Page:Athletics and Manly Sport (1890).djvu/145

120 his lungs can replace, and the machine won't go. The battery is run out. The lungs can be developed, as well as any other portion of the body, by exercising them in their own functions. Deep inspirations while at rest, running, and the use of those muscles (as those of the upper arms and shoulders) whose movements tend to expand the chest, will so enlarge the capacity of the lungs that great amounts of one of the most important chemical foods of the body can be taken into the system.

The other elements are to be found in any ordinary list of articles of diet; and, as a matter of fact, two or three articles may supply them all,—meats; including beef, mutton, veal, lamb, pork, poultiy, and game; vegetables, including potatoes, corn, spinach, onions, peas, and beans; fish; bread in its various forms, oatmeal, eggs, milk, and fruit, make a list from which, with the addition of condiments, all necessary supplies obtainable from food may be had. From such a list, however, selections are obviously to be made with advantage.

Not alone is the food itself to be taken into the stomach; but, to accomplish its desired end with the least difficulty to the organism, the food must be of such kind as to be most easily and readily digested and assimilated.

For that reason, of the meats; beef, mutton, lamb, and game are to be preferred, as well as the dark, rather than light, meat of fowls.

Fish of the white-meated variety.

Oysters raw, not cooked.

Potatoes and oatmeal suffice for starch.

Bread well cooked, and not of the finer grades of flour.

Milk is to be regarded as a solid food, and not a beverage. It is very rich in nutriment, and is very readily digested and assimilated.

The quantity of food is, in a measure, to be proportioned to the amount of work done as well as to the individual according to size. As to the amount to be taken, experience has shown, that, for a hard-working man, thirty to forty ounces a day are sufficient. But quantity depends on one other thing. That food may be properly digested, a certain amount of distension