446 Vegetable Food. 
ELEMENTS OF VEGETABLE FOOD. 
We are taught by those who have long studied the subject, that 
all substances susceptible of digestion and assimilation may come 
under the denomination of food; but the proximate principles of 
organic bodies, on which their nutritive powers depend, are com- 
paratively few. Hence, although the articles employed in differ- 
ent countries for the support of animal life are various, their sus- 
taining powers may be referred to certain substances capable of 
being separated and identified by chemical analysis and, tests. 
Amongst the proximate elements of vegetable food, gluten, and its 
congeneers, starch, gum, sugar, and lignin or woody fibre, are by 
far the most important; and amongst those of animal food, albu- 
men, gelatin, casein, together with fats and oils, which are com- 
mon to the kingdoms of nature. 
The following table, by Professor Brand, shows the ultimate 
composition of 1000 parts of the following proximate principles 
of animal and veffetable food: 
Albumen, 
Carbon. 
516 
Hydrogen. 
75 
Oxygen. 
258 
Nitrogen, 
150 
Gelatin, 
483 
80 
276 
16J 
Fat, 
780 
122 
98 
Curd of Milk, 
609 
75 
116 
203 
Sugar of Milk, 
454 
61 
485 
Gluten, 
557 
78 
220 
145 
Starch, 
438 . 
62 
500 
Gum, 
419 
68 
513 
Sugar, 
Lio-nin, 
U4: 
500 
62 
56 
494 
444 
By the same author we are informed that there is another im- 
portant point in the history of our food, namely, its ultimate com- 
position. We have spoken of starch, sugar, gum, albumen, and 
other substances, as the proximate principles upon which we live. 
But what is the ultimate constitution of these secondary products? 
What are their true elements? It is curious that four elements 
only are principally concerned in the production of our food; 
these are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen. Among vege- 
table substances, gluten, including vegetable allumen, is the only 
one which abounds in nitrogen — gum, sugar, starch, and the rest 
are constituted of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen only; and what 
is very remarkable is, that in all these important principles, and 
also in lignin, the oxygen and hydrogen bear to each other the 
same relative proportions as in water, so that they may be figura- 
tively described as compounds of charcoal and water. Now there 
