Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 22.djvu/698

680 or any one in this matter; I only want you to understand distinctly that a person who can not get a full allowance of lean meat, or who does not choose to get it, is not necessarily ill fed for that reason, even though he have to do hard work with his muscles.

C. If a large amount of nitrogenous food is not wanted as food for muscle or other tissues—for plastic purposes, that is to say—how is the excess disposed of?

M. The part of the nitrogenous food which is not wanted for plastic purposes is, after digestion, resolved by the action of the liver into urea, and the other excrementitious products which are met with in the urine, and into a compound containing carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, without any nitrogen, which compound may be the substance called amyloid substance or glycogen. This non-nitrogenous compound is destined to serve as fuel for the production of heat and other forms of force. The portion eliminated as urea, which is simply excrementitious, and the complemental portion, which is destined to serve as fuel, is as 33·20 to 66·80; and therefore it is easy to see that a large part of the nitrogenous food—but little less than two thirds, that is to say—may be devoted to other than plastic purposes, and that a little more than one third may be simply wasted. Moreover, the comparatively small portion of nitrogenous food which is actually wanted for plastic purposes is, there is reason to believe, eventually disposed of in the same way as the portion which is not used for plastic purposes, a little more than one third being wasted as urea, and a little more than two thirds being utilized as fuel. And if this be so, the question arises whether the fuel into which a large part of the nitrogenous form of food is resolved sooner or later is the best form of fuel for your purposes—whether, for example, you were wise in picking out the fat and in taking dry toast?

C. I leave you to find the answer to this question.

M. There is, I think, good reason to believe that much of the fuel without which life can not be maintained may be more easily supplied by non-nitrogenous substances than by nitrogenous substances. The fuel in nitrogenous food is not ready-made. This food has to be transformed, first of all, into albuminose or peptone, and then this albuminose or peptone has to be broken up, partly into the excermentitious portion which passes out of the system by way of the kidneys, and partly into the residual portion which is destined to act as fuel. An abundant supply of gastric and pancreatic and intestinal juices is wanted in order to bring about the proper formation of albuminose; without a healthy condition of liver and kidney it is evident that the albuminose may not be broken up (this breaking-up occurs chiefly in the liver) into urea and amyloid substance or glycogen, and that the urea (which passes out of the system by way of the kidneys) may not be eliminated. Moreover, it seems to be certain that no one can take a large amount of meat and other highly nitrogenous compounds for