Page:The food of the Gods - A Popular Account of Cocoa.djvu/51

22 and scientific principles, have from time to time been pressed forward under the notice of the profession and the public to take the place of mother's milk, I beg to call attention to a very cheap and simple article which is easily procurable—viz., cocoa, and which, when pure and deprived of an excess of fatty matter, may safely be relied on, as cocoa in the natural state abounds in a number of valuable nutritious principles, in fact, in every material necessary for the growth, development, and sustenance of the body."

After giving some remarkable cases of children being restored from "the last stage of exhaustion" by its use, and "continued through the whole period of infancy," with the effect of their becoming fine, healthy children, he concluded by saying:

"I beg therefore respectfully to commend cocoa, as an article of infant's food, to the notice of my professional brethren, especially those who, holding office under the Poor Laws, have such large and extensive opportunities of testing its value."

As a beverage for mothers or nurses cocoa is recommended by Dr. Milner Fothergill, in his work on "The Food we Eat," in preference to