444 
J£xperiments on the Feeding of Stock. 
may not overstrain a passage, perhaps used cliiefly in illustra- 
tion, it Avill be well to quote it as it stands :- — " To give to these 
results (the distinctions between the English and Herisson 
wheat) their full significance, we will represent these proportions 
of nitrogen in the form of meat ; and if, in accordance with my 
analyses, we allow that beef contains 3 '50 per cent, of nitrogen, 
and 68*14 of water, we may say that 108 grammes (3*8 ozs.) 
of nitrogen represent 3085 grammes (6*78 lbs.) of meat; and 
168 grammes (=5'9 ozs.) of nitrogen represent 4800 grammes 
(=10"561bs.) — a difference of 1715 gramme^ (60 ozs.) of meat 
per week, or 245 grammes per day, in favour of the wheat which 
is most rich in gluten." 
According to this standard, then, not only the prime wheat in 
the market is not really superior to that which is considered in- 
ferior, but a meat diet may have little or no advantage over one 
that is simply farinaceous, since an allowance of 20 lbs. of bread 
per week, made from a wheat of little repute, may be equivalent 
to lO^^lbs. of meat, or to, say, 1 lb. of meat and 1 lb. of bread per 
day. Such a result is, perhaps, as startling as the subject is inter- 
esting ; and here, again, careful research may show that the 
more nitrogenous diet is only more beneficial, because it is more 
stimulating ; and that such stimulus is only wanted when, from 
constitution or habit of life, the natural powers of assimilation 
are weak; or when over-taxed nervous energies, rather than the 
ordinary play of the limbs and muscles, are to be provided for. 
The function of meat, then, the most nitrogenous element in 
human diet, seems to present some further analogies to the 
action of nitrogenous food, such as beans, given to animals ; and 
our view of nitrogen as a stimulant may be still further extended. 
It will, however, by no means follow from this general recogni- 
tion of the virtue of nitrogen, that in all cases and to any 
extent, food is valuable in proportion to the nitrogen which it 
contains. 
To infer the nutritive power of food from this test, is nearly the 
same thing as to reckon the available productive power of a field 
by the same standard applied by the aid of an analysis of the 
soil. How deceptive this latter course would be, both the careful 
experiments of Boussingault and the doctrine of Liebig sufficiently 
testify. 
As in the field fertility practically depends, not on the presence 
of nitrogen, but on the state of combination in which it exists, — so 
in food the nutritive power may well depend on the manner in 
which the structure of the plant has proceeded, and the approach 
it has made towards perfection. 
No one knows better than the chemist, that in nature the 
products of a few simple elements are as varied as the chimes 
