Page:Substance of the Work Entitled Fruits and Farinacea The Proper Food of Man.djvu/44

 "To feed animals with substances produced by art," says Raspail, "is very frequently to load their stomachs, while leaving them to die of hunger." An ass fed by Majendie on diy rice, and afterwards on boiled rice, lived only fifteen days; whereas a cock was fed with boiled rice for several months, with no ill-consequences: hence, among the herbivorous and frugivorous, the effects vary. In many such experiments the very great error is committed of giving concentrated food, abstract and isolated elements. "Too great a proportion of nutritious matter in our food," says Graham, "is little less dangerous to our digestive organs, and to the vital interests generally, than too small a proportion." Natural food is a compound of nutritious and innutritions matter. One function of the organ is to separate them, and the non-nutritious elements stimulate the fibres of the intestines to their work, as Combe observes.

Many recorded experiments illustrate these remarks. The dog fed by Majendie on white bread and water died in the course of seven weeks; but another fed by him on brown soldiers' bread (pain de munition) did not suffer. When dogs were fed on sugar and water they died in a month, but if a considerable portion of sawdust be mixed with the sugar, their health will not be affected by it, although they are naturally carnivorous animals. It was also shown that an ass fed on rice died in fifteen days; but if a large quantity of chopped straw had been mixed with the rice, he would have continued to live and be well. "Horses fed exclusively on meal or grain will die in a short time; but mix their meal or grain with a suitable proportion of cut straw or wood-shavings, and they will thrive and become fat. And it is an interesting fact that, if horses be fed on grain alone, with the exception of water, for a number of days, they will instinctively gnaw the boards, or whatever woody substance is within their reach." I might here give several well-attested anecdotes in confirmation of what has been now stated, but the two following will be sufficient.

"About the 1st of December, 1800," says Captain John Matthews, of Maine, "I left Bath, in the schooner Betsey, with a deck load of cows, oxen, horses, and one mule. Expecting to have a short passage, I took but little hay. When we had been out several days a gale came on, which swept away most of our hay, and drove us so far out of our course that we were fourteen days without hay, before we made the island of Bermuda. We had plenty of corn and potatoes on board, with which we fed our stock. After three or four days the stock all began to be indisposed, and to droop, and to be unwilling to eat the food we gave them; and they seemed to be very uneasy, and to crave something which they had not, and the mule began to gnaw a spruce spar which lay before him. This suggested to me the thought that my stock all required more woody matter with their food;