and absorbing 
the requisite quantity of food for severe 
work, the extra sugar is not necessary. 
But to the professional man who breaks off 
sharply from his office work and begins to 
climb mountains daily, a distressing muscu- 
lar fatigue soon comes. Experience has 
shown me, before I knew the physiological 
explanation of the phenomenon, that sugar 
was peculiarly acceptable at such times. 
This is in line with the known fact that the 
working power of those on a low diet in- 
creases greatly, in regions where the sugar 
cane grows, at the seasons when the cane 
ripens, sufficiently to be eaten. 
I think many a sportsman would come 
into camp at night much less exhausted if 
he would adopt the plan of carrying a few 
cubes of sugar in his pocket to be eaten 
as needed when muscular fatigue develops. 
We have all experienced the tremendously 
increased ability of the digestive organs at 
the end of a week in the woods, for they 
rise quickly to the emergency. We eat 
_ with avidity bacon and other quickly trans- 
formable foods. After this ability to keep 
up with the waste has developed, we are no 
more than normally tired by the day’s ex- 
ertion. During the stage of adjustment, 
the sugar is of especial value and is more 
urgently called for than at other times. 

CANNED BEEF IN THE TROPICS. 
In a paper which is to be read before 
the section on Physiology and Dietetics of 
the American Medical Association at its 
next meeting at Columbus, O., in June, 
Iie . Woodruff, Captain and Asst. 
Surg. U. S. A., who has recently returned 
from Manila, writes as follows of the can- 
ned beef ration: 
“For many years it (canned roast beef) 
has been used as a makeshift when fresh 
meat cannot be procured. It has been sup- 
61 
PURE AND IMPURE FOODS. 
plied to armies and ships in such great 
quantities that the trade in it is very im- 
portant. The board of officers, of which 
the writer was a member, investigated this 
article quite thoroughly in Chicago a few 
years ago, visiting the stock yards and wit- 
messing the process of manufacture. 
Though we recognized its excellence as a 
makeshift, we rejected it as an emergency 
ration, because it was inferior to bacon for 
the following reasons: It is nothing more 
than boiled or steamed beef, and tastes like 
soup meat, and though it is quite palatable 
when mixed with vegetables and made into 
a stew, it has to be eaten as it is, because 
in an emergency vegetables are rarely, if 
ever, on hand. It quickly cloys on the ap- 
petite, while bacon does not. In order to 
sterilize the beef it has to be ‘processed’ 
or subjected to high temperature, say 250 
degrees or more, by steam, under pressure 
es ey EO This poilins tindoubted= 
ly removes so much of the stimulating ex- 
tractives that we must expect canned meat 
to be far less satisfactory than fresh meat 
or even canned meat.” 
Dr. Woodruff states that owing to the 
lack of these stimulating extractives, vege- 
tables, etc., the canned roast beef ration 
would be an utter failure in the tropics 
where there is such an increased demand for 
food to restore or repair waste. For the 
doctor has discovered that it is a mistake to 
suppose that the system does not require 
much food in the tropics. 
“When a chemist wishes chemical 
changes to go on more fiercely, he raises 
the temperature of the combining elements 
and we do the same thing in therapeutics. 
We are officially informed that every case 
of sluggish metabolism and defective ex- 
cretion of waste products is cured by a 
course of hot baths in Arkansas. Exces- 
sive atmospheric heat does the same thing, 
and we can easily understand one of the 
reasons for this excessive chemical energy 
and increased waste. So the amount of 
necessary food to supply unavoidable 
wastes is much larger than in temperate 
climates.”’ 

PAY THEM IN THEIR OWN COIN. 
The Agrarian party of the German Na- 
tional Assembly which is making such bit- 
ter warfare on American meats, fruits, etc., 
should be paid in its own coin now that 
we have the opportunity. 
Hamburg, which is the great port of 
entry for Brazilian coffees, is the very hot- 
bed of agrarianism, and from Hamburg is 
shipped that worthless coffee known to the 

