24 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
proportion of heat-givers to flesh-formers is as five to one ; hut 
if we include the indigestible and innutritions matters — the 
gelatine and the cellulose — as is usually done — with the flesh- 
formers^ then the proportion of the heat-givers is about four 
to one. It must^ however_, be always recollected that^ in at- 
tempting to frame a diet by weighty some substances are 
less digestible than others, and therefore cannot be relied on 
as food at all. Unmasticated starch passes through the ali- 
mentary canal without change. Coarse, tendinous meat is 
frequently not digested at all. Woody matter, cellulose of 
plants, is not digested at all. Cheese, though containing 
large quantities of caseine — a substance resembling albumen 
— is very indigestible in its hard state, though easily digestible 
in its fresh and soft state. The consideration of the digesti- 
hility of food is of the utmost importance, without which our 
best-framed dietaries may fail of their end. 
There is one result of diet that is at the present day exciting 
a large amount of public interest, and that is the tendency 
of the adipose tissue to become developed to such an extent 
as to interfere with freedom of motion and other healthful 
actions of the system. The tendency to deposit fat is un- 
doubtedly a pecuharity of some individuals of the human race, 
as well as of whole races of the lower animals. The breeds 
of sheep, pigs, and oxen that fatten fastest are most valued for 
the meat market. This property more often depends on a 
power of consuming large quantities of heat-giving foods than 
on any other state of the system. It is generally, therefore, 
a very easy thing to reduce corpulent persons, by restraining 
them in the indulgence of heat-giving foods. Eat no butter 
at breakfast and no bread at dinner is a recipe which, when 
scrupulously followed out, I have generally found act favour- 
ably on stout persons. An intelligent apprehension of the 
general facts I have mentioned will enable persons of a little 
energy to reduce themselves when and as much as they 
please. It is, however, a dangerous practice to attempt to 
reduce corpulent persons by empirical means. Strong ex- 
ercise, sweating, vinegar, solution of potash, and abstinence 
from all kinds of heat-giving food, are alike dangerous, and 
must sooner or later end in disease or some fatal catastrophe. 
On the subject of reducing corpulence Mr. Wilham Banting 
has given an instructive and amusing account of his own 
experience in a letter which he has pubhshed. Although not 
very corpulent, the adipose tissue had collected in those parts 
of the body which interfered with the circulation, and in the 
course of a few weeks, by discontinuing a most injudicious 
and unlimited dietary for one which his medical man had 
the great judgment to prescribe by weight, he soon lost his 
