May age not wither him, nor custom stale
His infinite variety.

But Elysium suits my less robust constitution better, and I beg leave to retire thither, not sorry for my experience of the other regionno one should regret experience-but determined not to repeat it, at any rate in reference to the "plea for Revelation."-T. H. HUXLEY, in the The Nineteenth Century, February, 1886.

FOOD ACCESSORIES.

the result of the application of the accepted | purest mountain air. I trust that he may rules of inductive and deductive logic to its long continue to seek truth, under the difficult subject-matter, and accepts, within the limits conditions he has chosen for the search, with which it sets to itself, the supremacy of reason, unabated energy—I had almost said fire: is Science. Whether the subject-matter consists of realities, or unrealities, truths or falsehoods, is quite another question. I conceive that ordinary geometry is science, by reason of its method, and I also believe that its axioms, definitions, and conclusions are all true. However, there is a geometry of four dimensions, which I also believe to be science, because its method professes to be strictly scientific. It is true that I cannot conceive four dimensions in space, and therefore, for me, the whole affair is unreal. But I have known men of great intellectual powers who seemed to have no difficulty either in conceiving them, or at any rate in imagining how they could conceive them, and therefore four-dimensioned geometry comes under my notion of science. So I think astrology is a science, in so far as it professes, to reason logically from principles established by just inductive methods. To prevent misunderstanding, perhaps I had better add that I do not believe one whit in astrology; but no more do I believe in Ptolemaic astronomy, or in the catastrophic geology of my youth, although these, in their day, claimed-and, to my mind, rightly claimed-the name of science. If nothing is to be called science but that which is exactly true from beginning to end, I am afraid there is very little science in the world outside mathematics. Among the physical sciences I do not know that any could claim more than that each is true within certain limits, so narrow that, for the present at any rate, they may be neglected. If such is the case, I do not see where the line is to be drawn between exactly true, partially true, and mainly untrue forms of science. And what I have said about the current theology at the end of my paper leaves, I think, no doubt as to the category in which I rank it. For all that, I think it would be not only unjust, but almost impertinent, to refuse the name of science to the Summa of St. Thomas or to the Institutes of Calvin.

In conclusion, I confess that my supposed "unjaded appetite" for the sort of controversy in which it needed not Mr. Gladstone's express declaration to tell us he is far better practised than I am (though probably, without another express declaration, no one would have suspected that his controversial fires are burning low) is already satiated.

In "Elysium" we conduct scientific discussions in a different medium, and we are liable to threatenings of asphyxia in that "atmosphere of contention" in which Mr. Gladstone has been able to live, alert and vigorous beyond the common race of men, as if it were

MAN, like any other animal, is so much the creature of his food-his physical perfection, his intellectual activity, and his moral tone are so dependent on the food he receives and the uses he is able to make of it in the processes of digestion and assimilation-that any accurate knowledge, founded on precise and reliable methods of investigation, of the influence on digestion and nutrition of dietetic habits must of necessity be of the most general interest.

To Professor Sir William Roberts, M. S., of Manchester, we were already greatly indebted for a series of able and comprehensive re. searches on the action of ". digestive ferments and the "preparation and use of artificially digested food;" to those valuable researches Sir W. Roberts has recently added others equally important, chiefly on the subject of "food accessories" and their influence on the chemical acts of digestion. The result of these experimental inquiries are, in some respects, so novel and unexpected, and they contradict so many apparently unfounded assumptions, that they cannot be too soon or too widely known.

Man, as Sir W. Roberts begins by pointing out, is a very complex feeder; he has departed, in the course of his civilization, very widely from the monotonous uniformity of diet observed in animals in the wild state. Not only does he differ from other animals in cooking his food, but he adds to his food a greater or less number of condiments for the purpose of increasing its flavor and attractiveness; but, above and beyond this, the complexity of his food habits is greatly increased by the custom of partaking in considerable quantity of certain stimulants and restoratives, which have become essential to his social comfort if not to his phys ical well-being.

The chief of these are tea, coffee, cocoa, and the various kinds of alcoholic beverages. It is to these "food accessories" and the elucida tion of their influence on the processes of di

gestion that Sir W. Robert's recent experiments | sults are still more surprising. It was found and observations have been directed. These "generalized food customs of mankind," he remarks,

quite removes this retarding effect. "The use | five per cent. ; strong tea may contain as much of these waters as an addition to wines is," as seven per cent., weak tea as little as two Sir William Roberts observes, "highly com- per cent. Medium coffee has a strength of mendable," as they "greatly mitigate or wholly about seven per cent., and strong coffee twelve obviate the retarding influence of these wines to fifteen per cent,; cocoa, on the other hand, on the digestion of starch." is generally weaker, not more than about two per cent., and this, he thinks, may be one reason why it is more suitable to persons with feeble digestions than tea or coffee.

With regard to malt liquors, it was observed, There is another means, mentioned by Sir as with wines, that they retarded peptic diges- W. Roberts, of obviating the retarding effect tion in a degree altogether out of proportion of tea on salivary digestion, and commended to the amount of alcohol contained in them, by him to the dyspeptic; it is to add a pinch and when taken in large quantities they must of bicarbonate of soda to the tea when it is being greatly retard the digestion, especially of far-infused in the tea-pot. He found that ten inaceous food; but a moderate quantity of light beer, when "well up," is favorable to stomach digestion.

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persons, this retarding effect on digestion observed to be produced by many of the most commonly consumed food accessories answers a distinctly useful end. They serve, he maintains, the purpose of wholesomely slowing the otherwise too rapid digestion and absorption of copious meals.

coffee on stomach digestion, it was found that | in favor of the view that, in healthy and strong they both exercised a remarkable retarding effect. There was no appreciable difference in the two beverages if they were of equal strength; but as coffee is usually made of greater percentage strength than tea, its effect must ordinarily be greater. Cocoa also had much the same effect if used of the same strength as tea or coffee, but when of the strength ordinarily employed its effect was inconsiderable. Strong coffee-café noir-had a very powerful retarding effect, and persons of weak digestion should avoid the customary cup of "black coffee" after dinner.

"I could not detect, any appreciable difference between the effect of tea infused for two or three minutes and tea infused for fifteen or thirty minutes. If you wish to minimise the retarding effects of tea in persons of weak digestion, you should give instructions that the beverage be made weak, or that it be used in sparing quantities." And he adds in a foot note, "A good deal has been said of the injurious effects on gastric digestion of tannin contained in tea. I question whether the statements made with reference to this matter worthy of attention. It has been alleged that meat fibre is hardened by tea, and that the coats of the stomach are liable to be injured by this beverage. These views are entirely theoretical."

are

"A too rapid digestion and absorption of food may be compared to feeding a fire with straw instead of with slower-burning coal. In the former case it would be necessary to feed often and often, and the process would be wasteful of the fuel; for the short-lived blaze would carry most of the heat up the chimney. To burn fuel economically, and to utilize the heat to the utmost, the fire must be damped down, so as to insure slow as well as complete combustion. So with human digestion: our highly prepared and highly cooked food requires, in the healthy and vigorous, that the digestive fires should be damped down, in order to ensure the economical use of food. . . . We render food by preparation as capable as possible of being completely exhausted of its nutrient properties; and, on the other hand to prevent this nutrient matter from being wastefully hurried through the body we make use of agents which abate the speed of digestion."

It must be borne in mind that these remarks

apply only to those who possess a healthy and active digestion. To the feeble and dyspeptic

any

Perhaps one of the most unexpected results Perhaps one of the most unexpected results of these experiments of Sir W. Roberts was the discovery that beef tea had a powerful retarding and prolongs the time of digestion must be food accessory which adds to the labor effect on peptic digestion, as much so as that of prejudicial; and it is a matter of common expea five per cent. infusion of tea. Further re-rience that beverages which in quantity retard searches appeared to show that this retarding digestion have to be avoided altogether by effect of beef tea was due to the salts of the such persons, or partaken of very sparingly. organic acids contained in it. While on the subject of beef tea it will be novel and instructive to many to hear that

“There is a wide-spread misapprehension among the public in regard to the nutritive value of beef tea. The notion prevails that the nourishing qualities of the meat pass into the decoction, and that the dry, hard remnant of meat fibre which remains undissolved is exhausted of its nutritive properties; and this latter is often thrown away as useless. A deplorable amount of waste arises from the prevalence of this erroneous notion. The proteid matter of meat is quite insoluble in boiling water, or in water heated above 160° F. The ingredients that pass into solution are the sapid extractives and salines of the meat, and nothing more except some trifling amount of gelatine. The meat remnant, on the other hand, contains the real nutriment of the meat, and if this be beaten to a paste with a spoon or pounded in a mortar and duly flavored with salt and other condiments, it constitutes not only a highly nourishing and agreeable but also an exceedingly digestible form of food.*"

Beef tea must therefore be looked upon rather as a stimulant and restorative than as a nutrient beverage, but it is nevertheless very valuable on account of those properties,

Sir W. Roberts puts forward an ingenious argument, which cannot be fully repeated here,

"These remarks on beef tea apply equally to Liebig's extract of meat, Brand's essence of beef, and Valentine's meat juice, all of which are devoid of albuminous constituents (British Medical Journal, August, 1885).

In the dietetic use of wines the writer of

this article has constantly had occasion to make the observation that those wines agree best and are most useful which are absorbed and eliminated from the system with the greatest rapidity, as tested by the increase of the renal secretions, and he has been led to the practical conclusion that this is the best criterion of the suitability of any particular wine to any particular constitution. If the effect of different wines on notoriously gouty persons be carefully observed, it will be found that some can drink champagne (in moderation of course) with impunity, especially if a small quantity of an effervescing alkaline water be added to it, while claret will at once provoke some manifestations of gout; others who are unable to drink champagne without provoking a gouty paroxysm will often be able to drink a mature, fine, soft claret even with advantage; others will support hock well, and a few can drink fine sherries and ports in small quantities; but in all it will be found that a test of the suitability of the particular wine to the particular constitution is its susceptibility to rapid elimination and vice versa.

It has occurred also to the writer to make many observations as to the circumstances under which tea and coffee are found to agree

or disagree with different persons; in the first | searches is that most of the "food accessories" place, as Sir W. Roberts has pointed out, tea, which in the course of civilization man has if taken at the same time as farinaceous food, is added to his diet are, when taken in moderamuch more likely to retard its digestion and tion, beneficial to him, and conduce to his cause dyspepsia than if taken a little time after physical welfare and material happiness; but eating; and the custom adopted by many per- if taken in excess they may interfere to a serisons at breakfast, for instance, of eating first ous and harmful degree with the processes of and drinking their tea or coffee afterwards is digestion and assimilation. It also is made a sensible one; so also it is better to take clear that dietetic habits which may prove one's five o'clock tea without the customary agreeable and useful to those who enjoy vigorbread-and-butter or cake than with it. ous health and a strong digestion need to be greatly modified in the case of those who are feeble and dyspeptic.-J. BURNEY YEO, M. D., in The Nineteenth Century.