PRACTICAL PAPERS—CHEESE AS FOOD. 217 
the support of life. By a better understanding of the relation 
that the use of cheese sustains to such food, so much of that 
excess might be utilized as to be sensibly felt in the cost of 
living. A large amount of food now consumed without any 
benefit, might be rendered available. 
There is another consideration connected with the use of 
cheese, as above suggested, that I would not have overlooked. 
I refer to its influence upon health. That a food in which 
the elements of nutrition are in the same proportions that 
they are used in sustaining life, is more healthful than a food 
in which they are in great disproportion, is a fact too evident 
to need argument or illustration. The nearer we approach to 
the perfect proportions in the elements of our food, the better 
must it be for our health. That cheese may be so used as to 
promote a better relation in the elements of food has been 
sufficiently showii, and hence the bearing which a more liberal 
consumption of it would have in promoting health may be 
inferred. 
There is still another peculiarity in the use of cheese that I 
may notice in this connection. It has been previously stated 
that the coagulation of milk was effected by the aid of minute 
globular bodies, called cells, that float in the rennet, and that 
they are enclosed in the coagulum they have formed, and re¬ 
main there during the process of manufacturing and curing 
the cheese. All this is true, and more. Unless they are de¬ 
stroyed by some unusual treatment, they remain in the cheese 
until it is consumed, anei retain their power unimpaired. This 
may seem a strange assertion, but it is nevertheless true, and 
may be easily verified. If any one desires to do so, let him 
take a piece of rich old cheese and dissolve it in tepid water. 
When it is desolved, or so softened as to mix readily with the 
water, apply it to a little sweet milk and keep it warm, and in 
due time it will coagulate in the same way as by the use of 
rennet. If a microscope is at hand, he may see the cells float¬ 
ing about in the water in which the cheese was dissolved. 
When cheese is dissolved in the stomach the' cells are set 
free and resume their former efficiency, and become a positive 
