5 
ON THE ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION OF THE 
DIFFERENT KINDS OF FOOD. 
By Mr. James Anderson, F.S., Leicester. 
Messrs. Editors. — As E. Wilson, Esq., in his Lecture in the 
last Veterinarian, justly observes, organic chemistry has re- 
cently become a new science in the hands of the distinguished 
Liebig. There is too much supineness among us on this subject. 
If accurate tables of nutritive equivalents were accomplished they 
would be invaluable. I am sure there is latent caloric enough 
among us — Rien n’est impossible a celui qui a bon envie. 
I read, in the Pharmaceutical Journal of September and Octo- 
ber last, a Lecture on the elementary composition of different 
kinds of food, considered in reference to their nutritive qualities, 
by Dr. Pereira. 
This appears to have been brought forward in consequence of 
the works of that pre-eminent chemist. Dr. Liebig, on Animal 
and Agricultural Chemistry, containing new chemico-physiolo- 
gical views ; and these two luminaries in the temple of science are 
at issue on different topics, particularly on the production of ani- 
mal heat and non-nitrogenized foods. The lecture is of the first 
importance to the veterinary as well as the human surgeon ; but, 
from its length and complication, it is rather difficult to abridge ; 
I have, therefore, selected such portions as are more immediately 
in connexion with the veterinary profession. Additions, also, are 
made, derived from other sources ; at the same time, however, I 
do not presume to be an umpire. 
A living body has no power of forming elements, or converting 
one elementary substance into another; therefore, the elements of 
which the body of an animal is composed must be the elements 
of its food. 
The elements of the food of man are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, 
nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, iron, chlorine, sodium, calcium, 
potassium, magnesium, and fluorine. The union of two or more 
of these elements forms elementary principles ; viz., water, sugar, 
gum, starch, pectine (vegetable jelly), acetic acid, alcohol, oil or 
fat (albumen, fibrine, caseine, vegetable and animal), gluten, 
gelatine, chloride of sodium, and these, being mixed, form food ; 
thus, wheat consists of starch, gluten, sugar, and gum. By 
the union of carbon with oxygen, in whatever part of the system 
this is effected, heat must be evolved. Liebig, “ by the conver- 
sion of starch or sugar into fat, oxygen is supplied to the system ; 
and that, by the union of this disengaged oxygen with carbon 
(from the bile, for example) heat is evolved. It signifies nothing 
