316 WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY, 
milk and is consequently most fit for the food of the infant when in 
health. When the teeth are developed and the child has acquired 
the use of its locomotive organs and taken on the active habits of 
that period of life, a more varied and substantial aliment becomes 
necessary. To this new necessity of the human being, both the 
animal and vegetable kingdoms of nature become tributary. Many 
of the most important nutritive principles are in common contained 
in both animal and vegetable food, and although found in unlike 
forms and under different circumstances, differ from each other very 
slightly or not at all. 
We have heretofore spoken of the evident design of the Creator 
that our human organism should be nourished and supported by a 
variety of edible substances. This has been established by actual 
experiment, which proves that no single article of diet can supply 
all the material for the regeneration of the physical man. The 
healthy appetite indicates that a varied diet is necessary. This 
fact is also exemplified in long sea voyages, and in the march of 
large armies into an enemy’s country, when from necessity the 
requsite variety of food is not obtainable. Analytical chemistry 
fails to show why this change of aliment is necessary, or in what 
the deficiency in a single kind of diet consists, but it is a truth 
taught us by experience that when we have for a time been con¬ 
fined to a particular diet, it loses the power of nourishing our bodies, 
and a supply of other material is demanded. This fact is often 
shown when the diet consists largely of salted meats, though it is 
equally true when we are confined to the use of a single kind of 
fresh meat. After a long confinement to a restricted diet as regards 
variety, a supply of other material becomes necessary, otherwise 
the defective nutrition manifests itself in many forms of diseased 
action, principally in what is called “scurvy.” 
It is thus apparent that a proper quantity, or even quality, of 
food is not all that is required for healthy nutrition and develop¬ 
ment, but that our nature requires also a variety. Fresh vegeta¬ 
bles and fruits should be used at proper times. This was frequently 
proven during the late war. Often in hospitals where the diet was 
of necessity wanting in variety, there was an almost universal 
craving for raw potatoes and onions, and the writer has seen the 
condition of the wounds changed for the better in a whole hospital 
when it became possible to supply the patients with a proper vari- 
