136 ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 
To sum up respecting the food we eat. A healthy man—taken 
as the type of all men, all women, all children—may he regarded 
morally, mentally, physically. His moral and mental health are 
not now being considered, only his physical health, and, indeed, 
only his physical health in relation to the laws of nature— 
especially, just now, the laws of nature which govern the food 
he eats. Yiewed thus physically, man is, like an engine, no doubt 
a wonderful structure; but, secondly, he is, like an engine, a 
structure destined to do wonderful work by the aid of what is 
daily supplied from without. If he is to grow healthily, and to 
maintain his grown structure in health, he must perfectly assimilate 
perfect materials, that is, food that will yield him bone, flesh, and 
warmth. If he is to do sound work internally for himself, and 
externally for himself and for others, he must be fed with 
materials that are convertible into such work, materials which are 
force-holding and force-yielding. Must be, not may be.; for he is 
an absorbing and a radiating focus of irrevocable, irreversible, 
unchangeable, all-perfect laws. To the extent to which men and 
women, and young men and maidens, realise the existence of, 
and can place themselves in harmony with, these laws—eating 
neither too much nor too little of appropriate, well-selected, 
and, if cooked, properly cooked and tastefully served food, and 
avoiding rich luxurious living—to that extent will they have 
perfect physical health, so far as health is dependent on food. 
The farther we recede from savagery and advance in civilisation, 
the less can we trust to instinct and the more to knowledge 
respecting the kind and the amount of food appropriate for 
healthy life. 
THE FLUIDS WE DUNK. 
Yery large proportions of our flesh and certain proportions 
even of our bones consist of water; about one hundred pounds of 
water being thus included within, and forming an integral part 
of, the flesh and bones of an adult of the average weight of one 
hundred and forty pounds. In breathing out the air from our 
lungs it carries ofl some of this water, which is, in fact, visible on 
a cold day as a little cloud in front of our mouths. The water 
thus breathed out every moment of our lives, awake or asleep, 
must be replaced by water, drunk with our food or at other times. 
For every half pint of water thus lost, half a pint of water must 
be drank; because the average proportion of water in the body 
must, for various chemical and mechanical reasons, be maintained. 
Once more, be it observed, the case is one of must be, not may be; 
