CLIBRANS’ LIST OF FRUITS, 1908-9. 
3 
The Value of Fruit as Food. 
A LECT Cl RE 
Delivered in London by 
Dr. JOSIAH OLDFIELD, 
BEFORE 
THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
Reprinted from 
The Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society, Volume 32,. 
Page 144. Inserted by the consent of the President and Council. 
Dr. Oldfield is a well known medical man who has made a 
special study of the food values of the various fruits. 
On Fruit dietary, and all that Is connected with it. he is a 
recognised authority. 
We have no doubt but that the following notes, taken from his 
lecture, will be read with great inteiest. 
" 7 ZT FTER briefly speaking on the various kinds of Fruits, the 
J'*- Lecturer proceeded 
There are several ways in which fruit is important as food. 
First It is itself a food, and, if rightly selected, a complete and full 
nutriment— for every condition of the body, in every climate, and under 
every condition of work and of constitution and of health and of 
digestion — can be obtained from a fruit dietary. 
Second. Fruit is of essential value in assisting other foods to be 
digested. 
Third. Fruit is of the utmost value in helping the body to eliminate 
waste matters which produce debility and old age. 
Fourth. Fruit is almost the only food possible in some forms of 
disease, and is largely curative as well as nutritive. 
Fruit when rightly selected, forms a complete nourishment for the 
bodv in ’a most assimilable form. The elements necessary for bodily 
sustenance have been classified by many authorities in various ways, but 
the one which is most generally accepted divides food into the following. 
classes : — 
First. The aqueous matters. 
Second. The saccharine matters. 
