Food and its Digestion. 



245 



Luisri Cornaro was a Venetian nobleman born in 1468, 

 and having indulged in all sorts of excesses, at 35 years of 

 age became a confirmed dyspeptic, and for the period of 

 live years, in his own language, "life became a torment to 

 him," when he resolved to restrict himself in his diet to 

 twelve ounces of solid food and fourteen of liquid per diem, 

 dividing that amount between four meals. He was imme- 

 diately restored to health, and when 83 years old, wrote 

 his celebrated treatise On the Advantage of a Temperate Life, 

 dying when past 98 years old, in the full vigor and perfect 

 use of all his faculties. 



As a necessity of existence, food is only second in im- 

 portance to atmospheric air. A few days deprivation of 

 it will produce death. The tissues of the body require 

 renewal, and the heat of the body, 98° to 100° Fahren- 

 heit, must be maintained, for both of which reasons food 

 is taken, and for these alone should it be taken, for these 

 are its legitimate object, and when food is taken for these 

 only, it rarely happens that disease is the consequence, 

 whereas if indulgence of the appetite be based upon sen- 

 sual gratification, then disorder of almost every function of 

 the body, and even structural or organic disease may result. 



In the animal economy, income is regulated by ex- 

 penditure, and the ingestion of food replaces that loss of 

 substance which the body is continually undergoing. 



What is food ? In the ordinary sense of the word com- 

 mon experience suggests a sufficient answer. "The solid 

 nourishment taken by the mouth into the body." That 

 the word food, however, has a larger meaning, one which 

 more closely approximates its physiological import, a 

 moment's consideration will prove. For example, milk 

 we know is the food of the infant, and in thus regarding 

 it, we ignore the conventional antithesis between food 

 and drink. Indeed the shadowy character of the bound- 

 ary line between food and drink is well illustrated by the 

 facility with which the great Spanish Casuist Escobar, 

 reasserted the rights of outraged nature on the principle 



[Trans. ».] 32 



