Page:Substance of the Work Entitled Fruits and Farinacea The Proper Food of Man.djvu/42

 established the perfect identity of animal and vegetable fibrin, animal and vegetable albumen, and animal and vegetable casein; each containing precisely the same amount of the vegetable principle named protein. Prout and Liebig think that the digestive process extracts oxygen out of starch and other saccharine matters, and converts them into fat, an oleaginous compound. We may on the whole conclude, that the Divine wisdom has enabled animals, as well as vegetables, to avail themselves of the nitrogen in the air as a compensation for any moderate deficiency of that element in their food.

Man in warm climates has easy access to fruit, rice, and vegetables, in which carbon and hydrogen far prevail over nitrogen (and the opponents of vegetarianism generally concede that in such cllmates vegetarian food suffices). In cold and temperate regions, where neither pleasant fruits nor profitable crops are spontaneous, man necessarily became a flesh eater, and has learned to indulge largely in animal food. Hence dyspepsia, liver disease, gout, gravel, and many other maladies.

.—Dr. Cullen attests that portions of apple have been thrown up, unaltered, two days after they were swallowed; though Dr. Beaumont found that apples require only about an hour and a half for digestion. Three principal causes may be assigned for such anomalies. 1. The habit of exclusive flesh-eating may induce a corresponding inability to digest certain forms of vegetable food; just as the kitten fed on vegetarian diet was made sick by flesh. 2. Most people in this country eat fruit precisely when their stomach is full, perhaps over full, of fish, flesh, and fowl, with rich sauces and condiments; and then the whole blame is laid on the fruit, when it does not agree. 3. Fruit, as all vegetable food, requires to be carefully chewed and well mixed with saliva before it is swallowed; else it may remain long in the stomach ill digested. If it be bolted, especially with seeds and flakes of skin, it may be carried into the duodenum (as shown by the experiments of Schultz) prematurely. The disturbance caused hereby to the small intestines is improperly ascribed to the acidity of the fruit.

A short statement of facts from Dr. Beaumont's tables will confirm these remarks. He informs us that the following articles were converted into chyme, or digested, in the times mentioned:—