114 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
more on the mind, the latter on the body generally. The necessity 
of common salt and lime. Baron Liebig's suggestion for making 
dough with lime-water, as corn-flour is not a perfectly alimentary 
substance. The want of lime the cause of many of the complaints 
of childhood. Milk the only food required for early childhood ; the 
frequent neglect of it, and the substitution of corn-flour and the 
like. The relative economic values of food — Indian corn, peas, bread, 
butter-milk, and skimmed milk, said by Dr. E. Smith to form the 
cheapest food. He then referred to the dietaries of the Prussian, 
French, and English soldier at various times ; the necessity of 
nitrogenous food when the work done is heavy. The English 
navvies who, when making the Balaclava Eailway astonished both 
the English and French soldiers by the extraordinary work they 
did, consumed daily 150 to 159 grammes of albuminate (453^ 
grammes = 1 lb). Meat, according to Baron Liebig, contains the 
albuminates, which are the flesh-producers in the most soluble 
form. Starch requires the longest time for digestion of the heat- 
producers. Sugar and dextrine are both much more soluble in 
water ; hence bread, in which the starch undergoes a change into 
dextrine, or some such allied body, is more digestible than when in 
the state of flour. Eat is more slowly received into the circulation, 
but its eff'ects are more lasting. Beverages abounding in alcohol 
produce warmth in the quickest manner, but probably the effect is 
more evanescent than in any other way. JS^utritive salts are of 
great importance, yet frequently lost sight of and wasted in cook- 
ing and salting meat. The use of Warren's cooking apparatus, in 
which the meat is cooked in its own juices, and those juices 
preserved, obviates a great deal of this waste. Eood wasted in 
two ways : in cooking — by boiling too much, frequently — and thus 
coagulating all the albumen and rendering the meat tough and 
indigestible. Again, by not using much food that is produced 
naturally, as mushrooms. There are many sorts which are perfectly 
edible besides the well-known Agaricus campestris. The Maras- 
mias oreades is especially mentioned by the Be v. M. J. Berkeley. 
The Agaricus nehulan's, or clouded mushroom, is also very suc- 
culent. The digestibility of food as tested by the experiments of 
Dr. Beaumont on Alexis St. Martin. Different methods of pre- 
serving meat, generally dependent on the exclusion of air. Prof. 
Gamgee's method unfortunately a failure for the present. The 
great use of Liebig's extract of meat in sickness, and after 
