Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
September,  1895.  / 
Chinquapin. 
453 
CHINQUAPIN  (CASTANEA  PUMILA,  MILL.). 
By  Henry  Kraemer. 
Presented  to  the  Am.  Pharmaceutical  Association,  Denver  Meeting,  1895. 
More  than  a  year  ago  Berthelot  claimed  that  with  the  progress  of 
science  the  time  was  coming  when  synthetic  foods,  from  the  labora- 
tory of  the  chemist,  would  supply  the  world  with  life,  instead  of  the 
agricultural  products  which  have  been  used  from  time  immemorial. 
Beginning  with  the  well-known  syntheses  of  acetylene  and  urea,  he 
would  build  up,  after  the  manner  of  the  chemist,  the  constituents 
that  seem  to  be  the  active  principles  of  the  plant  and  animal  foods. 
He  believes,  for  instance,  that  by  reason  of  the  synthesis  of  the 
alkaloids  of  tea,  coffee  and  cocoa,  from  urea,  that  these  plants  will 
soon  follow  like  madder  into  economic  eclipse.  Dr.  Wiley,  in  his 
retiring  address  as  President  of  the  American  Chemical  Society 
(December,  1894),  calls  attention  to  the  fact  that  "  no  attempt  is 
made  to  compute  the  cost  of  caffeine  necessary  for  a  single  cup  of 
Java,  and  that  the  fact  that  caffeine  is  only  one  of  its  constituents 
is  naively  ignored." 
However  beautiful  the  work  and  convenient  the  results  may  seem 
to  be  to  Berthelot  and  others,  it  will  be  necessary  for  the  whole 
animal  creation  to  undergo  marked  changes  in  its  digestive  organs 
before  they  can  be  adapted  to  the  use  of  synthetic  or  concentrated 
foods,  or  the  so-called  active  constituents  of  foods.  It  is  extremely 
doubtful  if  starch  and  glutin  can  take  the  place  of  wheat,  or  that 
any  of  the  constituents  of  our  garden  vegetables  could  ever  be  pro- 
duced in  sufficient  quantity  to  replace  them ;  or  that  our  fruits 
could,  with  due  regard  to  the  healthfulness  of  the  race,  ever  be 
replaced  by  synthetic  products ;  or,  if  myocene,  sarcine,  karnin, 
kreatin,  etc.,  could  ever  replace  meat.  The  human  stomach  must 
be  nearly  filled  at  least  once  a  day  for  the  individual  to  be  healthy. 
It  is  only  in  the  case  of  invalids  that  synthetic  or  concentrated  foods 
will  have  any  avail.  Man  must  have  not  only  carbohydrates,  like 
starch  and  sugar ;  hydrocarbons,  like  fat  and  oil ;  nitrogenous  prin- 
ciples, like  proteids,  fibrin,  casein,  gelatin ;  salts,  like  Ca3(P04)2, 
NaCl,  KC1,  etc.,  but  he  requires  crude  fibre,  cellulose,  etc.,  being  the 
so-called  inert  constituents  of  plants,  to  assist  digestion,  even  if  they 
do  not  impart  strength  and  life.  One  might  as  well  talk  of  breath- 
ing oxygen  alone,  because  the  oxygen  alone  is  required  by  the 
