GOOD FOOD. 
17 
slowly cliange. But, on an average, it would appear, of about 
forty days, the whole body disappears. The mould remains, 
the consciousness of existence remains, some kinds of inor- 
ganic matter, accidentally introduced, remain ; but the great 
bulk of the material particles of the body have in that time all 
passed away. We pass to our graves many times before the 
last mass of particles of which we are conscious as our body is 
carried to its tomb. 
Although our food consists of the same ultimate elements, 
and these are arranged frequently into the same compounds as 
our bodies, it nevertheless assumes a variety of forms which 
admit of tolerably precise arrangement and classification. 
Some substances used as food are distinguished by containing 
large quantities of water; others present us with carbon or 
nitrogen as their distinguishing ingredients ; whilst others, 
again, exert a medicinal action on the system, or are com- 
paratively inert. 
The kinds of food which are most necessary to life, and most 
abundantly taken, are those which contain more or less of the 
four organic elements, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen. 
Of these four elements, the carbon and the nitrogen are the 
most important. Carbon, which, in its pure state, exists as 
animal or vegetable charcoal, graphite or blacklead, and the 
diamond, is an inflammable substance, and, as we have already 
stated, is constantly combining with oxygen in the body, and 
forming carbonic acid. It is principally by its agency that the 
heat of the body is maintained. It exists in all the more com- 
mon articles of our food, more especially in those substances 
known by the name of starch, sugar, and fat. We shall 
therefore speak of these substances separately. 
Starch is universally present in the vegetable kingdom. It 
exists in the cells of plants, in the form of minute granules, 
varying from the 3 ob o ' to the tc to oo of an inch in diameter. 
It is contained in wheat, barley, oats, rye, rice, maize, ^nd 
potatoes, and constitutes almost the entire substance of sago, 
tapioca, and arrowroot. We thus see how largely it enters 
into the composition of our daily food. Chemically, it consists 
of seventy-two parts of carbon and ten parts of water. Starch 
is insoluble in water ; but, when mixed with saliva, it is con- 
verted into sugar, and thus becomes soluble. Starch does not 
enter the system unless it is first converted into sugar. The 
value of starch as a food depends on its introducing carbon 
into the system. Starch, then, is one of the means by which 
carbon is introduced into the system, and is called on that 
account, by Liebig, a heat-giving food. 
Starch, in the plant, is constantly converted into Sugar, and 
sugar is taken by man as food, as it saves him the trouble of 
VOL. IV. NO. XIII. c 
