GOOD rOOD. 
21 
quantities are accordingly given off from tlie various excretory 
organs. Water is contained in all our solid 'food. More than 
half the bulk of our meat^ bread_, and vegetables is water. 
Water is therefore one of the most important constituents of 
our food. Everything we take is first dissolved in it before it 
can be taken up and get into the blood; and none of the 
* tissues can grow up^ and be taken down to serve the purposes 
I of life^ without its agency. It is the great primal substratum 
1 of organic life, with which the organic and other elements are 
i worked, for the purpose of producing all the forms of animal 
I and vegetable life. Of all the constituents of the body it alone 
remains unchanged. It flows through our life like a tide, and 
our bodily forms are, as it were, reflected from its surface by their 
physical properties, even as the sun produces the perfectly 
formed rainbow from the falling waters of a cataract. 
There is yet another group of substances entering our food 
that demand attention. They are not taken for the purpose of 
promoting animal heat, nor do they take a part in the fabric 
of the body. They simply address themselves to the nervous 
system, producing, either directly or indirectly, agreeable im- 
j pressions. Some of them are employed to season food, and 
! address themselves to the palate. Such are the various forms 
' of condiments, spices, and flavours. Others act upon the ner- 
I vous system after they have entered the blood, and produce 
their effects upon the brain and spinal cord. Such are theine, 
contained in tea and coffee ; alcohol, contained in wines, spirits, 
and beer ; nicotine, in tobacco ; and morphine, in opium. It 
is impossible to exclude the consideration of these things in 
estimating the nature of good food,^^ although many of them 
have been regarded as having no claim to the title of food at 
all. I have elsewhere called them medicinal or auxiliary foods. 
We may dismiss the consideration of condiments, spices, and 
flavours, in a few words. They may be used or not, at plea- 
sure, and, where food is otherwise good, no especial need for 
them is felt. At the same time, they are extensively employed, 
and wherever man is rescued from the barbarism of eating 
merely heated food, there condiments and spices will be em- 
ployed. Scarcely any human act is a better index of civiliza- 
tion and culture than the care taken in the preparation and 
flavouring of food. The careless preparation of food is at once 
wasteful and unhealthy. It leads to the destruction of that 
which is available for the life of the body, and produces those 
diseases which, commencing with indigestion, end with fevers, 
brought on by an unhealthily constituted blood. 
There are three things in this group of substances which 
demand a word or two of notice. These are theine, alcohol, 
and tobacco. 
