Page:The food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa.djvu/50

Rh nib, or more than a fifth of the cocoa essence, and to their presence is due the fact that absolutely pure cocoa is such a remarkable flesh-former.

The carbohydrates, producing warmth and fat, are also important food substances, the proportion of which, while forming about a fifth of the whole bean, rises to close upon a third of the essence.

Cocoa also contains a volatile oil, from which it derives its peculiar and delicious aroma.

Thus nearly nine-tenths of the cacao-bean may be assimilated by the digestive organs, while three-fourths of tea and coffee are thrown away as waste. For the same bulk, therefore, cocoa is said to yield thirteen times the nutriment of tea, and four and a half times that of coffee. Its value as a substitute for mother's milk has already been alluded to, but may well be emphasized by a quotation from a paper read before the Surgical Society of Ireland in 1877 by one of its Fellows, Mr. Faussett:

"Without presuming to pass any judgment on the many artificial substitutes which, on alleged chemical