Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/150

 by the lungs and skin of the animals under experiment, for he found that the same changes were observable in animals kept in a cage, the bottom of which was strewed with arsenic. Besides the changes in the bones, the heart, liver, kidneys, and even the spleen, underwent fatty degeneration. The young of animals fed with arsenic were invariably born dead, though they attained a large size, and presented remarkable hypertrophy of the spleen, and incipient changes in the bones.

What shall we eat?—Dr. E. C. Angell, author of a paper in "The Sanitarian" entitled "Alimentation in Health and Disease," would make wheaten food and not beef the basis of alimentation. In a natural and rational system of dietetics wheat and the allied seed-foods, including beans, lentils, peas, and rice, must, he holds, take the place now usurped by animal foods, including, besides flesh-meats, butter, cheese, eggs, and milk. Next should come the appetizing, juicy fruits, and then the plant foods, which are neither seeds nor fruits, and which are generally styled vegetables. After these come the various animal foods, and last of all the stimulating spices, beverages, and other food adjuncts. According to Dr. Angell, "the true life-giving and mental, moral, and physical force-producing bread is neither more nor less than sound, ripe wheat when deprived of its thin outer silicious husk, coarsely ground and mixed with water, and subjected to just that degree of kneading and baking which will suffice to prepare it for mastication, insalivation, and the subsequent action of the gastric juice." The dough should be kneaded into rolls a little larger than the largest macaroni, and when baked the product gets the name of "sticks." In these "sticks" we have every nutritious element of the grain, with no fermentation, no cryptogamic vegetation, no deleterious chemical or mineral ingredients. We have, furthermore, a substance that must be chewed, as it can not be swallowed without due mastication and insalivation, and consequently its digestion is insured. Attrition, or cold blast wheat, coarsely ground and unbolted, contains all the natural nutritive elements of the wheat. Besides this, it possesses the mechanical properties which distend the intestines, promoting their peristaltic action; it is therefore antidotal to dyspepsia. For children it is specially valuable, and its substitution for common bread, and the use of fruits instead of flesh food, until the deciduous teeth shall have given place to the permanent denture, would be of incalculable benefit and would contribute to the production of good teeth. "The early loss of these organs," says Dr. Angell, "is conclusive evidence that the prevailing system of dietetics is radically wrong."

Government Aid to Artisan Schools.—In England government aid is given toward the support of science schools for artisans and mechanics, a sum of money being granted to the teacher according to the number of students whom he succeeds in getting through the government examination. Furthermore, in order to encourage the students, valuable prizes are presented to those who obtain first-class certificates at the examinations, which, it may be added, are not competitive, that is to say, if every student succeeds in obtaining the requisite percentage of marks, all obtain what are termed Queen's prizes. If the class be one in which scientific apparatus is required, the Government pays half the cost of such apparatus. Already above 50,000 young men attain a respectable proficiency in one or more branches of practical science every year. In "Chambers's Journal," from which the foregoing particulars are taken, we find the following interesting account of the rise and progress of one of these science schools for young artisans: "In the town in which this school is situated, a few spirited young men determined to have a class during the winter. Their scheme at first met with some opposition, but the young men were bent on extending to their town the advantages which the Government of the country hold forth to the industrial classes to educate themselves; and, ere the first days of winter had gone, the class became an accomplished fact. The difficulty experienced in obtaining the requisite instruments for the class was got over partly by means of the aid from Government, and partly by the ingenuity of the young men