EQUIVALENCY OF STARCH AND SUGAR IN FOOD. 37 
by three processes : (a) by impeding oxidation of the brain 
they lessen or stop the transmission of cerebral influence to 
the heart through the pneumogastric nerve ; (b) by impeding 
the oxidation of the nervous ganglia in the substance of the 
heart itself, they lessen its automatic action ; ( c ) by impeding 
the passage of the blood through the lungs, anaesthetic 
vapours effect the congestion of those organs with its con¬ 
sequences—distension of the branches and trunk of the 
pulmonary artery, and mechanical obstruction of the right 
ventricle, which becomes at length so great as to stop the 
heart’s action altogether.” 
Extracts from British and Foreign Journals. 
ON THE EQUIVALENCY OE STARCH AND SUGAR IN 
EOOD. 
By Mr. J. B. Lawes and Dr. Gilbert. 
At the meeting of the British Association at Belfast, the 
authors had given a paper, “ On the Composition of Food 
in relation to Respiration and the Feeding of Animals,” in 
which they had illustrated, by reference to experiment, that 
as our current food-stuffs go, it was the amounts they sup¬ 
plied of the assimilable non-nitrogenous rather than those of 
the nitrogenous constituents, which measured both the 
amounts consumed by a given weight of animal, within a 
given time, and the amount of increase obtained from a given 
weight of food. The results, which formed the subject of 
the present communication, afforded further illustration of 
some of the points brought forward in the former one; but 
they had been arranged with reference to certain practical 
questions as well as to the more scientific bearings of the 
subject. Thus, those interested in the growth of sugar had 
long wished to obtain the introduction of the lower qualities 
of that article, for feeding purposes, duty free. The subject 
of the remission of the malt-tax, for the same object, had 
also frequently been agitated. According to the results of 
experiment (numerous tables of which were exhibited in the 
room, and in which the animals had been made to rely for 
about one third of their total food upon the starch or sugar 
employed), it appeared that absolutely identical amounts of 
