FOOD AND FOKCE. 
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FOOD AND FOKCE. 
ABSTRACT OF DR. ALBERT KINGSTON 's PAPER. 
(Read January 26th, 1871. ) 
The lecturer enumerated the uses of food both in the vegetable 
and animal kingdoms, and described the effects of the different 
kinds of food on growth and development, and showed how every 
vegetable product, including even the seaweeds, served as food for 
one or more animals. After mentioning the ordinary classification 
of food, he stated that it was generally believed that every thought 
involved the destruction or consumption of the brain, and every 
action the destruction of mind, such destruction being in both 
instances immediately repaired by the aid of food. This he 
maintained was not universally true, but as a rule the brain con- 
verted the force lying hid in the food into thought and feeling, and 
the muscles into mechanical action, just as an engine converts the 
force lying hid in the coal into its own special action. He then 
inquired whence food obtained the force which could be thus con- 
verted, and in doing so he first described the law of the correlation 
of forces, which declared that though one force can be converted 
into another it cannot be lost. He showed that the grass and 
grain stored up as latent force the greater part of the heat they 
derived from the rays of the sun which shone upon them; that 
herbivorous animals whilst devouring the grain and grass concen- 
trated this force ; so that, when mutton or beef is devoured by us, 
we are consuming the force of the sun-rays which have been 
expended on spme acres of ground for some weeks. This force he 
considered to resemble a wound-up spring — ready to expend itself 
at once, either as thought, feeling, or action, according to the re- 
quirements of the system. Food he thus showed to act in the 
animal economy in the same way as coal in a steam-engine, both 
containing latent force derived from the same source — the sun. 
He concluded his lecture by numerous examples and illustrations. 
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