STATE BOARD OF HEALTH. 
315 
day observation teaches us. We have seen something of this in our 
own country among people who call themselves “ vegetarians.” 
The writer has lived where he could carefully observe such persons, 
and truth compels him to say that he has never seen a firm, elastic 
step, or a fresh, healthy countenance among them. Pale, languid, 
apathetic, sickly looking creatures, were the rule. 
Much has been said concerning the beneficial effect of exclusively 
vegetarian diet among students and those who must daily do severe 
mental labor. The idea is a most mistaken one, for if the brain 
labors assiduously, it needs the same nourishment as other organs 
of the body when undergoing severe exercise. We have seen the 
result of the vegetarian system in the enfeebled health and ruined 
hopes of many promising students. If the student will take heed 
to the physical law of his nature — take the food nature designed 
him to have, and plenty of free exercise in the open air — he will 
find no use for a vegetarian diet. In the selection of proper food, 
each species of the brute creation is guided by the unerring instinct 
of its kind. We never hear of a dog eating grass or hay, or of a 
cow eating flesh. Perhaps the wants of their nature, or some pecu¬ 
liar sensation of hunger, is the guide by which they are directed. 
With man, however, feed is the subject of experience, reason and 
scientific research. 
In early infancy, before the teeth are developed, nature provides 
for us the simplest form of animal food in the milk of the mother. 
The principal nutritive qualities contained in milk are butter or fat, 
casein or cheesey matter and sugar. Human milk is not only more 
nutritive but more easy of digestion than cow’s milk, because it 
contains, in proportion to the whole quantity, more butter and su¬ 
gar and less casein. This latter principle is not a proximate prin¬ 
ciple, but must undergo digestion before it is available for purposes 
of nutrition. In case of infants who are deprived of their natural 
nutriment, we should endeavor to provide something as nearly re¬ 
sembling human milk as possible. The following is perhaps the 
best that has yet been suggested. The milk of a fresh cow should 
be allowed to stand in a vessel as deep as broad, for about three or 
four hours, when about one-third of the upper portion should be 
dipped off (not poured). Add to this when dipped off an equal 
quantity of warm water, and put in refined sugar until it becomes 
perceptible to the taste. This will most nearly resemble human 
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