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DIET AND FOOD 
 
DIET AND FOOD 
 
 (Ionstt)eve^ in relation to Strenatb ant) power 
 ot JEnburance, ZTraining ant) Htbletics 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER HAIG, M.A., M.D. Oxon., F.R.C.P. 
 
 Physician to the Metropolitan Hospital, and the Royal Hospital 
 for Children and Women 
 
 AUTHOR OF "uric ACID AS A FACTOR IN THE CAUSATION OF DISEASE" 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 WITH FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Philadelphia 
 P. BLAKISTON'S SON & CO. 
 1012, WALNUT STEEET 
 
 PRINTED IN GREAT B«ITMN. 
 
 1901 
 
First Edition, September, 1898. 
 Second Edition, January, 1900. 
 Third Edition, January, 1901. 
 
\ 901 
 
 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 
 
 The year that has elapsed since the last edition 
 has been one of great activity in uric acid research ; 
 but this has entailed no alteration in the prevention 
 of suffering, which remains as before, the exclusion 
 of the poison. 
 
 It has, however, borne most emphatic testimony to 
 the far-reaching importance of the subject, and I 
 feel that I should fail in my duty if I did not speak 
 out on some points. 
 
 I would say, then, that in hospital work, where 
 there is no selection of cases, something like seventy- 
 five per cent, of the sorrow and suffering which I, as 
 a physician, am asked to relieve, could have been 
 prevented by exclusion of the poisons. 
 
 Yet only too often when it comes before us it is 
 too late, and fatal damage of structure cannot be 
 repaired. 
 
 It is to me, for instance, always a painful experience 
 to see children with severe morbus cordis, forging 
 through months of suffering to certain death ; and 
 the knowledge that it might have been prevented, only 
 increases my regret that it was not. It is a matter 
 
VI. PREFACE 
 
 of little consequence whether the uric acid is driven 
 into the fibrous tissues by cold, or the action of a 
 microbe ; but it is a matter of vast importance that, 
 if the uric acid is absent, neither the cold nor the 
 microbe can destroy life, as they are now constantly 
 doing. 
 
 With those who have grown up on our present 
 diet customs it is again too late, the time for pre- 
 vention has gone, and only a patch-work repair can 
 be attempted. 
 
 But for the children, the coming race of the new 
 century, seventy-five per cent, of the present suffer- 
 ing can be avoided, if the points can be grasped. 
 
 The fact that uric acid controls the circulation 
 would almost alone suffice to carry this statement ; 
 and I appeal to those of the profession who have 
 followed my reasoning and applied it in their work, 
 to say whether I am overstating the case. 
 
 The new century can easily be better and happier 
 than the past one ; but if it is to be so to any great 
 extent, I am sure that humanly speaking this can 
 only come about through a widespread and intelli- 
 gent appreciation of the fact, that man is indeed 
 what he eats. 
 
 7, Brook Street, London, W. 
 January, 1901. 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 In attempting to alter people's diet so as to free 
 them from the poisonous xanthins and uric acid, I 
 have met with so much ignorance, and its results 
 prejudice and superstition, that I have been led to 
 write these pages in the hope of making rather 
 clearer the position that diet holds in relation to 
 these matters of strength and nutrition. 
 
 And I believe that I speak no more than the truth 
 when I say that once a clear knowledge of the facts 
 is obtained and a workmanlike and useful grasp of 
 the subject is attained, it will be foulid that in diet 
 lies the key to nine-tenths of the social and political 
 problems that vex our nation and time. 
 
 Diet, as at present used, is often the product of 
 a vast amount of ignorance ; it is the cause of a 
 hideous waste of time and money ; it produces 
 mental and moral obliquities, destroys health and 
 shortens life, and generally quite fails to fulfil its 
 proper purpose. 
 
 It is my object in the following pages to show that 
 it may be easily made to fulfil its proper purpose, 
 and that with even a partial removal of the ignorance 
 
Vlll. PREFACE 
 
 that surrounds it, the waste of time and money may 
 be prevented, and the dangers to hfe and health 
 averted. 
 
 But after pointing out the possibihty I shall leave 
 the facts to speak for themselves, as those will most 
 completely understand them who put them to the 
 test of experience. 
 
 7, Brook Street, London, W. 
 August, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Some points in the Physiology of Albumen and Urea . . . . 1 
 
 Chapter II. 
 Physiology and Pathology of Fatigue 30 
 
 Chapter III. 
 Foods Available : their Properties and Kelative Importance . . 46 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 Values of Foods in Albumen and Urea. Quantities Required. 
 
 Diet of Training and Athletics 57 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fig. 1. — Effects of Fasting and Food on the Excretion of Urea 3 
 
 Fig. 2.— Effects of Milk on the Excretion of Urea . . . . 12 
 
 Fig. 3. — Effects of Cheese on the Excretion of Urea . . . . 16 
 
 Fig. 4. — Effects of Sugar on the Excretion of Urea and of Acid 18 
 
 Fig. 5. — Effects of an Acid on the Excretion of Urea and of Acid 20 
 
DIET AND FOOD. 
 
 CHAPTEK 1. 
 
 Some Points in the Physiology of Albumen 
 AND Urea. 
 
 Health may be defined as a satisfactory condition 
 of nutrition, strength, and power of endurance. 
 
 In considering how such a satisfactory condi- 
 tion can be produced we shall have to treat of the 
 albumens of the food, their sources, characters, 
 digestibility and the amounts of force and urea 
 derived from their metabolism in the body. 
 
 In far off olden times, when man was a more 
 natural and less refined animal than at present. 
 Nature managed the whole business for him, and 
 he either died or attained to a satisfactory condition 
 of health and nutrition without knowing how or 
 why. 
 
 But when later on he began to control some of 
 the conditions of his own nutrition without having 
 obtained a thorough comprehension of all their 
 1 
 
2 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 bearings, he here, as in so many other points of 
 contact with Nature, upset her scales and balances 
 without being prepared to substitute any more 
 satisfactory ones in their place, and suffered in con- 
 sequence from many unexpected and terrible results 
 of his rashness. 
 
 And even now many men are attempting to carry 
 the diet of youth on into middle life and age, or the 
 diet that was quite correct for an active outdoor 
 life into a life of sedentary office work in a town ; 
 or if they fall into neither of these errors they are 
 generally completely ignorant with regard to the 
 relative value and importance of foods, so that they 
 either starve themselves on vegetables or herbs 
 containing little or no albumen, or, on the other 
 hand, over-feed themselves on the most concentrated 
 albuminous foods. 
 
 Now to prevent such mistakes and to substitute 
 a certain amount of scientific precision for the 
 previous rule of thumb methods is the object of 
 this little book, and so we may say that the first 
 essential of nutrition is the supply to the blood of 
 sufficient albumen to replace that transformed into 
 urea in the production of force. 
 
 If food is withheld urea goes down and down, and 
 with it falls the power of producing force in active 
 exercise. 
 
 Fig. 1 shows in a curve the hourly excretion of 
 urea in the sixteenth, fifteenth, fourteenth and 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 3 
 
 earlier hours of a fast, no food having been taken 
 since 8.30 p.m. on the previous day. 
 
 We see, then, that in the hour ending at 8 a.m., 
 urea is a httle above 13 grains and it rises in the 
 
 |l7 
 
 80A.W 
 
 90 
 
 100 
 
 110 
 
 12 NOON 
 
 10 P.M. 
 
 20 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 15 
 14- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 / 
 
 /" 
 
 A 
 
 . , 
 
 A 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 12 
 II 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 l\ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 J 
 
 
 Fig. 1. — Effects cf fasting and food on the excretion of urea. 
 
 hour ending at 9 a.m. to a trifle above 14 grains ; 
 this is probably the result of the exercise involved 
 in the acts of washing and dressing. 
 
4 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 At 10 it falls, and at 11 is only about 12*5 grains, 
 but at 12 it rises again nearly to 14 grains as the 
 result of some exercise, only to fall more quickly and 
 decidedly down to 11 grains at 1 p.m. At 1.5 food is 
 taken and at 2 there is a rise, but only a slight rise, 
 to 11*5 grains ; at 3, however, the full effect of the 
 meal begins to be felt and it rises with a bound to 
 16'7 grains per hour. The total for the day being a 
 little over 400 grains, or 17 grains per hour. 
 
 We see, then, from this figure, that the effect of 
 withholding food for sixteen hours is a steady fall of 
 urea (only the latter part of which we see here) , from 
 17 grains or more per hour down to 11, but this fall 
 is broken from time to time by the effects of exercise, 
 which appears to call out some albumen or nitrogen 
 from some reserve store, about which more presently. 
 
 We also see that with this fall of urea there is a 
 steady corresponding diminution of strength and 
 power of endurance, that is, of force production, and 
 that with the rise of urea, which at 3 p.m. follows 
 the taking and digestion of food, there is an equally 
 marked rise of general strength and power. 
 
 We see, then, that the excretion of urea is the 
 measure of the force available, and that its falls and 
 rises accurately register the conditions of the nutri- 
 tion, strength, and endurance of the body. 
 
 We know also that this urea is generally obtained 
 from the nitrogen in the form of albumen contained 
 in food, that there is also a certain amount of 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 5 
 
 stored albumen in some of the tissues, and that in 
 prolonged starvation, nitrogen is further provided 
 by destruction of the tissues themselves, this being 
 accompanied by a definite daily decrease in body 
 weight. 
 
 We shall see that such loss of body v^eight is an 
 exact measure of the albumens consumed, and of 
 the urea and force produced from them. 
 
 So that when the condition arrives that there is 
 no more albumen available for absorption, no more 
 reserves and no food, urea and force alike cease to 
 be produced, and life comes to an end. 
 
 From this we may conclude that urea excreted is 
 an exact measure of force produced, and that albu- 
 men available is also an exact measure of the force 
 that can be produced (see also chap. iv.). 
 
 We shall see also as I have already suggested 
 in *' Uric Acid "^ as the result of other researches, 
 that those who believed that strength could be got 
 out of food containing no nitrogen, and that urea 
 was therefore not an absolute measure of strength 
 and power, had flaws in their premisses which 
 seriously affected the value of their conclusions. 
 
 I mention this here because the relation between 
 urea, albumen and force, is the keynote of this 
 volume ; but I shall have much further evidence to 
 
 * " Uric Acid as a Factor in the Causation of Disease." 
 Fifth Edition. J. and A. Churchill. London: 1900. Pp. 
 335, 340. 
 
6 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 bring forward on the subject in the pages that 
 follow. 
 
 Further, by watching my own excretion of urea 
 for many years (see details in ** Uric Acid ") as well 
 as on all kinds of diets, I have come to the conclu- 
 sion that given a sufficient amount of albuminous 
 food, which can be digested and metabolised in the 
 body into sufficient urea, I can produce force propor- 
 tional to that urea, without much regard to the 
 quantities of other non-albuminous foods taken. 
 
 So that while sugar, starch and oil do, under 
 certain conditions which I shall demonstrate pres- 
 ently, affect to a small extent the production of urea 
 and force, their influence is always indirect, and 
 generally of so little importance that in a purely 
 practical work like the present it may be neglected. 
 
 We are now at once met by the question, how 
 much urea and how much albumen are sufficient ; 
 and as most physiologists are agreed that good 
 strength and nutrition in adult life can be main- 
 tained on about S^ grains of urea per lb. of body 
 weight per day, and as my own researches (see 
 *' Uric Acid," fifth edition, p. 744, et seq.) are in 
 substantial agreement with them, I shall adopt this 
 standard without further consideration here. 
 
 Then it is a rough but sufficiently accurate rule 
 that the albumens required to produce any given 
 quantity of urea can be found in grains by multiply- 
 ing the grains of urea by 3. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UEEA i 
 
 So that if we take the weight of any individual 
 in pounds — if there is much adipose tissue either 
 deduct it, or take the body weight (if known) before 
 the adipose tissue was added, — and multiply this 
 by 3 if life is sedentary, and by 3" 5 if life is 
 active, we get the urea required, and if this is again 
 multiplied by 3 we shall get the albumens required 
 to produce it. 
 
 Example. — A man weighs 160 lbs., but his active 
 weight twenty years ago before he became stout was 
 only 130 lbs., and he is now sedentary ; therefore 
 (130 X 3 X 3) = 1,170; and 1,170, or, say 1,200 
 grains of albumen per day will be required for his 
 proper nutrition and force production. 
 
 But if such a man leads, or wishes to lead, a 
 decidedly active life, multiply 130 X 3*5 X 3 and 
 1,365 grains of albumen would be required each 
 day. 
 
 Old people produce much less urea, say down to 
 
 2 grains per lb. per day; thus an old man might 
 only require 130 x 2 x 3 = 780 grains of albumen 
 and he would also, of course, produce much less 
 force. 
 
 Children, on the other hand, require much more, 
 and may produce 6-8 and even 10 grains of urea per 
 lb. ; thus a child of 35 lbs. may require 35 X 10 x 
 
 3 = 1,050 grains of albumen per day. 
 
 An interesting instance of this came under notice 
 in the case of a boy aged 10, admitted into the 
 
8 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 Koyal Hospital for Children and Women, suffering 
 from albuminuria and having a normal temperature. 
 
 He was put on a diet of milk only, by accident 
 he was given '2J pints, an insufficient quantity of 
 albumens. 
 
 On this he lost weight to the extent of 7 lbs. in 
 eleven days, his weight on admission being 53 lbs. 
 
 Now the albumen in 2|- pints milk = 590 grs. 
 
 And the albumen in 10 ozs. of his 
 own tissues containing say, 18 
 percent = 786 grs. 
 
 1,376 grs. 
 
 So that we get 1,376 grains of albumen as the 
 quantity this boy required each day, and this divided 
 by 3 gives 458 grains of urea, or 8*6 grains per lb. 
 per day on his original weight of 53 lbs. 
 
 Now this is very interesting, as Nature here made 
 up the deficit and told us how much albumen and 
 urea per lb. this boy required, and I have often 
 found children of this age excreting urea to about 
 the quantity thus calculated, and younger ones still 
 more per lb. 
 
 As soon as the mistake was discovered the milk 
 was increased, the loss of weight ceased, and the 
 amount lost was slowly regained. 
 
 Precisely the same results have often been pro- 
 duced in adults, who for one reason or another have 
 starved themselves, and here again the urea excreted 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 9 
 
 would be found to correspond to the albumens 
 swallowed and the tissues absorbed. 
 
 I may remark also that those who starve them- 
 selves may feel very bright and well at first, after 
 the usual gastric symptoms of discomfort give way ; 
 as they are being nourished on a stimulating flesh 
 diet from their own tissues, and are saving some of 
 the force usually expended on digestion. 
 
 But later on, when their reserve of albumens has 
 long been used up, and their tissue albumens begin 
 to get low, they may discover that they have been 
 living on capital which should never have been 
 touched, and which it is difficult to replace ; for with 
 all their forces, including that of digestion, at a low 
 ebb, it will take them a comparatively long time to 
 assimilate sufficient albumens to keep the machine 
 working as well as to replace the lost capital. And 
 these considerations sufficiently account for the fact 
 of which I have seen many instances, that those 
 who put themselves on an unaccustomed diet often 
 dangerously diminish their allowance of albumens 
 for some time before they discover that there is any- 
 thing wrong, and then find great difficulty in get- 
 ting back to physiological levels. 
 
 Thus while 10 grs. of albumen per lb. of body 
 weight is required for an active life, 9 grs. per lb. 
 is about the minimum that an adult can take and 
 continue to take with safet}' . 
 
 Of course in the treatment of disease and for a 
 
10 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 day or two, much smaller quantities may have to 
 be taken ; but whenever this is necessary there 
 should always be a corresponding reduction in the 
 output of force, or there will be a call on the reserves 
 and a loss of weight, which should be avoided if 
 possible. 
 
 I mention this 9 grs. minimum specially because 
 I find that people, who do not take care, get below 
 it for a time, by accident or mere want of attention, 
 and then get weak, and being weak perhaps get 
 easily fatigued, and then the fatigue destroys their 
 appetite and power of digestion ; and so they go on 
 eating ever less and less, till some of them get to 
 7 or even 6 grs. per lb. per day, and are on a down- 
 ward grade which will take them still lower if it 
 is not put a stop to. 
 
 The best treatment of this condition is to quickly 
 increase milk or cheese to make up the 9 grs. per 
 lb., and to give a tonic for a time to improve 
 appetite and digestion till the fire burns up again. 
 
 And it is because the fire goes down slowly, 
 and the change often escapes notice till more or 
 less serious signs of debility begin to appear, that 
 it is necessary to bestow some care at first to ensure 
 that the proper quantities of albumen are being 
 taken by those who are changing diets. 
 
 If at any time there is a doubt on the matter 
 the urine of 24 hours should be collected and the 
 urea estimated to make certain. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 11 
 
 Given sufficient albumens, it is a matter of very- 
 little consequence where they come from, whether 
 from the animal or vegetable kingdom, though, of 
 course, where poisons are swallowed with the albu- 
 mens, these will influence the results, as we shall 
 see further on ; but the first point is, a sufficient 
 quantity of albumen, and this in a condition suitable 
 for digestion and absorption. 
 
 With these simple facts kept ever in mind there is 
 no difficulty at all in getting sufficient albumen, and 
 therefore sufficient strength and nutrition, out of 
 many kinds of food besides those which form the 
 staple diet of England to-day. 
 
 But those who have been ignorant of these facts, 
 and have attempted to walk without the light of 
 knowledge, have fallen into many and great errors, 
 but chiefly in one of two directions. 
 
 Either they have been ignorant of the quantities 
 required, and have greatly over-estimated the nutri- 
 tion values of garden vegetables and garden fruits, 
 attempting to live on these alone, which it is 
 almost impossible to do. Or they have under- 
 estimated the nutrition values of such things as 
 milk and cheese, and attempted to eat them in as 
 large quantities as the above fruits and vegetables. 
 
 It is also possible, by introducing more food than 
 can readily be digested, to overpower digestion, so 
 that nothing is digested and absorbed, and starva- 
 tion results, a fact which is brought to the front 
 
12 
 
 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 in the most interesting manner in the writings of 
 Dr. Dewey. ^ 
 
 i 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 13 
 \Z 
 
 80 
 
 90 
 
 10-0 
 
 ll-O 
 
 12 NOON 
 
 10 P.M. 
 
 ^ 
 
 N 
 
 
 
 
 
 03 
 
 a 
 
 z 
 iZ 
 
 [ 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 
 s: 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Fig. 2. — Effects of milk on the excretion of urea. 
 
 > "The True Science of Living," by E. H. Dewey, M.D., 
 Norwich, Conn. The Henry Bill Publishing Company, and 
 J. and J. Bumpus, Ltd., Oxford Street, London, England. 1895. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 13 
 
 We learn then from fig. 1 that as suppHes run 
 short, urea and the power of force production fall 
 lower and lower, but that a supply of food does 
 when digested, and generally in the course of thirty 
 to ninety minutes, introduce into the blood a fresh 
 supply of albumens available for the production of 
 force and urea, and then up goes the urea curve, and 
 the power of producing force is correspondingly 
 increased. 
 
 And this is a very simple experiment which any 
 one can repeat on, in and for, themselves. 
 
 Fig. 2 shows the effect of a similar fast to that 
 of fig. 1, broken in the thirteenth hour after 8 p.m., 
 by the taking of ^ pint of milk. 
 
 Here in the hour ending 8 a.m., urea is at 12 
 grains per hour and it rises at 9.0 above 18 grains 
 and gradually falls from that on till 1 p.m., when it 
 is about 13 grains per hour. Now if we take it that 
 urea, if no food had been taken, would have gradually 
 fallen from 12 grains per hour to 9*5 grains per hour 
 at 1 p.m. and draw an imaginary line accordingly, the 
 urea enclosed between these two lines will equal that 
 produced in five hours from the albumens of milk 
 taken, and this is about 28 grains or almost exactly 
 § of the calculated urea value of ^ pint of milk, 
 and probably the rest would have been obtained, 
 only longer time was necessary for it to come out. 
 Similarly with cheese and other foods their urea 
 value to some extent comes out in five hours 
 
14 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 following ingestion, and thus roughly the nutrition 
 value and digestibility of many foods may be 
 directly tested on any individual about whom the 
 information may be required. 
 
 Thus fig. 3 shows the effect of taking at 8.15 a.m. 
 1 oz. of cheese. Here we see that in contrast with 
 what happened with milk, it is only in the second 
 hour after the cheese that we get a rise of urea. 
 
 Then considering that urea would have fallen 
 much as in the other figures, if no cheese had been 
 taken, we get urea enclosed between the two lines 
 equal to 17"7, say 18 grains, and this multiplied by 
 3 is equal to 54 grains of albumen. 
 
 But this cheese is theoretically equivalent to 140 
 grains of albumen, so that in five hours of digestion 
 we have got less than half its urea and albumen 
 value. 
 
 This looks as if cheese is both harder and slower 
 of digestion than milk, and is probably after all less 
 completely digested and leaves greater undigested 
 residues. 
 
 I must say, however, that the cheese taken was 
 Gruyere, and it was somewhat hard from keeping, 
 which probably accounts for part of its slow diges- 
 tion and indigestibility ; still I give the result to 
 show how the probable nutrition value of foods may 
 be gauged by this process. 
 
 Many people say that they cannot digest milk or 
 cheese ; but a few tests similar to these would soon 
 show whether there was any truth in the statement. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UEEA 15 
 
 u 
 
 a 13 
 
 915 
 
 1015 
 
 1115 
 
 1215 1 115 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 h 
 
 Q 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 tl 
 
 
 / 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 (0 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 Q 
 
 I 
 z 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 lU 
 
 I 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 14 
 13 
 12 
 
 ^, 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 \ 
 
 \l 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 \ 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 Fig. 3. — Effects of cheese on the excretion of urea. 
 
16 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 A similar test may be applied to such foods as 
 nuts, Protene, Plasmon and gluten, to be mentioned 
 further on. And all these dry or hard albumens are, 
 in my experience, more slowly digested than cheese, 
 just as one would expect, and for the same reason, 
 as we see, cheese is more slowly digested than milk. 
 
 People vary considerably in their powers of digest- 
 ing these things, and while some will produce urea 
 from them equal to at least J of their calculated 
 value, others will produce much less down to less 
 than half their value, and others again appear not 
 to digest them at all, there being no rise of urea 
 whatever. 
 
 Things which increase appetite and digestive 
 power appear to increase the urea that is obtained 
 from these dried forms of albumen, and thus some 
 people can digest these foods when leading an active 
 life, and not when sedentary. 
 
 The time at which they are taken and their 
 admixture with other foods make also important 
 differences in the results obtained, and I mention 
 these things here to bring out the value of the 
 above test, for the quantity of urea produced from 
 any food in a given time is an absolute guide to the 
 nutrition value of that food for the individual on 
 whom we are working; and by this test milk stands 
 quite at the head of the list, and is followed by 
 cheese, and some way behind this by the above and 
 other forms of hard or desiccated albumens. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UilEA 17 
 
 Those who are in doubt should put the matter 
 to the test and judge by the results. 
 
 In those, who cannot digest these hardened albu- 
 mens at all, they may act as irritants and upset 
 digestion of other foods as well, causing, it may be, 
 more or less severe dyspepsia, with loss of weight 
 and strength, so that something like actual starva- 
 tion may result, even on a diet of which the calcu- 
 lated albumens are sufi&cient. It is in some cases 
 not only useless to svv^allow hard or desiccated 
 albumens, but it may be actually dangerous to do so. 
 
 On the other hand small quantities of such in- 
 digestible substances as a few Brazil nuts, three 
 times a day before meals, will sometimes cure 
 chronic constipation which is otherwise almost 
 incurable, and they probably bring about this result 
 by leaving undigested residues which stimulate the 
 intestines and promote peristalsis ; figs, prunes, 
 wholemeal or brown bread may be mentioned as 
 having more or less similar effects. 
 
 In all cases it is necessary to hit the happy mean 
 between constipation on the one hand, and chronic 
 dyspepsia with starvation on the other; and those 
 who have altered their diet without knowing much 
 about physiology have not always kept these points 
 sufficiently in mind. 
 
 Then in those who have previously suffered from 
 intestinal irritation, such as gout of the intestines, 
 appendicitis, &c., such indigestible substances must 
 2 
 
18 
 
 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 be specially avoided, or relapse of their troubles may 
 be produced. 
 
 Fig. 4 shows the effect of swallowing 1 oz. of 
 brown sugar, which was finished at 8.40 a.m. 
 
 1 
 
 X 
 
 t 
 
 < 
 
 16 
 \5 
 14 
 13 
 12 
 
 a 
 
 •5 
 
 1-0 
 
 M 
 
 6- 10 
 
 910 
 
 1010 
 
 IIIO 
 
 12- 10 
 
 110 
 
 o 
 
 
 f 
 
 
 
 
 •* 
 a 
 
 s 
 
 z 
 
 e: 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 
 
 z 
 
 / 
 
 '\ 
 
 
 
 
 UREA 
 
 J 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 /^ 
 
 r 
 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 X 
 
 Fig. 4. — Effects of sugar on the excretion of urea and of acid. 
 
 Here we see a very marked rise of urea, from 18 
 grains in the hour ending 9.10, to 16 grains in that 
 ending 10.10, followed by a fall down to 11 '5 grains 
 in the hour ending 1.10 p.m. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 19 
 
 Now this rise of urea cannot be directly due to 
 the sugar, for it contains no nitrogen, but the result 
 is probably due to the rise of acidity which pre- 
 cedes it. 
 
 Below the urea curve is shown the excretion 
 of acid in the urine in grains per hour, and from 
 this we see that there was a marked rise in the 
 excretion of acid in the hour ending 9.10, and that 
 it kept at the same level in the two following hours. 
 
 Now readers of " Uric Acid " already know that 
 every rise of acidity is accompanied or followed by 
 a rise of urea. And we gather from works on 
 physiological chemistry that the rise of acidity 
 which sugar produces is due to the effects of lactic 
 and butyric fermentation in the alimentary canal. 
 
 This, no doubt, also accounts for the bad name 
 which sugar has had for many years as a producer 
 of gout and rheumatism ; though we can now see 
 that sugar merely produced these troubles indirectly 
 by its effects on acidity and the solubility of uric 
 acid, and that, if uric acid supplies are kept low, 
 while the supply of fresh vegetables and fruits is 
 good, sugar can do no harm. In a word, the 
 trouble with sugar has arisen from associating it 
 with animal flesh ; while taken with plenty of 
 vegetables and fruits it is harmless. The rise of 
 acidity shown in our figure would do no harm to a 
 frugivore, but in a flesh-eater it might precipitate 
 an arthritis. 
 
20 
 
 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 And this rise in acidity was probably due to the 
 sugar, as normally the rise in the acidity of the 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 13 
 12 
 II 
 10 
 9 
 
 i 
 
 1 r 
 
 8-23 
 
 9-23 
 
 10-23 
 
 11-23 
 
 12-23 P.M 
 
 \ 
 
 § 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 •v. 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 ACIDITY 
 
 10 
 
 
 A 
 
 V 
 
 ^\ 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 V 
 
 Fig. 5. — Effects of an acid on the excretion of urea and of acid. 
 
 urine does not begin till 10.0 a.m., and when it 
 begins it generally continues to rise slowly all the 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 21 
 
 way to 2.0 or 3.0 p.m. (see " Uric Acid," fig. 3), 
 but this rise, beginning at 9.10 a.m., does not 
 increase in the two following hours. 
 
 Now fig. 5 shows a similar curve, in which at 9.23 
 Vf[x. of dilute acetic acid were taken, and this is 
 followed by a break in the downward trend of the 
 urea curve which, however, again falls rapidly to 
 8"5 grains in the hour ending 12.23. 
 
 Below the urea curve is the acidity curve, and 
 this does not at once rise after the acid is taken, but 
 in the hour ending 11.23 there is a decided rise, 
 and this is not due to the normal rise at that hour, 
 because it does not continue to rise in the hour 
 ending 12.23. 
 
 I take it, therefore, that the rise at 11.23 was due 
 to the acetic acid, and that the acidity (looking to 
 the rapid fall of urea from 14 to 8*5 grains in about 
 four hours) would have fallen further at 10.23 but 
 for the acid taken, and that this acid affected the 
 blood before its full effect became visible in the 
 urine, and the rise of urea was the effect of the acid 
 on the circulation of the blood. But it may be said, 
 how was it that with a small rise of acid of ^ grain 
 in fig. 4, there was a rise of 3 grains in urea, while 
 with a rise of about 1 grain of acid in fig. 5 there 
 was a rise of probably less than 2 grains of urea ? 
 
 But as already shown in " Uric Acid," pp. 340 and 
 542, the rise of urea that follows the taking of an 
 acid or a rise of acidity otherwise caused, is not 
 
iSia DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 proportional to that rise of acidity, but rather to 
 the condition of the blood and tissues when the 
 acid is taken and the rise of acidity affects them . 
 
 And I have also shown in *' Uric Acid," prev. refs., 
 that a rise of acidity causes a rise of urea, because 
 it clears the blood of uric acid which probably in 
 colloidal form is obstructing the peripheral capillary 
 circulation and preventing both the ready access of 
 the blood albumens to the tissues, and the removal 
 of waste products from these ; and that the rise of 
 urea which results is proportional, not so much to 
 the greatness of the rise of acidity, but rather to the 
 condition of the tissues at the time of the rise of 
 acidity. 
 
 That is to say, the longer the tissue circulation 
 has been exposed to the obstructing influence of 
 colloid uric acid the greater may be the accumula- 
 tion of waste products in those tissues and the 
 greater will be the rise of urea when the circulation 
 through them is once more freed. In illustration 
 of this point I have remarked that while the rise of 
 urea that follows the clearing of the blood of uric 
 acid in physiological conditions, is only, as seen in 
 these figures, a matter of a few grains ; when the 
 blood is cleared of uric acid in Bright's disease, 
 where the obstruction to the circulation is both 
 greater and more lasting, urea may rise as much 
 as a hundred grains in a day. 
 
 Hence I conclude that the difference in the extent 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 23 
 
 of the rise of urea in figs. 4 and 5 may be due to 
 some difference in the quantity of waste products 
 available in the tissues, and in conformity with this, 
 we see that urea was only faUing rather slowly as 
 the result of the fast in fig. 4, while at the same 
 hours in fig. 5 it was falling very quickly indeed, 
 and my notes of the day corresponding to fig. 5 
 show that it was the day following a large excretion 
 of urea after exercise, so that it is possible that the 
 muscles were on this day rather poor both in stores 
 of albumens and of waste products, and so the rise 
 of acidity produced relatively little effect. 
 
 I have gone at length into this question of the 
 effects of uric acid on circulation, nutrition and 
 excretion of urea, because we here come in sight of 
 our second great and important factor in nutrition, 
 strength and power of endurance. 
 
 Our first factor, of which we have so far been 
 talking, is a sufficient supply of albumens in a 
 digestible form, to introduce into the blood stream 
 sufficient albumens to produce in the tissues urea to 
 the extent of 3*5 grains per lb. of body weight per 
 day, and the corresponding amount of force. 
 
 We can now see that our second factor is the 
 possibility of a satisfactory circulation through the 
 tissues, bringing these albumens to the tissues and 
 removing the corresponding waste products. 
 
 And this, as we can now also see, is dependent 
 on the absence of any excess of uric acid from the 
 blood stream. 
 
24 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 From which it follows that, as some sources of 
 albumens, such as animal flesh of all kinds, contain 
 either uric acid or substances equivalent to it, such 
 as the xanthins, these sources of albumen must be 
 ruled out, for the blood cannot be kept properly 
 free from this substance while it is being continually 
 introduced with every mouthful that is swallowed ; 
 and, if the blood is not kept fairly free from this 
 substance, the circulation will not be that best suited 
 to the production of strength and endurance. A 
 fact of which we shall see some practical proofs 
 further on. 
 
 But to return to figs. 4 and 5, 1 give them to show 
 that the effect of 1 oz. of sugar (containing no albu- 
 mens) on the excretion of urea, is very slight compared 
 with the effect of 1 oz. of cheese, and that this small 
 effect is probably indirect and due to the sugar alter- 
 ing the alkalinity of the blood and so affecting the 
 circulation in the tissues and the removal of waste 
 products from them. 
 
 We have thus far learned, then, that the produc- 
 tion of force requires : — 
 
 (1) A sufficient supply of albumens in a digestible 
 form. 
 
 (2) A satisfactory interstitial circulation of the 
 blood to carry these albumens to the tissues and 
 remove waste products, and to make this possible 
 the blood must contain little or no uric acid or 
 similar substances, such as the xanthins. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 25 
 
 Before I leave the subject, illustrated by the above 
 figures of urea excretion, I wi\\ just point out that : — 
 A small quantity of milk, cheese, or any food of 
 similar albumen value causes a feeling that hunger 
 is sated as the urea rises, and the feeling of hunger 
 begins to return again as urea falls ; but if a food 
 poor in albumen is taken, such as fruit, though in 
 much larger bulk than the milk or cheese, there is a 
 feeling of fulness, but hunger is not sated and there 
 is little or no rise of urea. So that the feeling of 
 hunger is to a large extent a measure of the want of 
 albumens in the body, and this can be sated only by 
 albuminous food, and 1 oz. of cheese is worth in 
 albumens more than 10 times its weight of fruit, so 
 that hunger is not a matter of mere bulk. 
 
 Similarly, if sufficient albuminous food is taken, 
 but something upsets digestion, there is little or no 
 rise of urea, no increasing feeling of strength and 
 power, but rather a feeling of languor and debihty 
 with desire to keep quiet. 
 
 But good digestion is accompanied, so long as 
 urea is rising, by feelings of strength and power 
 and a desire to be up and doing, so that it is quite 
 possible to tell whether digestion is good, bad, in- 
 different or nil, by these feelings alone. 
 
 Thus it is not uncommon to meet with people 
 who, soon after eating a hearty meal start for some 
 exercise, but within half an hour are found in a 
 condition bordering on collapse at the side of the 
 
26 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER I 
 
 road ; and if you ask them, they will tell you that 
 they have an intense feeling of emptiness referred to 
 the epigastrium, as if all their good meal recently 
 eaten had given them the slip. 
 
 What has happened here ? Merely this, that the 
 exercise has been too much for gastric digestion, 
 v^hich has been suspended, so that though the 
 stomach is full, there is no absorption of albumens 
 into the circulation, no rising urea, and no force 
 available ; and so in spite of a full stomach they have 
 a feeling of more or less intense emptiness, which 
 shows merely that the blood is poorly supplied with 
 nutritive albumens, and we find that urea is falling, 
 or at least, not rising. 
 
 A little rest puts matters right, the stomach 
 circulation is restored, digestion goes on, albumen 
 is absorbed and urea formed, and the man gets up 
 and walks perhaps quite well for twenty miles, 
 making almost as good use of his meal as if nothing 
 had occurred. 
 
 On the other hand, it is possible that the 
 temporary suspension of digestion may allow fer- 
 mentative, putrefactive, and other processes to 
 take place in the food mass, which continue and 
 put digestion out for hours, days or weeks after- 
 wards. 
 
 A similar suspension of digestion, absorption and 
 urea formation may be produced, with exactly 
 similar results, by other disturbing influences be- 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 27 
 
 sides exercise, such as the circulation changes pro- 
 duced by the rush of a quantity of uric acid into 
 the blood, producing, as I have elsewhere explained 
 {" Uric Acid," prev. ref., p. 251), obstructive con- 
 gestion of the w^hole digestive circulation, and so 
 imperfection or suspension of gastric digestion, and 
 the other results above mentioned. 
 
 And this is the causation of the gastric upset and 
 vomiting, of the severe uric acid storm (or bilious 
 attack, so called) and of the more or less sudden 
 feelings of emptiness in cases of glycosuria and 
 diabetes, associated with such and similarly caused 
 circulation troubles and their effects on digestion. 
 
 As the readers of " Uric Acid " already know, 
 every rise of uric acid in the blood and urine is 
 accompanied by a fall in urea, which is no doubt 
 partly due to defective circulation and metabolism 
 in the muscles and other important tissues, the 
 reverse effect to that shown in fig. 5, and also 
 partly to defective circulation and digestion in the 
 stomach, and consequent diminished absorption of 
 albumen into the blood. 
 
 But if even at the end of the sixteenth, seven- 
 teenth, or eighteenth hours no food is taken, urea 
 often begins to rise a little, and with this there 
 comes a feeling of increased strength and powder 
 and the emptiness passes off or is greatly lessened. 
 
 This means, I believe, that the body has begun to 
 feed on its own tissues, and that there is a rise of 
 
28 DIET AND FOOD— CHAPTER I 
 
 urea and of energy from this source ; but prolong 
 the fast for twenty-four to thirty-six hours and 
 there is now a distinct loss of weight, as in the boy 
 above mentioned, who was put on a diet deficient in 
 albumens ; and this represents the albumen neces- 
 sary to raise urea and produce the force required 
 for the bodily functions, in the absence of supplies 
 from without. 
 
 And this loss we know will be continued for 
 weeks and weeks, and sufficient albumen will be 
 taken each day to keep the chief functions of the 
 body from coming to a standstill, and a corre- 
 sponding amount of urea will be excreted. 
 
 We may sum up the main points in the physi- 
 ology of the subject by saying that the first 
 requisite for strength and power of endurance is 
 a satisfactory and sufficient supply of albumens, 
 that the body depends for these chiefly on the 
 foods taken from day to day, but that there is also 
 a small store of these substances in certain tissues 
 which becomes available for use if prolonged exer- 
 tion is called for in the absence of food ; and further 
 that, beyond this point in continued starvation, 
 certain definite quantities of the tissues them- 
 selves are daily absorbed to produce the necessary 
 albumens and urea. 
 
 My results are thus in complete accord with the 
 teachings of those physiologists, who say that 
 albumen is the sine qua non of a diet that sustains 
 
PHYSIOLOGY OF ALBUMEN AND UREA 29 
 
 life ; and my researches, some of which I have 
 published in "Uric Acid " (prev. ref., p. 741), show 
 that the excretion of urea bears a definite relation to 
 the force produced, and that a diet on which urea is 
 at or below 2*5 grains per pound of body weight per 
 day will not suffice to produce much force, in spite 
 of a liberal allowance of sugar, starch and fat. 
 
 Force is thus in all directions proportional to urea, 
 whether gauged from hour to hour or day to day. 
 
 And the second requisite is a free circulation 
 through the tissues to bring the albumens to them 
 and remove their waste products, and this circula- 
 tion is only possible in the comparative absence of 
 uric acid from the blood stream ; this absence 
 explaining the rise of urea in fig. 5, and the still 
 more marked rise if the blood can be cleared of 
 uric acid in Bright's disease. 
 
30 
 
 CHAPTEK II. 
 
 Physiology and Pathology of Fatigue. 
 
 From what has alread}^ been said we gather that 
 fatigue, that is, the inabihty to produce force, 
 may be due to two causes : (1) a general dearth of 
 albumens in the blood, and (2) a condition in the 
 blood which leads to its defective circulation through 
 the tissues, so that though the blood contains suffi- 
 cient albumens the tissues cannot readily obtain 
 them, and also the tissues become, as the result of 
 their activity, laden with waste products, which are 
 not sufficiently quickly removed. 
 
 It will be well to go somewhat deeper into this 
 causation of fatigue, so as to obtain the power of 
 distinguishing in practical experience, between the 
 fatigue which is due to the first, and that which is 
 due to the second condition. 
 
 Now the fatigue which is due to dearth of albu- 
 mens in the blood is always absent so long as suffi- 
 cient food is taken and digested ; in the condition 
 of dyspepsia mentioned in the previous chapter it 
 was not digested : so that, if a man in any trial of 
 endurance drops out while supplied with sufficient 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 31 
 
 albumens and apparently digesting them, we may- 
 be sure that his fatigue is not due to (1), but by 
 exclusion is probably due to (2). 
 
 And practically, apart from digestive acci- 
 dents, the fatigue which is due to dearth of 
 albumens does not occur, till some four or five 
 hours after a meal, and till urea has begun to fall 
 very considerably below the level of 17 grains per 
 hour, as shown in figs. 2 and 3 for instance. 
 
 So that, if a man, who has had a sufficient supply 
 of albumens put in, and has a good digestion, yet 
 falls out in the early stage of a contest, long before 
 those albumens can be exhausted, we must conclude, 
 that his fatigue is due to uric acid in the blood, and 
 may proceed further to identify this condition by 
 •considering its concomitant signs and symptoms. 
 
 As will appear from my consideration of this 
 subject in " Uric Acid " (prev. ref., p. 341), there is, 
 in addition to the feeling of powerlessness in the 
 limbs, a feeling of chilliness, with coldness of skin 
 and extremities, and a fall of the surface tempera- 
 ture, but the temperature in the rectum will be 
 raised and separated more than usually from the 
 surface temperature (sign of excess of uric acid in 
 the blood) : similarly, and for the same reason the 
 general blood pressure will be raised, the diameter 
 of the radial artery increased, and the sounds of 
 the heart altered. Under this condition, if a white 
 spot is made by pressure with the finger-tip on the 
 
32 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 back of the hand, the colour will take from 2 to 3 
 seconds or more to return ; while where there is no 
 excess of uric acid in the blood, it may only take 
 from 1^ to 2 seconds.^ 
 
 Now these are all effects of one and the same 
 cause, defective capillary circulation, which can be 
 seen on the back of the hand, affecting especially 
 the temperature of surfaces and extremities, but 
 affecting also the general circulation of the whole 
 body, raising the blood pressure and influencing the 
 action of the heart. 
 
 On the other hand, the man, who suffers from 
 fatigue owing to deficiency of albumens, will not 
 suffer from coldness nearly so much ; will have but 
 little difference between surface and deep tempera- 
 tures, and little if any slowing of the capillary 
 reflux on the back of the hand ; will not have 
 a general rise of blood pressure with increased 
 diameter of the arteries, or much alteration of the 
 sounds of the heart. 
 
 This man is all right in himself, but supplies have 
 merely run short ; give him fresh albumens, and 
 a little time (as we see from fig. 1 is required) 
 to digest them, and he will promptly be himself 
 again ; or even a little rest without any fresh albu- 
 mens will enable him to draw on his reserves and 
 tissue albumens, and he will be able to go on once 
 more. 
 
 ' See British Medical Journal, Oct., 1899. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 33 
 
 Far different is the case of the other man, for 
 even if you supply him with albumens it will do but 
 little good, he has already sufficient in his blood, but 
 they cannot get to the tissues, and, owing to the 
 general defective circulation, his digestion of any 
 new albumens will be as slow as all his other 
 physiological processes. 
 
 To supply him with fresh food may merely add to 
 his troubles by starting dyspepsia, if not putrefac- 
 tion, in his digestive organs, and presently he may 
 vomit all the fresh supplies almost untouched by 
 digestion. 
 
 To get this man once more into a condition to 
 proceed may be a matter of hours, possibly days, 
 and the first thing to do is to clear the uric acid out 
 of the blood, and if this can be done, and as soon as 
 it is done, there will be a rise of urea and a return 
 of power without any fresh food having been given : 
 this further illustrating the points already men- 
 tioned in reference to figs. 4 and 5. 
 
 Now the best way to clear the blood of uric acid 
 is, as we see from the above figures, to give acids, 
 acid wines, acid fruits, in fact acid in any form most 
 likely to be absorbed from the stomach ; or calomel, 
 or other metals that form insoluble compounds with 
 uric acid, as pointed out in previous writings ; but 
 as the whole object of this book is to show that, with 
 proper care in selecting our sources of albumen, this 
 fatigue from uric acid collaemia and the obstructed 
 
34 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 circulation it produces need not occur, I shall not 
 here go further into the treatment of the condition 
 by means of acids and drugs. 
 
 But while speaking of this, I will again point out 
 that, though the albuminous foods are those that 
 really control the situation, other foods may have 
 effects which may easily appear to others to be of 
 more importance than they really are. 
 
 Thus, though in fig. 4 the effect of 1 oz. of sugar 
 is very small compared with that of 1 oz. of cheese, 
 any one who had taken the sugar would say that 
 they felt distinctly stronger and better for it ; and 
 so they would be, while acidity ■ and urea were 
 rising, partly because some albumen was indirectly 
 rendered available for force production, and partly 
 because the amount of uric acid in the blood was 
 diminished and the circulation improved. 
 
 But this would equally be the case if the rise of 
 acidity was produced by an acid containing no food 
 elements whatever (see fig. 5) ; so that while I do 
 not say that carbohydrates, oils and fats, have no 
 effect on nutrition, and am not discussing their 
 effects on the production of force in other forms, 
 such as heat, I do say that their effect on the pro- 
 duction of force and activity, and the excretion of 
 urea, is slight and indirect, and may for the present 
 be neglected, with the object of making clearer and 
 more useful our knowledge of the effects of the 
 albumens. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 35 
 
 In SO far as I propose to point out that those, 
 who are free from great excess of uric acid in the 
 blood, are also free from the above-described more 
 severe and intractable form of fatigue, I must at the 
 same time not forget to mention that the difference 
 between those who suffer and those who do not 
 suffer, is one of degree only, and that all have some 
 uric acid in the blood, and are similarly influenced 
 by acids and other drugs which clear it out of the 
 circulation. 
 
 In those who have no available excess of uric acid 
 in the body and blood, an acid, or an acid-forming 
 food, introduced into the stomach will at once be 
 absorbed and clear out any uric acid there may be 
 in the blood ; but in those who are full of uric acid 
 from head to foot, digestion and absorption are as 
 much upset by the large quantity of uric acid in 
 the blood, as is muscular circulation, skin circula- 
 tion and general metabolism, and then the con- 
 dition is difficult or impossible to cure, as food and 
 drugs introduced into the stomach may quite fail to 
 be absorbed ; uric acid collaemia is a curable con- 
 dition in the one case, but more or less incurable in 
 the other, at least for a time. 
 
 I have also pointed out in '* Uric Acid," that by 
 watching urea excretion during exercise it is possible 
 to tell at once whether fatigue is coming early, and 
 whether that fatigue is due to excess of uric acid ; 
 for exercise generally causes, as we have seen, a 
 
36 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 rise of urea ; but if there is much uric acid in the 
 blood, the beginning of the exercise will lead to a 
 fall of urea in place of a rise, and then more or less 
 severe fatigue soon comes on. 
 
 Now this fatigue can be prevented, as I am going 
 to show, by means of suitable diet providing the 
 necessary albumens, without the unnecessary uric 
 acid, and it can, as already pointed out in "Uric 
 Acid," be prevented by previously clearing out all 
 the available uric acid ; e.g. by a course of salicylate 
 which is left off on the day of exercise, or by giving 
 acids, mercury, &c., to temporarily clear the blood 
 at the time of exercise ; in fact it matters not how 
 you clear the blood of uric acid, so long as you do 
 clear it, and keep it clear during the exercise. 
 
 It has also been pointed out that exercise brings 
 excess of uric acid into the blood by causing the 
 elimination of acids in perspiration ; thus diminish- 
 ing the acidity of the urine and increasing the 
 alkalinity of the blood ; thus rendering it a better 
 solvent of uric acid, so that it will dissolve more 
 of the uric acid available in the tissues. 
 
 In a word, exercise acts like a dose of alkali, and 
 reverses the effects which we have seen to be pro- 
 duced by acids, hence in those who have plenty of 
 available uric acid, heat and fatigue are contem- 
 poraneous, and almost synonymous ; but in those 
 who are free from excess of uric acid, heat and 
 perspiration have little or no bad effect. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 37 
 
 Hence the records we are now getting from all 
 sides show that the less animal flesh a people take 
 the better do they come out in trials of force pro- 
 duction, and especially in endurance. As regards 
 force production, those having equivalent quantities 
 of albumen available from any source, animal or 
 vegetable, will be equal to each other : but in 
 endurance those will do best who get their albumens 
 from such animal and vegetable sources as are prac- 
 tically free from uric acid, and who do not indulge 
 in such stimulant poisons as tea, coffee, and other 
 similar alkaloid-containing substances. 
 
 Now so far as I know^ the ''vegetarians " of this 
 country are pretty decidedly superior in endurance 
 to those who feed on animal tissues, and who might 
 otherwise be expected to equal them ; but these 
 " vegetarians " would be better still, as I have for 
 some years been pointing out, if they not only 
 ruled out animal flesh, but also eggs, and the pulses 
 (peas, beans and lentils) which contain a large 
 amount of uric acid, or substances physiologically 
 equivalent to uric acid ; also tea, coffee, and cocoa. 
 
 It also follows absolutely from what I have said, 
 that meat is a stimulant because of the acid salts 
 it contains, for uric acid itself is a stimulant, as 
 may be demonstrated for anyone by swallowing 
 a few grains of it, and it is the chief stimulant in 
 beef-tea soups and meat extracts, and other deadly 
 decoctions of flesh. Meat also contains a supply of 
 
38 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 easily digested albumens, and the effect of swallow- 
 ing animal flesh is, that digestion is stimulated and 
 circulation improved by the acids and acid salts, so 
 that the albumens are quickly digested and rendered 
 available ; as the result of these two causes, the 
 happy owner of a portion of flesh is sooner in a 
 position to evolve large quantities of force than 
 the man who gets his albumen — perhaps exactly 
 the same in amount — from a less stimulating 
 source. 
 
 But there is another side to this picture, for in 
 so far as this effect of flesh is due to stimulation, 
 that stimulation will come to an end, just as we 
 see in fig. 5 that the rise of urea after an acid 
 comes to an end, and is followed by a fall which 
 is rapid and decided, and as the albumens of flesh 
 are thus rapidly available, it follows that, other 
 things, such as quantity, being equal, the albumens 
 provided from flesh are more quickly available, but 
 also more quickly worked off and dissipated, than 
 those having a less stimulating origin in cheese or 
 vegetables ; though a somew^hat similar effect can 
 be produced by eating acid fruits and vegetables 
 along with cheese, milk, &c. 
 
 It follows from this that a meal of meat, as com- 
 pared with a meal, of say milk, cheese and bread, 
 equally rich in albumens, is like the force in an 
 explosive oil, as compared with the same amount 
 of force in a slow burning oil. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 39 
 
 And the man who has dined on flesh, though 
 possibly more hvely and energetic at first, will find 
 himself at the end of both his stimulation and his 
 available albumens, and faced by rapidly falling 
 urea and increasing fatigue, some time before his 
 opponent, who got a precisely similar allowance of 
 albumen from other sources. 
 
 Stimulation is not strength, but force rendered 
 a little more quickly available ; and it is always 
 followed (and must be so) by an exactly correspond- 
 ing amount of depression, when the force used up 
 is not available, and has to be replaced. 
 
 The man also who had the meat and had his 
 blood temporarily cleared of uric acid as the result 
 of its acid stimulation, has not got rid of that uric 
 acid ; but it is waiting in his body and will return 
 in increased quantity into his blood as soon as the 
 rise of acidity and stimulation comes to an end ; 
 hence this man may, some time before his next 
 meal, have an excess of uric acid in his blood and 
 suffer from fatigue as a result of this also, while his 
 milk, cheese, and bread eating opponent, having less 
 uric acid to return into his blood, will escape. 
 
 I think that this action of meat, as a stimulant 
 and producer of quickly worked off force, has a good 
 deal to say to the fact that, as we have come to eat 
 more and more meat, we have also come to have a 
 larger and larger number of meals in the day ; and 
 now while the bread, cheese and vegetable feeder 
 
40 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 can do well on two, or at most three, meals a day, 
 the flesh feeders often take four, or perhaps five. 
 
 It follows also, that quite an exaggerated and 
 erroneous estimate has been formed of the power 
 of meat to produce force, because its stimulating 
 effect has been mistaken for power, and the de- 
 pression which follows has either been overlooked, 
 which is possible at first, or later, has been counter- 
 acted by alcohol, tobacco and other more harmful 
 stimulants ; but the man who gets his albumens 
 from a less stimulating source, having no early 
 stimulation, has also no subsequent depression, 
 and so probably never feels the want of any alcohol 
 at all. 
 
 Hence it comes about that those who took alcohol 
 on a flesh diet generally very soon give it up when 
 they give up flesh, and smoke also very little, having 
 no craving for any stimulant ; while if what most 
 meat-eaters say was true, namely that meat is very 
 much better nourishment and more supporting than 
 milk, bread, cheese, fruit and vegetables, it ought 
 to be exactly the other way, and those who live 
 on the latter foods should require to take alcohol, 
 and be unable to do without it. 
 
 Another very common effect of meat eating, 
 whether alcohol is added to it or not, is a certain 
 amount of dulness, heaviness and disinclination for 
 mental or bodily exertion in the morning hours, 
 often associated with more or less irritability and 
 mental depression. 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 41 
 
 In fact the meat eater is never quite himself or 
 to be seen at his best till the evening, when rising 
 acidity clears his blood for a time from excess of 
 uric acid ; and this is, I think, at least one of the 
 factors that has caused our morning and evening 
 hours to grow progressively later and later, as we 
 have come to live more in towns, and eat more 
 meat. 
 
 It is misery to rise in the morning hours if you 
 feel dull, depressed, and unrefreshed; it is a pleasure 
 to prolong the evening conviviality when you feel 
 bright, and by contrast even cheerful. Few^ or none 
 realise that a multitude of such minor sorrows are 
 the direct results of their habits of life. 
 
 We see then, that there are two forms of fatigue, 
 one due to absence of albumens from the blood, 
 because albuminous foods are deficient, and one due 
 to absence of albumens from the muscular tissues, 
 because, though there is plenty of albumen in the 
 blood, the blood is unable to get to the tissues; both 
 forms of fatigue are really due to the defective supply 
 of albumens to the tissues, but the latter kind is 
 complicated by the additional source of weakness 
 that, the circulation being defective, waste products 
 are not removed from the tissues, but remain to 
 further hinder their function and nutrition. 
 
 Thus in the walking race to be mentioned further 
 on, in which the vegetarians are said to have 
 walked the meat-eaters off their legs, food was 
 
42 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 open to and partaken of by both alike : but the 
 meat-eaters had impure blood so that they could 
 neither digest the albumens, nor get them to their 
 tissues when digested ; and so they failed not from 
 defective supply but from obstructed circulation. 
 Further, the vegetable-feeders came in fresh and 
 in good condition, and the winner asserted that he 
 could have gone faster if necessary ; but the only 
 meat-eater who came in at all required brandy to 
 revive him. 
 
 We have also seen that by means of diet it is 
 possible to prevent completely the latter form of 
 fatigue, leaving the individual who thus controls his 
 diet liable only to that form of fatigue which is due 
 to deficient albumen, from deficient or irregular food 
 supplies. 
 
 I have for years been pointing out in " Uric 
 Acid" that other things, such as nutrition and the 
 supply of albumens, being equal, I can absolutely 
 control the incidence of fatigue by controlling the 
 uric acid ; that I can prevent fatigue for many hours,, 
 in spite of great heat and exertion, either by sweep- 
 ing out beforehand most of the available uric acid 
 by means of a solvent such as a salicylate, or by 
 clearing the blood directly by means of drugs such 
 as acids, opium or mercury, which clear the blood of 
 uric acid by interfering with its solubility, which is 
 the way in which meat acts as a stimulant. I have 
 also pointed out that these methods have been used 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 43 
 
 probably for thousands and thousands of years by 
 those who had no exact knowledge of their mode of 
 action, e.g., opium for fatigue of men and horses in 
 India, and lemons, &c., by athletes on this side of 
 the world; and I have come across several indivi- 
 duals who had similarly made use of mercury, or 
 more recently of salicylates, for their effects on their 
 mental or bodily powers. I have also pointed out 
 that exactly the same effects can be produced by 
 clearing the blood of uric acid by means of diet, and 
 have said that in my own case while on ordinary 
 flesh diet I might often be placed Jiors de combat in 
 half an hour or an hour by exposure to heat and 
 exertion, on a uric acid free diet, I can confidently 
 reckon on being able to produce large amounts of 
 force for at least three or four hours, in spite of 
 any heat that w^e meet with in this country ; and 
 I have pointed out that abstainers from flesh all 
 over the world have had similar experiences, and not 
 infrequently get the better of flesh -eating opponents 
 from this cause. 
 
 I have pointed oat that the fatigue which is pro- 
 duced by a rush of uric acid into the blood is accom- 
 panied by an immediate fall of urea, while exercise 
 without such uric acid in the blood and without 
 fatigue, is accompanied by an immediate rise of 
 urea ; and no doubt it would thus be quite easy to 
 tell from the urea excretion of two athletic com- 
 petitors, which was going to fail first. 
 
44 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER II 
 
 In myself also the rise, and fall of urea, as shown 
 in the previous figures, is most accurately repre- 
 sented in one's feelings of strength or weakness ; 
 so that over and over again it has occurred to me 
 in making these and similar curves, to write down 
 my feelings at the time and to find afterwards, 
 when the urine had been collected and estimated 
 and the urea worked out, that these feelings had 
 quite accurately represented the changes taking 
 place in the excretion of urea ; and anyone who 
 will note his own feelings during such a change 
 in the excretion of urea, as is shown in fig. 1 from 
 1.0 p.m. to 3.0 p.m., will have no difficulty in 
 understanding this. 
 
 I have now also no doubt that the severe collapse 
 and asthenia, that follows on attacks of gastric 
 dyspepsia or gastritis from any cause, is due to a 
 stoppage of the digestion and absorption of albu- 
 mens, producing a corresponding fall in the pro- 
 duction of force and urea, and the latter would 
 be found in all such cases, if the urine was collected 
 and examined. 
 
 Similarly an injury to any part of the body 
 which suffices to cause serious interference with 
 gastric digestion will produce similar asthenia and 
 fall of urea, and it follows also from our first 
 principles, that in flesh-eaters such fall of urea 
 will be the signal for the rush of uric acid into 
 the blood, and this will still further hamper and 
 
PHYSIOLOGY AND PATHOLOGY OF FATIGUE 45 
 
 impede digestion, circulation and nutrition in all 
 directions, giving rise to the more serious and fatal 
 complications of shock. 
 
 It follows from this, also, that abstainers from 
 flesh and tea will have, as compared with flesh- 
 eaters and tea-drinkers, a certain relative immunity 
 from shock after injury, and its more severe and 
 fatal results ; and this is, I think, as shown by 
 cases quoted in "Uric Acid" (pp. 365 and 779), 
 a matter of common observation. 
 
 It seems, then, that there is overwhelming 
 evidence to prove that fatigue or its absence is 
 simply a matter of the adequate supply of albumen 
 to the muscles, and that this in turn is controlled 
 by two factors : — (1) a satisfactory and sufficient 
 supply of albumens in the blood, and (2) a free 
 circulation of this blood through the tissues to 
 furnish the albumen as required, and remove 
 waste products. 
 
 We see also that diet places both these factors 
 under our control, and that the excretion of urea 
 is a reliable guide to the results it produces. 
 
46 
 
 CHAPTEK III. 
 
 Foods Available : their Properties and 
 Eelative Importance. 
 
 The foods available are so numerous that we 
 must first of all divide them into classes and 
 consider them in a general way. 
 
 These classes have one thing in common, that 
 they contain no uric acid, or very little indeed 
 compared with animal flesh, eggs, or vegetable 
 substances rich in alkaloids, such as pulses, tea, 
 coffee and cocoa, which are, for the reasons given in 
 previous chapters, to be excluded. 
 
 The uric acid free foods fall then into the 
 following classes or groups : — 
 
 (1) Milk and milk products, as cheese and 
 '* protene." 
 
 (2) Bread stuffs, cereal foods and glutens. 
 
 (3) Nuts and nut foods. 
 
 (4) Garden vegetables, as potatoes. 
 
 (5) Garden fruits, as apples. 
 
 (6) Dried and foreign fruits. 
 
 Milk is one of the best of these available foods, 
 because it is easy and quick of digestion, and affords. 
 
FOODS AVAILABLE 47 
 
 as we have seen in fig. 2, a supply of albumens and 
 so of force and urea, in a comparatively short space 
 of time. 
 
 Many people believe that they cannot take milk, 
 and there are undoubtedly a good many things in 
 ordinary diet with which it does not go very well, 
 as flesh, beer, wine and tobacco ; but then the folly 
 is in taking these things at all, not in taking the 
 milk and leaving them out. 
 
 Some beHeve that they cannot digest milk, but 
 this again generally resolves itself into taking it 
 with improper foods, in improper quantities, or at 
 improper times ; people who, when they have 
 already swallowed a good and sufficient meal of 
 other things, take down a tumbler or more of milk 
 on top of them, are very likely to have some 
 digestive trouble. 
 
 Those who while taking three or four good meals 
 a day, also add a tumbler of milk between times just 
 to keep up their strength, are much more likely to 
 tire out their wretched gastric digestion, and get 
 dyspepsia and debility as a result ; but all this 
 cannot be justly charged to the milk, but to the 
 foolish way in which it is taken. 
 
 When milk is treated sensibly as a most im- 
 portant food deserves to be, and taken at one or 
 two of the three daily meals, and generally broken 
 up and distributed among the rest of the foods, such 
 as bread, cereals, vegetables and fruits, it is, in 
 
48 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER III 
 
 the great majority of cases, easily and painlessly 
 digested, and furnishes its proper quantum of 
 albumens, force and urea. 
 
 Very much the same applies to cheese, and the 
 bad character it frequently bears is much more 
 often due to the way in which it is taken at the end 
 of a meal already too heavy ; or in too large quan- 
 tity, or insufficiently broken up, rather than to any 
 of its own good or bad qualities. 
 
 Cheese contains more albumen than any other of 
 the common foods, and should be taken early in 
 the meal and well distributed through bread stuffs 
 or vegetables ; it should be well broken up and mas- 
 ticated, and if hard and the teeth are bad, it should 
 be grated before use. 
 
 Those living on a mixed diet rarely require to 
 take more than 2 or 3 ozs. of cheese in a day, that 
 is 1 or IJ ozs. at two meals, and I have never met 
 any one who could not take this quantity easily and 
 digest it well, when going the right way to work. 
 
 Protene is a patent substance prepared from milk 
 by Protene, Limited, 36, Welbeck Street, W., and 
 141, Kegent Street, W. It is said to be almost pure 
 albumen, and my experiments seem to confirm this 
 statement. 
 
 It is specially useful in conditions where the fat 
 or sugar of milk is not required, and I shall have 
 to mention it again in relation to diet for special 
 conditions ; but otherwise its digestion and use is 
 
FOODS AVAILABLE 49 
 
 much the same as that of cheese (see previous 
 remarks, p. 16), and it may be considered as contain- 
 ing about 2*6 times as much albumen as its own 
 weight of cheese. 
 
 It can be obtained in the form of a powder which 
 can be mixed with various other foods, to increase, 
 if necessary, their albumen values ; it is also manu- 
 factured into bread, gingerbread, and biscuits, which 
 are convenient and palatable. 
 
 Plasmon is a very similar substance to Protene, 
 over which it has one advantage that its solutions 
 have but little flavour and can therefore be flavoured 
 to suit any taste. I thus often make use of Plas- 
 mon in solution when I wish to replace milk, and 
 Protene Biscuits when I wish to replace cheese, 
 or these substances can be added to make up the 
 quantities of milk and cheese when these are dis- 
 liked or not well taken ; but good milk and cheese 
 are in my opinion always superior to any sub- 
 stitutes, and it is only when fat or sugar have to be 
 avoided, or when milk and cheese are disliked, that 
 we need to resort to them. 
 
 Plasmon is to be obtained from the Plasmon 
 Syndicate, 56, Duke Street, Grosvenor Square, W., 
 and it can also be obtained in the form of biscuits, 
 though these generally contain less albumen than 
 those of Protene. 
 
 Bread stuffs and cereal foods are often the most 
 important items in the diet list : containing much 
 4 
 
50 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER III 
 
 less albumen than cheese, they are eaten in much 
 larger quantity, and generally form the backbone of 
 the mixed diets, often contributing one half or more 
 of the day's allowance of albumens. 
 
 A larger volume than this would scarcely suffice 
 to enumerate their kinds, qualities and preparations, 
 and I must here content myself with saying that 
 they appear to me, especially in the form of bread 
 or biscuit, to furnish a steady and equable supply 
 of albumens over a number of hours, and thus to 
 increase the powers of endurance of those who make 
 use of them, being in this respect at the opposite 
 pole of nutrition from milk or meat. 
 
 They often contain a considerable quantity of 
 acid or acid salts, and thus tend rather to keep up 
 the acidity of the urine, and may in conjunction 
 with other things, as acid fruits, lead to some reten- 
 tion of uric acid, especially if aided by the cold 
 weather of winter ; but this can be counteracted, as 
 we shall see later on, by eating some potatoes and 
 clothing warmly. 
 
 Biscuit is a form of bread stuff which has some 
 advantages, for being dry it not only contains more 
 nourishment in the same weight, but it may be 
 somewhat better cooked than bread ; and being dry 
 is an advantage as regards digestibility, as it enables 
 the digestive juices of the mouth to penetrate it 
 more easily. 
 
 Thus saliva will penetrate more easily into dry 
 
FOODS AVAILABLE 61 
 
 biscuit or toast, less easily into bread, still less easily 
 into new moist bread, and only with great difficulty 
 slowly, and after considerable dilution, into bread or 
 biscuit soaked or sodden with water or milk. 
 
 I quite agree also with Dr. Kellogg and those of 
 his school, who teach the great importance of the 
 complete and thorough cooking of cereal foods,* 
 and the use of such foods is often an additional help 
 in severe dyspepsia: but I find that many people 
 can take ordinary biscuits and cereal foods if they 
 are careful to take them dry (a point also insisted 
 on by Dr. Kellogg), and that the complete penetra- 
 tion of the saliva into such foods thus insured, will 
 in many people, make all the difference between 
 flatulent dyspepsia, and satisfactory and painless 
 digestion of cereals : but I shall have to mention 
 this subject again in connection with the common 
 causes of dyspepsia (see chap. iv.). 
 
 Rice, the staple food of many Eastern countries, 
 is another important cereal and we in this country 
 have probably neither treated it properly, nor appre- 
 ciated it at its true value. 
 
 Those nations that live on it are careful to get 
 good rice, to cook it thoroughly, and to have it as 
 
 ' Super-cooked cereal foods as advised by Dr. Kellogg can be 
 obtained from the International Health Association, Ltd., 
 70, Legge Street, Birmingham ; and a malted bread, called the 
 " Veda " loaf, which is both pleasant and easy to digest, can be 
 obtained from A. Fenwich and Son, 27, St. John Street, Perth 
 Scotland. 
 
62 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER III 
 
 dry as possible at the end of the cooking : with this 
 object they steam it rather than boil it, or if water 
 is added to the rice it is all boiled away, as any 
 water poured away after cooking would carry 
 nourishment with it. 
 
 I have been told also, that much of the rice sent to 
 this country is not that which is considered the best 
 by the natives of the countries where it is grown, and 
 one can quite understand that it is useless to send 
 the best rice to countries where it is not appreciated. 
 
 Gluten is the albumen of bread or flour, and 
 this can be added to bread, biscuits, puddings, or 
 other cereals to increase, if need be, their albumen 
 values ; it may also be used by itself in various 
 forms, where the starch of cereals is not wanted. 
 
 Nuts and nut foods are valuable, because fairly 
 rich in albumens ; but they have the disadvantage 
 of requiring good sound teeth, well used, or they are 
 apt to be indigestible. They often contain a con- 
 siderable quantity of oil, and many biscuits and 
 foods prepared from them do not keep well owing 
 to changes in this oil.^ 
 
 Nevertheless nuts are by no means to be 
 neglected ; they form a large item in the diet of 
 
 ^ Protene, Limited, supply some nut foods and gluten in con- 
 venient forms, also aleuronat obtained from wheat, which may 
 be useful. Gluten bread, biscuits and other preparations of 
 gluten can also be obtained from Blatchley, 167, Oxford Street, 
 W. ; Callard, 65, Eegent Street, W., or Van Abbott, 104, 
 Wigmore Street, W. 
 
FOODS AVAILABLE 53 
 
 many nations, and with some they more or less 
 completely take the place of bread. 
 
 This is specially the case with chestnuts, which 
 when well cooked are easily digested by almost 
 everyone, and other nuts can be passed through a 
 nut-mill to aid the teeth if defective. 
 
 Those, who for one reason or another do not like 
 milk or cheese, should remember that from 1 pound 
 of bread, or bread stuffs of equal value, and a few 
 ounces of nuts, they can get nearly three-quarters 
 of the albumens they require for a day, so that in 
 this way they may get on with very little milk or 
 cheese, or even entirely without them. 
 
 A pound of bread and a pound of the more 
 nourishing dried fruits would also supply the 
 albumens for a day's food. 
 
 Garden vegetables, as potatoes — here again I am 
 obliged to mention only one or two kinds and 
 some special points. Speaking generally, garden 
 vegetables contain only very little albumen, and are 
 of use to supply bulk, and to dilute and break 
 up the more albuminous foods, such as milk and 
 cheese, rather than for their albumens. 
 
 Potatoes, in addition to somewhat less than 2 per 
 cent, of albumens, contribute a considerable quan- 
 tity of alkali, which is often useful to keep down the 
 acidity of the urine and prevent retention of uric 
 acid by other foods, some of which, as the cereals, 
 have been mentioned above as contributing some 
 excess of acids. 
 
64 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER III 
 
 For this reason eating a moderate quantity of 
 potatoes twice a day may suffice to make a urine, 
 which tends to throw out a little red sand from time 
 to time, owing to relatively high acidity, cease to do 
 so ; and those who suffer in this way from eating 
 acid fruits should counteract their effects by taking 
 a corresponding quantity of potatoes. 
 
 Garden fruits — here again I must pass over whole 
 classes with a word. Most of our fruits contain only 
 a fraction of 1 per cent, of albumens, and are for 
 the most part equivalent to water with some sugar 
 and salts, and these salts, as a rule, may be con- 
 sidered as alkalies, for, though they are often present 
 in the form of acid tartrate of potash, which reddens 
 litmus and acts as an acid when first swallowed, 
 their effect on the blood and urine of a whole day is 
 that of an alkali, diminishing the acidity of the urine 
 and probably increasing the alkalinity of the blood 
 (see " Uric acid," p. 636). 
 
 Many acid fruits, however, act as acids at least 
 for the first few hours after they are swallowed, 
 and thus stimulate — in the way previously explained 
 in reference to fig. 5 — nutrition, digestion and the 
 production of force and urea ; and almost everyone, 
 I suppose, who has gone in for athletics knows the 
 reviving effect of a mouthful of lemon, which is no 
 doubt due to its action as an acid, but even lemon 
 has little or no effect on the acidity of twenty-four 
 hours' urine. 
 
FOODS AVAILABLE 55 
 
 Still, acid fruits taken in any considerable quan- 
 tity with breakfast, and unbalanced by potatoes, do 
 influence very decidedly the large morning excretion 
 of uric acid, and so diminish the excretion of that 
 substance for the whole day (see '' Uric Acid," 
 fig. 53, p. 477). 
 
 Garden fruits generally may be regarded as 
 increasing the bulk of the day's food without adding 
 much to its albumen values ; but they contribute a 
 valuable supply of water, some sugar and some useful 
 salts. 
 
 Still, taking the fruit of an ordinary day and 
 after deducting stones, skins and stalks, in fact 
 weighing only the parts eaten, one would probably 
 not be far wrong if one reckoned them as contain- 
 ing about 2 per cent, of albumens. 
 
 Dried and foreign fruits are in their original con- 
 dition very similar to those above considered, but 
 when a large part of their water has been removed 
 by drying, their relative albumen value is of course 
 greatly increased, and such things as figs, dates and 
 various kinds of plums, when eaten in considerable 
 quantity, make a quite appreciable addition to the 
 day's albumens, and those of them that contain 
 acids or acids salts, also act more powerfully as 
 acids when condensed by drying. 
 
 Looking at all these groups of foods, I will con- 
 clude this part of the subject by saying that it is 
 possible to Hve on a diet which includes some of 
 
56 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER III 
 
 each of these groups in its daily routine ; that it is 
 possible to live on group (1), milk and its products 
 alone ; that it is also possible to live on all the rest, 
 excluding milk and animal products entirely, and 
 relying chiefly on (2), (3) and (6), cereals, dried fruits 
 and nuts, for the necessary albumens ; that it is not 
 possible to live on (4) and (5), garden vegetables and 
 fruits alone, and generally in this country not on (6) , 
 dried fruits alone. 
 
 As the result of my own personal experiences, I 
 incline to believe that a diet which includes all or 
 nearly all of these groups in its day's cycle, is the 
 best, the contribution from each group being varied 
 from day to day to an almost endless extent, just as 
 flesh-eaters vary the quantity, quality and mode of 
 preparation of their animal food from day to day. 
 
57 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 Values of Foods in Albumen and Urea. Quan- 
 tities Eequired. Diet of Training and 
 Athletics. 
 
 In considering the values of foods and the 
 quantities required, and in apportioning these into 
 special diets, it will be convenient to treat of diets 
 according as they are required for ordinary condi- 
 tions of life, for special training and exercise, or for 
 the treatment of slight departures from normal 
 health, such as obesity and some minor alterations 
 of function. 
 
 We have already seen in chapter i. that the body 
 weight in pounds, multiplied by 9, gives the mini- 
 mum amount of albumens required for a sedentary 
 life, and by 10 or 10' 5 those required for an active 
 life, such as that of an out-door labourer. 
 
 And if we take an active man of 140 lbs., and 
 apply these rules, we find that he will require 1 ,400 
 grains of albumen per da}^ which will produce 
 about 466 grains of urea per day when completely 
 digested and metabolised. 
 
68 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 With regard to urea, I may say that the per- 
 centages of albumen values, to be given in the diet 
 tables that follow, have been found by me from 
 practical trial to be very close to the truth ; for 
 though on a weighed diet, continued from day to 
 day, urea will be one day below and another above 
 the quantity calculated from the albumen values 
 of those foods, when taken over days or weeks, 
 these fluctuations tend to balance each other, and 
 over such a period the urea calculated from the 
 albumens generally comes very close indeed to the 
 urea found. 
 
 These fluctuations no doubt arise from variations 
 in the time of digestion of the foods used, as the 
 digestion and absorption of a food taken one day is 
 not necessarily concluded in time for the twenty- 
 four hours' division of the urine ; and then, again, 
 when albumens have been absorbed, they may, as 
 we have seen reason to believe, remain either in 
 the blood or the tissues as a reserve of force till 
 a special call for force production and activity is 
 made (see fig. 1 and remarks upon it; also " Uric 
 Acid," p. 335). 
 
 But when allowance is made for these causes 
 of variation, the values to be given are, I believe, 
 quite sufliciently accurate for our practical pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Now the albumens required for this man of 140 
 lbs. can be got from : — 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 59 
 
 
 
 Table I. 
 
 
 
 10 ozs. of bread 
 
 8 per cent, o 
 
 f albumens 
 
 = 340 
 
 2 ozs. of oatmeal 
 
 12 
 
 ,, 
 
 >> 
 
 = 104 
 
 2 pints of milk 
 
 3 
 
 )> 
 
 ,, 
 
 = 525 
 
 1^ ozs. of cheese 
 
 •dS 
 
 ,, 
 
 >> 
 
 = 210 
 
 1 oz. of nuts 
 
 16 
 
 ,, 
 
 ,, 
 
 - 68 
 
 18 ozs. fruit and 
 
 
 
 
 
 vegetables, say ^ 
 
 to 2 
 
 >> 
 
 '> 
 
 = 153 
 
 1,400 
 
 Now it is obvious that such a diet hst may be 
 varied greatly in very many directions, and that 
 such variations may be used as temporary changes 
 or permanent diets, according to taste, habits, cost, 
 facihty for preparation, and other concomitant con- 
 ditions. 
 
 For those who do not do well on or like much 
 fluid, the milk can be reduced to 1 pint per day 
 if the cheese is increased to 3^ oz. ; others again 
 may be able to increase bread or bread stuffs to 
 16 ozs., which would just about enable them to 
 reduce the milk to 1 pint or cut out the cheese 
 entirely, and some may take still more bread up to 
 24 ozs. 
 
 Those who do not like or cannot digest nuts in 
 any form or of any kind, may leave them out, 
 slightly increasing the bread, milk or cheese, or 
 replacing them by about three times their quantity 
 (3 oz.) of dried fruit. 
 
 I will just mention that almonds are to be ob- 
 tained at all times, that well roasted and salted they 
 
60 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 are generally liked, and that for those whose teeth 
 are not of the best they may be passed through a 
 nut-mill. 
 
 Nuts have the further advantage common to 
 many substances that leave undigested residues of 
 tending to prevent or relieve constipation ; in other 
 people, however, they again, in common with other 
 undigested particles, may cause some intestinal irri- 
 tation, which may give rise to papular and other 
 slight skin eruptions. 
 
 And I would here refer to what I have already 
 said about indigestible substances on p. 16, for 
 in some people nuts may relieve dyspepsia by 
 putting an end to the constipation to which it was 
 due ; on the other hand, if given to people who have 
 suffered from gouty or other intestinal irritation 
 with or without diarrhoea, they may increase the 
 irritation and intensify its evil effects, such as mal- 
 nutrition and anaemia, and pave the way for still 
 more terrible enemies such as tubercle. 
 
 In every change of diet, then, we must see that 
 the new food is sufficient in quantity and satis- 
 factorily digested by the individual in question ; and 
 this can only be done by making diet alterations very 
 slowly, one meal at a time, and watching and testing 
 the digestibility of each new food stuff as it comes 
 to be used. 
 
 For this purpose I am in the habit of advising 
 that only one meal should be altered at a time, 
 
VAIiUES OF FOODS 61 
 
 and that each meal should be watched for, say 
 7, 10 or 14 days, and regarded as quite satisfactory 
 both as to quantity, quality, digestibility, resulting 
 strength and power for work, before the next meal 
 is taken in hand. 
 
 And where difficulties are met with, one food after 
 another should be tried and tested till the best 
 results are obtained, and no matter how slowly 
 they have to go, beginners must always refuse to 
 move the second foot till the first is firmly planted. 
 
 In cases where it is of extreme importance that 
 there shall be no failure of strength and nutrition on 
 the new diet, as for instance where there is either 
 tubercle in the family, or its onset appears to 
 threaten the individual in question, it is well to take 
 the precaution of estimating the urea for a few days 
 on the old ordinary diet, and then to supply albu- 
 mens on the new diet in accordance with the results 
 obtained. 
 
 Thus if the average excretion of urea on 4, 5, or 
 6 days either consecutive or taken at random is 
 450 grains, then we must supply 450 X 3=1350 grs. 
 of albumen per day on the new diet ; but if the 
 patient has had a bad appetite on the old diet, so 
 that the average urea is below the physiological 
 level of 3 or 35 grs. per pound of body weight per 
 day, then we must go by the body weight, giving a 
 physiological allowance of urea and albumen, and 
 not by the urea found. 
 
62 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 But if tubercle is actually present, and feeding up 
 is indicated, then far more than the physiological 
 allowance of albumens should be given, and the 
 patient can be stuffed with food to any extent that 
 is possible, as 4 pints of milk, 16 ozs. bread stuffs 
 and 4 ozs. of cheese in many shapes and forms, 
 with butter and cream ad lib. ; and it is -certainly no 
 harder to overfeed a patient on this diet than on one 
 of flesh, indeed it is often much easier, and as I have 
 said in " Uric Acid " (p. 393) much less dangerous. 
 
 Then again the total bulk of the diet may be 
 greatly diminished by substituting gluten or protene 
 for some of the bread ; or by adding gluten to some 
 of the bread or cereal foods, or by taking a bread 
 such as Hovis, which contains a larger percentage 
 of albumens than ordinary bread, thus : — 
 
 Table II. 
 
 5 ozs. Hovis bread' 16 per cent, of albumens = 340grs. 
 2 ozs. oatmeal 12 ,, ,, = 104 „ 
 
 1 oz. gluten 80 „ „ = 344 ,, 
 
 1 pint milk 3 ,, „ = 262 ,, 
 
 2| ozs. cheese 33 „ ,, =350 ,, 
 
 1,400 
 
 A further modification of such a diet, and one 
 that is sometimes convenient, if only because it 
 entails almost no labour for preparation and cook- 
 
 ^ While most of the above percentages of albumens are from 
 Parkes' " Practical Hygiene," 5th ed., with which my researches 
 agree, the value of Hovis and of nuts is that calculated from my 
 researches alone. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 63 
 
 ing, is one consisting of milk and cheese, fruit and 
 vegetables, thus : — 
 
 Table III. 
 
 2^ ozs. cheese 33 per cent, of albumens = 350 grs. 
 
 3 pints milk 3 „ „ = 787 „ 
 
 15 ozs. potatoes 2 ,, ,, — 126 ,, 
 
 16 ozs. fruit 2 „ „ = 137 ,, 
 
 1,400 
 
 I may say that I took the above diet of cheese, 
 milk, potatoes, and fruit for four or five months 
 with very good results, and should recommend it 
 for those who suffer from dysyepsia, when on cereal 
 foods and bread, or as a change from these. It is 
 convenient for those who desire for a time, either 
 at home or while travelling, to be almost inde- 
 pendent of cooking, as except for the potatoes 
 and occasionally a little stewed fruit, almost no 
 cooking is required, and raw fresh fruit can be 
 substituted for potatoes and cooked fruit if necessary. 
 
 It is also a diet that does prett}^ well for children, 
 who are often fond of fruit and vegetables, and as 
 these would only rarely require more than some 
 1,200 grains of albumen, the cheese could be 
 reduced to 1 oz. or less in their case. 
 
 Some may be able to take more than the above 
 quantities of potatoes and fruit, and then the milk 
 may be somewhat reduced, as 3 pints is rather a 
 large quantity of fluid, especially in cold weather 
 and for those who are sedentary. 
 
64 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 My own experience is that I can take 2J or even 
 3 pints of milk quite well in summer, especially if 
 not sedentary ; but 2 pints are quite enough in 
 winter and when sedentary. 
 
 Others, again, may be able to take more than 
 2^ ozs. of cheese and can reduce the milk while 
 increasing the cheese ; and those who get on well 
 with nuts or dried fruits can considerably reduce 
 either cheese or milk, replacing them by one or 
 both of these as mentioned with regard to Table I. 
 
 Such are some of the chief modifications of the 
 diet, but it is obvious that it can be altered in an 
 almost endless variety of ways, and those to whom 
 few foods come amiss, and who have good diges- 
 tion, can have a different diet, or at least a con- 
 siderable change of food, every week throughout 
 the year. 
 
 There are some people, however, who do not take 
 kindly to any of these foods and who are in a very 
 poor way, feeble and dyspeptic ; with these any of 
 the above modifications of diet may be difficult, and 
 for a time even impossible. 
 
 They cannot drink milk, or they greatly dislike 
 it ; they cannot digest cheese, and they can eat but 
 little bread, and so on through the whole list ; there 
 is practically nothing but meat, fish and eggs which 
 they can eat, and they have but a poor appetite even 
 for these. 
 
 With these people it is best, I think, to improve 
 
VALUES OF FOODS (55 
 
 the general health, and get up an appetite by tonics 
 and change of air before altering the food at all ; 
 and the meals, if too frequent, may be spaced and 
 reduced to three, two, or even one in the day. 
 
 Or in some cases food may be altogether with- 
 held for some days till there is a decided appetite, 
 as recommended by Dr. Dewey (previous reference), 
 and then when there is a good appetite for ordinary 
 food, some of the flesh food of the old diet may 
 be gradually replaced by equivalent value in milk, 
 cheese, or bread ; and one meal at a time may be 
 changed, with more or less interval between the 
 changes as may be required. 
 
 But to put a debilitated and dyspeptic patient 
 suddenly on to a diet which is not relished, and may 
 not be digested, is, I think, at best rash, and may 
 even be somewhat dangerous. 
 
 I believe that, with care, patience, and determina- 
 tion, these initial difficulties can generally be over- 
 come, especially when the fear of serious or painful 
 disease furnishes some vim a tergo. 
 
 But even in those who get over these initial diffi- 
 culties, dyspepsia may now and then cause some 
 more or less decided trouble, and I shall, there- 
 fore, mention shortly what have appeared to me 
 to be the chief causes of this. 
 
 Too much albumen, especially in the form of milk 
 and cheese, to which the patient is not accustomed. 
 Bread is a better and more reliable food, and its 
 5 
 
66 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 bulk generally prevents its being taken in too large 
 a quantity. 
 
 Too great hulk of food (fruit and vegetables), 
 especially in those accustomed to such foods of 
 small bulk as meat, fish and eggs. 
 
 For this trouble food may be reduced, at least for 
 a time, to little besides milk, cheese and bread 
 stuffs, the more nourishing and important foods ; 
 and vegetables and fruit should be taken only after 
 these have been provided for, and in quite small 
 quantities. 
 
 Too much fluid. It should, I think, be a rule 
 with all who go on to these diets never to drink 
 when not thirsty, for those who do so tend to get 
 a dilute and watery condition of the blood, and this 
 entails a more or less dilute and watery condition of 
 the digestive secretions poured out from the blood. 
 
 Such dilute digestive secretions will act slowly 
 and inefficiently, and more or less fermentation and 
 putrefaction will, meanwhile, be going on in the 
 food masses, resulting in the formation of gases, 
 acids, and decomposition products. 
 
 Too much sloppy and pultaceous food, especially 
 starchy food. This, I have already referred to, and 
 pointed out the importance of taking starchy foods 
 as dry as possible, for if such foods are sodden with 
 fluid, the salivary digestive secretion obviously 
 cannot very easily get into contact with its starchy 
 particles, or can only do so slowly and after more or 
 less dilution. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 67 
 
 And it is certainly a fact that, under some condi- 
 tions, the stopping of bread and milk, porridge, and 
 milky puddings, and their replacement by toast, 
 biscuits and oatcake, eaten dry or with a little 
 butter, the milk being taken only apart from or 
 after them, may make all the difference between 
 troublesome flatulent dyspepsia, distension and dis- 
 comfort, and their absence. 
 
 And it is for these reasons (fear of too much fluid 
 in the blood or too much sloppy starchy food) , that 
 it is often advisable not to take more milk than 
 two pints in the day, especially in cold weather, 
 and when sedentary ; and also not to mix that milk 
 with starchy foods into slops and porridges and 
 puddings; and those who suffer from flatulent 
 dyspepsia should carefully bear these points in 
 mind. 
 
 There is no harm in drinking when thirsty, for 
 thirst means that the blood is concentrated and 
 in want of fluid, and nature will not ask for more 
 than she w^ants ; but there may be great harm in 
 taking fluid by rule, or order, and apart from thirst ; 
 and it may even make all the difference between 
 success and failure with the diet. 
 
 Too frequent food. It is a remarkable fact that 
 those who take meat require to be fed more fre- 
 quently than those who live largely on cereals, and 
 it is due, as already mentioned, to the fact that 
 meat is a stimulant and is quickly digested, absorbed 
 
68 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 and worked off, while cereal food is more slowly 
 assimilated, and gives off over a series of hours a 
 constant steady supply of albumen force and urea. 
 
 But on giving up meat the frequent feeding need 
 not be continued, and those who attempt to con- 
 tinue it will be more liable to dyspepsia than those 
 who are content with two or, at most, three meals 
 a day. 
 
 I frequently see people who take as many as six 
 to seven meals in the twenty-four hours, that is to 
 say, they take three or four chief meals and two 
 or three intermediate meals of milk, &c., between 
 these. They learned this habit on the old diet, 
 and they continue it on the new, under the impres- 
 sion that they must eat and drink a great deal to 
 keep their strength up ; but the common result of 
 their efforts is dyspepsia and debility. 
 
 Another cause of dyspepsia with milk may un- 
 doubtedly be the preservatives mixed with it. 
 These may have but little influence when it is only 
 taken in small quantity in tea, and yet may produce 
 more or less serious effects in those who take it in 
 the larger quantities advised in the tables of this 
 book. 
 
 I have made some experiments with borax myself, 
 and the utmost dose I could take, even for a short 
 time, without producing symptoms of gastro-intes- 
 tinal dyspepsia, was 30 grains in the day. 
 
 I should, therefore, advise those who can eliminate 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 69 
 
 the other causes of dyspepsia, and yet find their 
 dyspepsia associated with milk or other foods with 
 which preservatives are known to be mixed, to 
 make a special effort to obtain these foods free from 
 such preservatives, and see whether the symptoms 
 then subside. 
 
 In all these diets, butter and oil may be freely 
 taken with cereals and vegetables ; they are merely 
 left out of the Tables because they contain no 
 albumen or nitrogen, but these and the starches are 
 very amply provided for in the diets. 
 
 It is, I think, common experience that butter and 
 oil can be much more freely taken on a meat-free 
 diet than on one containing flesh, and it is at least 
 probable that the evil influence of uric acid in the 
 blood, hindering, as it does, circulation, digestion, 
 metabolism and combustion, has something to do 
 with this ; and certainly the digestive, hepatic, and 
 other disturbances that accompany bilious attacks 
 and sick headaches are due to the circulation effects 
 of uric acid. 
 
 Though the action of these substances in the 
 production of force is probably indirect, and for the 
 most part unimportant, they are amply provided for 
 in the diets, and the assimilation and metabolism of 
 fat is distinctly facilitated when it forms part of a 
 uric acid-free diet. 
 
 I may note in passing that the diet of milk, 
 cheese, potatoes and fruit, is that which of all 
 
70 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 Others seemed to best keep the urine clear and free 
 from deposits of urates or red sand, and this was no 
 doubt due to the amount of alkaU in the potatoes 
 and of similar salts in the fruit, as well as to the 
 absence from milk and cheese of salts such as those 
 contained in meat and cereals, which tend to raise 
 the acidity of the urine. 
 
 Thus I have pointed out in *' Uric Acid " that the 
 ratio of the acid excreted in the urine to the urea 
 excreted at the same time is, on a diet containing 
 some fish and eggs, 1-6*3, i.e.f 1 grain of acid to 6*3 
 grains of urea. While on a diet such as that in 
 Tables I. and II. it is 1-7, or between 1-7 and 1-8, 
 and on a diet such as that in Table III. it tends to 
 be about 1-9, or between 1-9 and 1-10, and with this 
 the urine is generally quite clear. 
 
 It will be understood from what I have said in 
 *' Uric Acid " that this is not so much a matter of 
 the quantity of uric acid excreted, as of its solubility 
 in the urine after excretion : though no doubt both 
 are affected by acidity, and a deposit of red sand in 
 the urine is the index of deficient rather than (as is 
 so commonly supposed) of excessive excretion from 
 the body. 
 
 But it may be of some interest to those, who 
 are worried about such deposits in the urine of 
 their patients, to know that by such a diet as the 
 above, which diminishes the relative acidity of the 
 urine, they can be prevented. Those also who are 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 71 
 
 very sedentary should be careful, especially in cold 
 weather, to take no more albumens than are really 
 required for strength and nutrition, as acidity rises 
 with urea, and under these conditions it may suJB&ce 
 for a time if body weight is multiplied by 8 in place 
 of 9. With reference to the relatively high acidity of 
 the urine with the diets in Tables I. and II., I think 
 that some part of this must be credited to the bread 
 and cereal foods which are well represented in these 
 Tables, but are completely absent in Table III. ; and 
 if we look at the analysis of a cereal, such as barley, 
 we find that it appears to contain a considerable 
 excess of acids. 
 
 Thus I see^ that the ash of barley contains 34-9 
 per cent, of potash, soda, lime and magnesia, and 
 61 '6 per cent, of phosphoric, sulphuric, and soluble 
 silicic acids, and if wheat and oats have any similar 
 excess this will easily account for the relatively high 
 acidity of the urine on the diets of which they form 
 a part. 
 
 These cereals often tend decidedly to raise the 
 acidity of the urine, and when taken in quantity 
 over a length of time, especially in cold weather, 
 they may not only raise the acidity of the urine, 
 but also diminish the alkalinity of the blood ; hence 
 they may tend to cause some retention of uric acid 
 
 'In "A Text Book of the Science of Brewing," Moritz and 
 Morris. 1891. P. 75. 
 
72 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 in the body, and acting with other causes may even 
 lead towards gout and rheumatism. 
 
 Thus horses suffer considerably from rheumatism, 
 probably when given too much dry cereal and too 
 little fresh vegetable, and they are very often greatly 
 exposed to cold and wet ; and all these things tend to 
 diminish the alkalinity of the blood. 
 
 And arthritis, both in men and horses, can be 
 treated by increasing the alkalinity of the blood and 
 keeping it up, and this may be done by eating 
 vegetables that contain alkali, such as potatoes, and 
 by diminishing the albumens taken till they are well 
 within the physiological limits, for diminution of 
 albumens diminishes the formation of acids in the 
 body ; and it is the overfed, both among children and 
 horses, that suffer most from rheumatism. It is 
 not as fond and foolish mothers so often imagine 
 that they must be fed up : a little wholesome star- 
 vation with plenty of vegetables is much more likely 
 to prevent the dreaded disease, but most children 
 that suffer are poisoned with uric acid-containing 
 foods in addition to being overfed. 
 
 With reference to pulses, it will have been noticed 
 that now they are not mentioned either here or in 
 the tables of foods, and this is due to the fact (of 
 which I have given full details in '' Uric Acid," 
 p. 764, and fig. 75) that I found out that they 
 actually contain even more xanthin than many 
 kinds of animal flesh, and are therefore, like flesh 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 73 
 
 and alkaloid-containing vegetable substances, to be 
 regarded as poisonous. 
 
 I should now, therefore, be inclined to consider 
 that the rheumatism met with among the vegetarian 
 natives of India is not so much due, as I previousl}^ 
 suggested, both to excess of cereals with deficiency of 
 fresh fruits and vegetables, and exposure to cold at 
 night, &c., as in the case of horses, though no 
 doubt all these things have some contributory 
 effects, but rather to direct and considerable in- 
 troduction of uric acid or xanthin in the pulse foods, 
 which so many natives use to a large extent. 
 
 And I believe it will turn out on investigation 
 that, in those parts of India where rice and fresh 
 vegetable substances form the staple foods, not only 
 rheumatism but uric-acid diseases generally are but 
 little known, whereas in those parts where pulses 
 are very largely consumed they are common — almost 
 universal. 
 
 A similar investigation in Australia and New 
 Zealand would, I believe, trace to the excessive use 
 of flesh and tea an equally long array of serious or 
 deadly diseases, and an almost equal number of 
 mental and moral defects, which only a complete 
 reversal of their present diet habits will render 
 visible by contrast. 
 
 In this country, also, I should attribute to the 
 poisons of flesh and tea the all-pervading anaemia 
 which, as seen in London, cannot be due to want 
 
74 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 of oxygen, as I have pointed out that it is equally 
 to be seen in country towns of only half a mile 
 radius ; in the same way many mental and moral 
 obliquities are no doubt due to the obstructed circu- 
 lation of poor blood loaded with these poisons (see 
 " Uric Acid," pp. 500 and 782). 
 
 But these diseases have crept over us so gradually 
 that we quite fail to recognise the full extent of our 
 loss ; and even in my own case I should formerly 
 have said that, apart from headaches, I had good 
 mental and bodily health on meat and tea, because 
 I knew no better ; but I should now say that I have 
 in both directions 50 per cent, better health without 
 them. 
 
 For the benefit of some who may see mountains 
 of difficulty in minute points, I will now give an 
 outline of a day's food on the above diet. 
 
 For those in good health three meals a day, break- 
 fast, lunch and dinner, are ample ; some even do 
 better with a light breakfast or none — this latter 
 course being specially indicated where there is little 
 or no appetite for a morning meal (see Dr. Dewey's 
 works referred to in chapter i.). 
 
 I may say also that simple food of not more than 
 two or three kinds at one meal is another great 
 secret of health ; and if this seems harsh to those 
 whose day is at present divided between contem- 
 plating, preparing their food, and eating it, I am 
 afraid I must be still more unkind, and ask them to 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 75 
 
 consider seriously whether such a Hfe is not the 
 acme of selfish meanness. 
 
 And in case they should ever be at a loss what to 
 do with the time and money thus saved from feast- 
 ing and preparing to feast, I would point on the one 
 hand to the mass of unrelieved destitution, igno- 
 rance, sorrow and suffering, and on the other to the 
 doors of literature, science and art, which stand 
 ever open to those fortunate enough to have time 
 to investigate them ; and from none of these, as 
 they are still in their infancy, need any turn aside 
 from want of new kingdoms to conquer. 
 
 In any case the best of health, strength, and nutri- 
 tion are not to be obtained by waste of time and 
 money on elaborate food, when the simplest things 
 are all that are really required and accepted by 
 nature. 
 
 If we take then. Table I., breakfast (before which 
 an hour or an hour and a half's work, if possible 
 in the fresh air, is no drawback) may well consist 
 of oatmeal (2 ozs.) cooked in the form of porridge, 
 with J-J or 1 pint of milk, and this may be followed 
 by some toast or bread (2-3 ozs.) and butter, with 
 marmalade or jam. These are the staple foods 
 of the breakfast and should be taken first, and if 
 when they have been consumed, some appetite still 
 remains, any fresh fruit, or dried fruit in winter, 
 may be taken to any desired extent. 
 
 I should say, however, that those, who are 
 
76 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 specially anxious to have a free excretion of uric 
 acid, and not to retain any of this substance in their 
 body, should not take much acid fruit at breakfast, 
 or should divide their attention between such acid 
 fruits and potatoes which contain much alkali, so 
 that the alkali may more or less balance the acid. 
 
 For those who have not to be specially anxious 
 about excretion, and who do not suffer from any 
 active gout or rheumatism, fruit at breakfast is 
 probably not hurtful, and acts as a slight tonic and 
 stimulant. 
 
 As variations of this diet, bread and milk may be 
 substituted for porridge, the oatmeal may be taken 
 as oatcakes, and scones, or any other cereal of equiva- 
 lent nutrition value, and quantity, may be substituted 
 for it in any desired form ; thus it may be possible 
 to have a new kind of cereal every morning of the 
 week, or even every morning of the iiionth. 
 
 These are all homely foods, to be found in nearly 
 every household or nearly every baker's shop, and 
 their cooking, therefore, presents no insuperable 
 difficulties.^ 
 
 As to fruits in winter, apples, oranges, bananas, 
 tigs, dates and various kinds of plums, generally 
 afford sufficient variety, and in summer and autumn 
 
 ' Those who want a guide as to the quantity of each article, 
 and also hints as to the cooking and preparation, will find 
 much useful help in small compass in Mr. A. Broadbent's 
 " Science in the Daily Meal," to be obtained from him at 
 19, Oxford Street, Manchester, price 2d. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 77 
 
 there are endless fresh fruits to take their place ; 
 and though, as is seen in the Tables, many fruits 
 and vegetables have but little direct value as 
 nourishment, a moderate daily supply of these 
 things conduces in many ways to the attainment 
 of the best health, strength and nutrition. On the 
 other hand the foods to live upon are bread, milk, 
 cheese, and nuts, and of these bread is perhaps the 
 most reliable ; and those, who cannot take and digest 
 a sufficient quantity of one of its almost endless 
 varieties, are indeed unfortunate. 
 
 Lunch, which is often with advantage the best 
 meal of the day, may begin with some vegetable 
 soup made with milk ; this may be like ordinary 
 potato soup, the meat or bone boilings being simply 
 replaced by milk, which is much more nourishing, 
 or the same or similar preparation may be used with 
 some of the other kinds of vegetable. 
 
 Next course, potatoes, with milk, oil or butter, and 
 the cheese (IJ oz.) taken with them. 
 
 Several ounces of bread, toast or biscuit should 
 also be eaten with the soup, the potatoes and 
 cheese : these forming the sauces to the bread stuffs. 
 
 A dish of rice, macaroni, barley, or other cereal 
 may be substituted for the potatoes and part of the 
 bread. 
 
 I may mention here that I look upon good olive 
 oil as a valuable substitute for butter. It is specially 
 nice with vegetables, and may be eaten with many of 
 
78 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 these, besides the salads for which it has so long 
 been used. It is of great use also in cooking vege- 
 tables, and many get to like it so much that they 
 entirely give up the use of butter ; others prefer it 
 only now and again as a change from butter. It is 
 necessary to get it good and fresh, when it is free 
 from all strong and objectionable taste. 
 
 These are the chief items of nourishment at 
 lunch, and should be taken first as a first charge 
 on the appetite ; and care should be taken not to 
 allow the less nourishing potatoes and garden 
 vegetables to oust the more nourishing cheese, 
 bread and cereals : the sauces must not encroach 
 on the foods. 
 
 The following experience may illustrate what I 
 mean : One autumn day a party of cyclists were out 
 riding, and finding in the middle of the day that it 
 was extremely hot, and also that there were a large 
 number of blackberries at the side of the road, they 
 called a halt and spent half an hour in eating the 
 fruit. This was about 12.30 or 1 p.m. and when 
 it came to their ordinary lunch time, 2 p.m., none of 
 them had much appetite as they were busy digesting 
 the blackberries; the consequence was that but a 
 poor lunch was made. 
 
 The blackberries, however, containing very little 
 albumen, and the supply at lunch being deficient, 
 the result was that about 5 p.m. they were all 
 
VALUES 0¥ FOODS 79 
 
 short of albumens and force, and bad to call a halt 
 for more food to enable them to continue their ride, 
 while as a rule, they required no food from the 
 2 p.m. meal till 8 or even 8,30 p.m. Now this is 
 pretty much what is done by those who sit down to 
 a meal and fill themselves with the almost valueless 
 vegetables and fruits, leaving the bread, milk and 
 cheese to the last ; they have then but little 
 appetite, and unless they eat by measure, do not 
 take enough, or get dyspepsia from excess of bulk. 
 
 The rest of the meal may consist of milk pudding, 
 tart, or stewed fruit (the pudding not, of course, 
 containing any egg), the cereal in the pudding may 
 make up for any deficiency in the oatmeal or cereal 
 taken at breakfast ; and last, the nuts with fresh or 
 dried fruit to any required extent.^ 
 
 If the lunch is a good meal eaten with appetite, 
 nothing but a drink of water, or aerated water with 
 fruit juice in summer, will be required till 7.30 or 
 8 p.m., when all that remains of the milk and bread 
 may be taken with some more potato or other 
 vegetable, butter or oil being always allowed ad lib., 
 except to those who are too stout. 
 
 These may be followed by junket, or stewed fruit 
 with cream (the latter being only equivalent to 
 
 ' If nuts are taken in larger quantity than that mentioned in 
 Table I., they should be given an earlier and more important 
 place in the meal, and indeed they may be better digested if 
 taken before the meal and bv themselves. 
 
80 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 butter or oil, and the junket taking the place of 
 some of the milk), and these again as usual by an 
 unlimited supply of fresh fruits. 
 
 When a meal such as lunch has to be taken out 
 of doors and away from home, the cheese may be 
 made into sandwiches, either being cut in sHces or 
 grated for the purpose. 
 
 Similar sandwiches to be eaten with these, may 
 be made with various vegetables, such as mustard 
 and cress, lettuce, beetroot, cucumber or tomatoes. 
 
 In this way the chief ingredients of the lunch can 
 be carried, and some milk, aerated waters and fruit 
 will complete it. 
 
 A similar lunch, which is quickly provided and 
 easily carried, may consist entirely of some biscuits 
 with more or less butter, some cheese and some fruit. 
 
 The milk, cheese, potatoes and fruit diet which, as 
 before mentioned, has many and great advantages, 
 would work out into meals as follows : — 
 
 Breakfast : — 1 pint of milk. 
 
 Plate of potatoes, \ 
 
 Bananas, eaten with it to 
 
 Pears, any extent for 
 
 Apples, [ which there is 
 
 Plums, fresh, dried, or cooked, appetite. 
 Any other fresh fruit, 
 Lunch : — Vegetable soup made with milk. 
 
 Plate of potatoes (with butter, oil or milk). 
 
 2 ozs. cheese, eaten with potatoes and any other 
 
 vegetables in season. 
 Stewed fruit or tart. 
 Fresh fruit. 
 1 pint of milk drunk during the meal. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 81 
 
 Dinner : — Much as lunch. 
 1 pint of milk, 
 I oz. cheese. 
 
 Any variety in vegetables and fruits in season ; and of course if 
 potatoes and fruit are liked and taken in larger quantity than is 
 given in Table III., somewhat less milk and cheese will be required. 
 
 If it is desired to reduce the amount of fluid in 
 this diet, Protene biscuits eaten before the meals 
 may be substituted for part of the milk. 
 
 No extra drink of any sort is required, as the 
 fresh fruit and the milk generally supply quite 
 enough liquid. When away from home cheese can 
 be carried in place of milk in the proportion of 
 2 ozs. cheese to 1 pint of milk. 
 
 What I shall have to say about stimulants, 
 presently, of course applies to all alcoholic bever- 
 ages ; and milk, water, aerated waters and fruit 
 juices are the best drinks ; but cider, when made 
 from the pure juice of fruit, has but httle in it 
 that need be objected to, and many nice drinks 
 for hot weather can be made from lemons, apples, 
 raspberries, &c. 
 
 Another point is, and this applies to drinks, fruit, 
 vegetables, and all kinds of additional foods, that 
 nothing must be taken that interferes with digestion 
 or upsets the stomach ; otherwise digestion alto- 
 gether may come to a standstill and there will be no 
 rise of urea as in fig. 1 at 3 p.m., and no increased 
 power of working and force production, no matter 
 6 
 
82 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 how nourishing and rich in albumens the foods pre- 
 viously taken may be. 
 
 Now very acid fruits, very tough or sour vege- 
 tables, a glass of raw spirits, or a strong pipe or 
 cigar, or an ice after food, in those not accustomed 
 to them, may act in this way, and either cause 
 nausea and the entire loss of the meal by vomiting, 
 or at least suspend digestion, the absorption of 
 albumens, and the production of force for some 
 hours, more or less. 
 
 Thus, a boy of 13, out with a shooting party and 
 having lunch with them, was given some whisky 
 after it, with the result that he presently brought 
 up his whole meal. By accident the wine had been 
 forgotten, and as it was thought that the boy must 
 have something other than pure water with his 
 lunch (crime that such should ever be thought), he 
 was given some whisky, to which he was not 
 accustomed, in its place, and the whisky acting as 
 an irritant to the stomach, as shown to a minor 
 degree in " Uric Acid," fig. 67, first stopped diges- 
 tion, and then produced the above result. 
 
 This is, of course, not intended to be a work on 
 cookery, and what I have said above has been with 
 the intention of indicating a few directions in which 
 others niay exercise their own knowledge and 
 ingenuity, and of removing perhaps some of the 
 worst difficulties from the paths of those whose 
 knowledge lies in other directions. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 83 
 
 The gluten in Table II. may be made into very 
 palatable biscuits by mixing with half its weight of 
 butter and a quarter of its weight of sugar, though 
 if the gluten is very pure some flour may have to be 
 added or the biscuits will be too hard ; or gluten may 
 be mixed in with the porridge or any milk pudding, 
 &c., without its presence being noted. 
 
 Protene may be used in much the same way as 
 gluten, and Protene, Limited, make many forms of 
 biscuit which are very palatable, as well as Protene 
 gingerbread and other cakes. 
 
 With regard to the convenience of these diets 
 when away from home, it is only necessary to ask 
 friends to provide a pint of milk and the offer of 
 some cheese twice a day ; for, given 2 pints of milk 
 and 2 ozs. of cheese, there is practically certain to 
 be enough bread, cereals, vegetables, and fruit in 
 any ordinary diet to make up all the rest. 
 
 Indeed, it often seems absurd, looking to the very 
 small amount of their day's nourishment that really 
 comes from animal flesh, and how much is on all 
 diets already obtained from cereals, vegetables, milk, 
 nuts, and fruit, that people should suffer from so 
 much fear of failure of strength and nutrition in 
 giving up the former source of nourishment alto- 
 gether ; if this fear is justified at all, it can only be 
 so by the dense ignorance of the value of foods that 
 prevails so widely. 
 
 As regards cost in London, the diet in Tables I. 
 
84 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 and II. is the cheaper, and that in Table III. the 
 dearer, and this latter is quite as expensive as an 
 ordinary flesh diet, and may easily be made more 
 expensive still by using fruits and vegetables with a 
 free hand, without regard to season and cost ; but 
 for those who can afford it this diet has probably 
 some advantage over the others, in having less 
 tendency to produce rheumatism or gout as above 
 explained : it can be cheapened also by substituting 
 potatoes for fruit to some extent ; and it requires, or 
 can easily be modified so as to require very little 
 cooking. 
 
 On the other hand, the diet in Tables I. and II. 
 is cheaper than ordinary flesh diet and may be made 
 cheaper still if breadstuffs and potatoes are used to 
 replace some of the milk and cheese, and if cheap 
 fruits only are taken, and then probably 7d. or 8d. 
 a day would cover everything. 
 
 Diet of Training and Athletics. 
 
 Naturally those who take an unusually large 
 amount of exercise will require an extra allowance 
 of albumens to produce the extra force, and it may 
 be gathered from the researches on these points, 
 which I have already published in '' Uric Acid," 
 that for cycling exercise and my own body, the 
 urea produced is proportional to the distance tra- 
 versed, that is to the work done, being about 1 to IJ 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 85 
 
 grains of urea for a mile, or from 8 to 4J grains of 
 albumen for a mile ; and as my weight is about 125 
 lbs., this gives from "024 to *036 grains of albumen 
 per lb. per mile. 
 
 And if we take it that from 75 to 80 miles is as 
 much as I am likely to do in this line of exercise 
 on any given day, and that 125 x 9 is my ordinary 
 allowance of daily albumens when sedentary = 1,125 
 grains, then 125 x '03 (which is half-way between 
 •024 and '036) and the result multipHed by 75 = 281 
 grains of albumen extra, and this added to 1,125 
 rzi 1,406 grains, say, 1,400 grains. 
 
 In other words, I should have to add to the diet 
 of sedentary life the equivalent of 2 ozs. of cheese, 
 or a pint of milk, to enable me to perform daily the 
 above amount of exercise. 
 
 If I did not provide tlie proper amount of albu- 
 mens, I should either break down under the exercise 
 and training, and fail to produce the required 
 amount of force, or I should take the necessary 
 albumens from my albumen reserves, or my body 
 tissues, as far as they might be able to supply me, 
 and so lose weight, and then break down when they 
 came to an end. 
 
 I have known people who have attempted to pro- 
 duce considerable amounts of force while living on 
 a diet of cabbages and potatoes in insufficient 
 quantities, with little or no milk and cheese, and 
 the result has been a break-down, both during the 
 
86 DIET AND FOOD— CHAPTER IV 
 
 exercise and afterwards, resulting in prolonged 
 debility with considerable cardiac and general mus- 
 cular failure, and a marked loss of body weight ; 
 and no doubt the amount of weight lost would have 
 accurately corresponded with the amounts of force 
 and urea produced. 
 
 I do not mean to say that the above figures and 
 quantities will hold for every one ; but I give them 
 because a rough guide is better than none, and 
 because I wish to show the way in which my experi- 
 ence has led me to regard the matter ; to believe as 
 quite certain, that nothing comes out of nothing, and 
 that without the necessary quantity of albumens no 
 force can be produced. 
 
 Practically, it comes to this, that a man who 
 requires about 1,200 grains of albumens per day for 
 ordinary work will want about 1,400 grains for train- 
 ing and the hardest exercise he is capable of doing, 
 i.e., he has to add about Jth to his ordinary diet. 
 
 Beyond the above rough guide it maybe said that, 
 if the day's work is not done easily and without 
 any undue fatigue, and certainly without anything 
 approaching exhaustion, an increase of albumens is 
 required, and should be tried to see if it produces 
 an improvement. 
 
 It is a good rule to take somewhere near the cal- 
 culated quantity of albumens in the form of milk, 
 cheese and bread, and then, if on account of some 
 increase of exercise there is an increase of appetite. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 87 
 
 to let that appetite expend itself on such good, 
 useful but not strong foods as rice, potatoes and 
 fruit. 
 
 If, however, the increased appetite is sated on 
 such a concentrated food as cheese, too much albu- 
 men may be taken, and this may cause dyspepsia, 
 and upset the course of training entirely. 
 
 During actual severe exercise, milk is probably 
 the best food to take ; its digestion, as we have seen 
 reason to believe in fig. 2, goes on quickly, and its 
 albumens are soon available for the production of 
 force ; and this, I believe, agrees with the common 
 experience of athletes. 
 
 Milk is easily and quickly swallowed during a 
 temporary halt, but if time is available, it should be 
 taken only in small sips, and not in a big draught ; 
 and in this way it will be more quickly, completely, 
 and satisfactorily digested, while if any quantity 
 above half a pint is taken in a draught it will tend 
 to form into large masses of curd, which may not 
 only prove slow and difficult of digestion, but by 
 their bulk may more or less seriously interfere with 
 respiration and circulation. 
 
 Another way of treating milk is to mix it with 
 oatmeal, or a little dilute gruel, or barley water, 
 which not only improves its chances of satisfactory 
 digestion, but increases its nourishment value. 
 
 Cereals are good foods for training, because, as we 
 have seen, they give out a steady supply of albumens, 
 
88 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 force and urea, over a series of hours, and their 
 salts act as stimulants to digestion, circulation and 
 nutrition. 
 
 An absolute excess of albumens will do little harm 
 so long as exercise is plentiful and regular, and 
 taken under climatic conditions that favour warmth 
 and perspiration ; but under the opposite conditions 
 it may cause high acidity and retention of uric acid, 
 and lead to rheumatism and other troubles. 
 
 It follows absolutel}^, from my researches, pub- 
 lished in ^* Uric Acid " and elsewhere, that a diet 
 entirely free from all animal flesh, tea, coffee and 
 similar alkaloid-containing vegetable substances, is 
 far and away the best of all kinds for training and 
 athletics. 
 
 As shown in the preceding pages, the material 
 (albumen) for the production of the required force 
 can be made absolutely certain of, and is not lack- 
 ing either in quantity or quality in the foods to be 
 used ; and at the same time the enormous practical 
 advantage is obtained of making sure of a free 
 circulation through all the tissues, nerve-centres 
 and muscles alike, keeping them both well supplied 
 with fuel, and also free from waste products and 
 refuse, during their time of trial. 
 
 Hitherto the knowledge we now have has been 
 applied more or less hap-hazard, or by rule of 
 thumb, and yet even so, it has achieved some 
 wonderful results. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 89 
 
 Some of these I have already recorded in " Uric 
 Acid," and another comes to hand in an article in 
 the Daily Netvs of June 29, 1898. It is from their 
 Berlin Correspondent, and is headed, " A Vegetarian 
 Victory — Meat-eaters Walked off their Legs." 
 
 It then goes on to describe how fourteen meat- 
 eaters and eight vegetarians started for a 70 miles 
 walking match. All the vegetarians reached the 
 goal, and it is said ''in splendid condition," the 
 first covering the distance in fourteen and a quarter 
 hours. An hour after the last vegetarian, came the 
 first meat-eater, and he was " completely exhausted." 
 He was also the last meat-eater, as all the rest had 
 dropped off after 35 miles. 
 
 Now these results, so far as I know, were pro- 
 duced without any scientific knowledge, and in more 
 or less ignorance of the facts above stated ; and if so 
 much has thus been achieved, how much more may 
 be possible if we apply our knowledge with care and 
 thoroughness, if we ensure sufficient albumen and 
 force, while rigidly excluding the poisons which 
 cause friction and jar in the machinery. 
 
 I must leave those engaged in practical athletics 
 to test these points and record the results ; and once 
 they grasp my points and the great practical gain 
 they promise, I feel sure that they will not be slow 
 to do so ; indeed, as the above and other records 
 show, the thing is already being done ; but I now 
 suggest that, with a little more scientific knowledge, 
 it might easily be done still better. 
 
90 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 Though even as it is, the way in which cycHng 
 and other records are made and held by vegetarians, 
 small as their numbers are when compared with 
 meat-eaters in this country, is really remarkable, 
 and points, I think, to their very decided superiority 
 both in pace and endurance. 
 
 And the results of the year 1900 seem to show 
 that those vegetarians who hold records, have but 
 little to fear, except from their fellow vegetarians. 
 
 I would also point out to pathologists that, if I am 
 right, and if the poisons in meat and tea do cause 
 friction, especially vascular friction, throughout the 
 body, it is evident that training and athletics, as at 
 present carried on, upon a diet containing these 
 poisons, must also be carried on at a ruinous strain 
 upon the vascular system, especially the heart and 
 large vessels ; and speaking as a physician, I believe 
 that more or less serious functional or organic trouble 
 in this system is no very rare result of the process, 
 even in the young and presumably healthy, as 
 evidenced by such signs as palpitation, sleeplessness, 
 dyspepsia, and more or less hypertrophy and dilata- 
 tion of the heart. 
 
 Thus it is evident from the above walking record 
 that the meat-eaters, or at least the one who per- 
 sisted, ran considerable danger of doing himself 
 serious injury, and on his arrival he had to be given 
 brandy and put to bed ; while the vegetarian feeders 
 were little, if any, the worse for their performance. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 91 
 
 I by no means wish to assert that men or animals 
 who live entirely on a uric acid-free diet may not 
 dilate and strain their hearts by over-exertion ; com- 
 parative anatomy alone contains sufficient evidence 
 in the moderator band of the herbivorous heart that 
 such a thing is possible ; but I do maintain that, 
 for reasons which are as clear as daylight, the meat- 
 eater and tea-drinker is much more likely to do it, 
 and to do it badly. He may produce the same 
 amount of force as the man who is free from these 
 poisons ; but he will consume a greater quantity of 
 albumen in doing it, and he will produce it at a far 
 greater cost in pressure and strain upon all his 
 tissues and organs, so that they will both wear out 
 sooner, and more frequently give rise to functional 
 disturbance, as the result of the treatment to which 
 they are subjected. 
 
 Then since the last edition of this book was 
 ready a very remarkable record has been published 
 by Mr. E. H. Miles, the well-known tennis cham- 
 pion,^ who narrates that altering his diet has not 
 only cured him of several serious or threatening- 
 diseases, but has given him 50 per cent, more power 
 and endurance, both in muscle and brain. 
 
 His results are the more valuable, because being 
 a champion his performances have been on record. 
 
 * " Muscle, Brain and Diet." Swan, Sonnenschein & Co. 
 London, 1900. 
 
92 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 and there is no doubt about his improvement at a 
 time of Hfe when, as he himself points out, he ought 
 to have been deteriorating, 
 
 I have discussed some of his records and a few 
 points in which he appears to have misunderstood 
 me in '' Uric Acid " (prev. ref., pp. 329, 366, 797), and 
 shall not repeat this here, but those who fear that 
 strength and endurance cannot be attained, to say 
 nothing of being greatly increased, on a non-flesh 
 diet, should not fail to read his book. 
 
 His results are also an important testimony to the 
 value of Protene, which he uses largely, and being 
 engaged in active pursuits appears to digest without 
 difficulty, and with considerable advantage as to 
 saving of time, and convenience in carriage of food. 
 
 I note that he seems to take it by itself and 
 before his other food, which may be a matter of 
 some importance, as it appears that nuts and other 
 indigestible foods do better when taken in this way. 
 
 Obesity. — Not only is there no necessity for those 
 who make use of these diets to become stout, but 
 they can easily be modified, so as to reduce the 
 obesity of those who suffer from other diets. 
 
 Of course, if anyone begins on one of the above 
 diets containing two or more pints of milk, and 
 takes freely also of cream and butter, he may 
 easily increase a good many pounds in weight even 
 in a month or two. 
 
 And I mention this specially to point out that 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 98 
 
 such increase in weight, if due to fat, is no proof of 
 satisfactory nutrition, and does not show that the 
 quantity of albumens daily consumed is sufficient ; 
 and under these circumstances the only proof that 
 the supply of albumens is sufficient, is a more or less 
 constant feeling of abundant strength, with ample 
 powers of endurance, which, by the way, are almost 
 never met with in those who are too stout. 
 
 Stout people have also in my experience very 
 often decidedly high blood-pressure, and it is at 
 least probable, as I have elsewhere suggested, 
 that the cause of the high blood-pressure, namely 
 collaemia and defective capillary circulation, is also 
 the cause of the stoutness. 
 
 Defective or obstructed capillary circulation 
 causes on the one hand high blood-pressure, and 
 on the other deficient metabolism, or combustion 
 in the tissues (see "Uric Acid," prev. ref., p. 776), 
 one effect of which may, under certain circum- 
 stances, be an accumulation of uncombusted 
 material, in the shape of fat. It may be thus no 
 mere coincidence that stout people so often have 
 high blood-pressure, or that stoutness has become 
 connected in the popular mind with a tendency to 
 apoplexy. 
 
 It follows also from my first principles, that those 
 who have such defective circulation cannot have 
 much power of endurance. 
 
 But if the weight tends to make a decided 
 
94 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 increase on any such diet, and it is not desired 
 that the weight should increase further, reducing 
 the butter and cream, and skimming, or, better 
 still, separating the milk, is generally sufficient to 
 bring it to a standstill. 
 
 But those who are already too stout and wish to 
 reduce will have to further modify any of the above 
 diets. 
 
 Thus, taking Table I., the milk will have to be 
 reduced, and the cream separated from that taken, 
 and cheese may be specially obtained which is poor 
 in fat, or made from skim milk. 
 
 Bread must be reduced, or even entirely replaced 
 by rice, which is poor in fat, together with protene 
 and gluten, which are practically free from it. 
 Thus :— 
 
 1 pint milk 
 1^ ozs. cheese 
 ^ oz. gluten 
 
 2 ozs. protene 
 4 ozs. rice 
 
 3 per cent, of albumens = 262 grs. 
 33 „ „ = 211 „ 
 
 90 „ „ = 180 „ 
 
 85 „ „ = 681 „ 
 
 5 ,, ,, = 86 ,, 
 
 1,370 
 A little acid fruit, say 30 grs. 
 
 1,400 
 
 In this way a sufficient supply of albumens is 
 obtained with very little fat and a reduced quantum 
 of starches, and the patient supplies what may be 
 required in this direction from his own tissues, just 
 as he would on the dangerous diet of meat and hot 
 water that has been used for the same purpose. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 95 
 
 But he escapes the great dangers of this latter 
 diet, which are due to the xanthin, uric acid, and 
 other effete nitrogen contained in the flesh, as 
 these poisons are practically completely absent 
 from the above diet table ; and m this way he can 
 reduce his weight with much greater safety and 
 considerable ease. If necessary, gluten and protene 
 may be increased, diminishing correspondingly the 
 milk and the cheese which contain most of the fat. 
 The object of allowing some acid fruits is to stimu- 
 late, as stimulation will tend to improve circulation, 
 nutrition, and metabolism in general, and facilitate 
 the breaking up and removal of the fat deposited, 
 and in severe cases it may be necessary to give 
 drugs, which have a more powerful effect in the 
 same direction. 
 
 In this way weight can be safely and satisfactorily 
 reduced without any failure of nutrition or strength, 
 and without any danger from the deadly after-effects 
 of the animal-tissue poisons in the pure meat diet. 
 
 A great deal has been said and written of late 
 about the cure of tuberculosis by fresh air and 
 overfeeding. 
 
 And no doubt such overfeeding, if it makes the 
 human fire, so to speak, roar up the chimney, may 
 help to cure a local tuberculosis, as I have suggested 
 in " Uric Acid," p. 392 ; but I should hke to point 
 out that it is by no means necessary to abandon 
 a uric acid-free diet to get such overfeeding, as 
 
96 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 the diet in the table just given is a very ample 
 one for persons of ordinary weight, and as almost 
 every item in it — milk, cheese, protene, and gluten 
 — could be doubled, or even trebled, if necessary, 
 there is no doubt that the required albumens can 
 be obtained from these substances. 
 
 I would also point out that this stimulation of 
 combustion is a temporary expedient for a tem- 
 porary object, and that once the destruction of 
 the microbe has been accomplished, the excess of 
 food has almost of necessity to be considerably 
 reduced, or disease would be produced in other 
 directions by the accumulation of the waste 
 products of such excessive combustion ; and it 
 follows from all my previous arguments that these 
 waste products will be both less in quantity and 
 less injurious in quality if the necessary albumens 
 have been obtained from a uric acid-free source. 
 
 Alcohol, Tobacco and other Stimulants. 
 
 We have already seen that stimulants such -as 
 acids do not produce force, they merely alter its 
 distribution in time. When an acid causes feelings 
 of well-being and an increased excretion of urea, it 
 merely causes the metabolism of a certain amount 
 of albumen which was there before and independent 
 of it ; it merely alters the time relation of the meta- 
 bolism of this albumen, converting it quickly into 
 available force and urea in one hour, while without 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 97 
 
 the stimulant the same albumen might have been 
 slowly converted into force and urea over three or 
 four hours. 
 
 But after the force has been produced and the 
 urea excreted, the body is poorer in albumens than 
 it would have been at the same hour if no stimulant 
 had been taken ; and the urea curve falls more 
 quickly, as we have seen in chapter i., fig. 5, than 
 if there had been no stimulation. 
 
 Such stimulation, therefore, is followed, so long as 
 no fresh albumen is introduced from without, by an 
 exactly corresponding depression, as the body has to 
 economise in the following hours to make up for the 
 increased loss of force in the hour of stimulation. 
 
 It is no doubt sometimes necessary for the preser- 
 vation of life that an extra quantity of force should 
 be available in a given time, and nature provides for 
 this need by keeping a reserve of albumens in the 
 blood and tissues, and the natural stimulant of a call 
 for extra force and exertion brings this reserve out 
 and uses it up ; a corresponding rise of urea showing 
 what has taken place. 
 
 But as there has been no fresh introduction of 
 albumen and force, the body is poorer in these con- 
 stituents than before, and has to economise and rest 
 or obtain fresh supplies from without. 
 
 And if this is the effect of the natural stimulant, 
 a call for exertion, it must also be the effect of the 
 unnatural stimulant, alcohol ; this can introduce no 
 7 
 
98 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 albumen and force, it merely affects circulation and 
 nutrition, and the metabolism of the albumens 
 already in the body, and this call on the resources 
 of the body must be followed by a corresponding 
 depression or economy in the future. 
 
 It follows from this that all artificial and un- 
 natural stimulation is wron^, it merely calls out the 
 reserves of force and makes the body poorer in the 
 following period to a corresponding extent, every up 
 is followed by a down, and nothing is really gained 
 by stimulation. 
 
 There is, however, one exception to this rule, 
 and that is, when the body is much in need of fresh 
 supplies, and urea has run down so much that force 
 for digestion is scarcely available ; a stimulant may 
 here do good by calling out some of the remaining 
 reserves, thus furnishing the necessary force for 
 digestion, and fresh albumens are thus brought 
 more quickly into circulation, and nutrition moves 
 up again. 
 
 But even here artificial stimulation may be re- 
 placed by rest and economy of force, and is not 
 really necessary if such rest is possible. 
 
 Now we have seen that stimulation is merely a 
 call on the reserves of force already in the body, and 
 the more these reserves have already been called 
 upon the greater will be the stimulus required to 
 produce still more ; but if the alcohol was itself a 
 force producer, the effect should be the same each 
 time for the same dose. 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 99 
 
 A food introduces force from without, a stimulant 
 merely calls out force already in the body; and 
 athletes know that they must not take stimulants 
 till near the end of the race, for once their final 
 reserves have been called out nothing is left, and 
 collapse results ; but if they took milk in place of 
 alcohol fresh power would result, and go on resulting 
 with each dose of milk. 
 
 Now here is a fundamental distinction between a 
 food and a stimulant, and one which is already well 
 known to athletes ; it is a point also which can be 
 easily tested by anyone who will take the trouble to 
 do it. 
 
 A stimulant increases available force only so long 
 as there is albumen available for it to act upon. 
 
 Force is thus proportional to the quantity of food 
 (if within the limits of digestion) ; but it is not pro- 
 portional to the quantity of stimulant, and it bears 
 a constantly smaller and smaller proportion to it as 
 stimulation is repeated. 
 
 It is useless to argue that force is got out of 
 sugars and starches quite apart from the temporary 
 rise of urea they indirectly produce (fig. 4) . If this 
 were so, then they would sustain life indefinitely and 
 apart from albumens, and these last would not be a 
 sine qua non of life ; but we know that the contrary 
 has been proved by physiologists, and it can be 
 proved again and again by anyone who will repeat 
 either the experiments ot.ths athlei^es, oo those of 
 
100 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 which I give figures. Neither alcohol nor sugar is a 
 food in the sense that albumen is. 
 
 Now what do we see in nature ? If a man is 
 only sHghtly tired when his urea is faUing but his 
 reserves are still fair, a teaspoonful of brandy may set 
 him going for some distance ; but at the end of that 
 time his reserves will be considerably reduced, and 
 three or four teaspoonfuls of brandy will now have 
 less effect than the one. 
 
 Now just the same holds for those who are con- 
 stantly resorting to stimulants, they are constantly 
 to some extent drawing on their reserves, and the 
 amount of stimulant will constantly have to be 
 increased as the reserves get less and less, and this 
 again is exactly what we find in nature. 
 
 It has been truly said that the man who relies 
 upon stimulants for strength is lost, for he is relying 
 upon a reserve fund which is not completely re- 
 placed, and physiological bankruptcy is bound to 
 come sooner or later. 
 
 Now this is exactly what the stimulants, such as 
 tea, coffee, alcohol, tobacco, opium and cocaine, do 
 for those who trust in them ; they none of them 
 introduce albumen, which would become avail- 
 able for conversion into force and urea, they merely 
 aid the calling out of the reserves. 
 
 We may consider that alcohol and tobacco are 
 mere stimulants, and by improving the circulation 
 like the ^cids' previb^asl;y: spv')kfen vof ,: call out a certain 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 101 
 
 quantity of albumen, force, and urea (see fig. 5) ; but 
 tea and coffee are worse, much worse, for though at 
 first they act as stimulants in much the same way 
 as the acids and alcohol, later on they come into 
 the blood as the very poison uric acid, which is the 
 cause of much of the depression ; for we have seen 
 above that fatigue is partly due to deficiency of 
 albumens, and also partly due to deficient tissue cir- 
 culation, rendering the stock of albumens useless 
 because they cannot get to the tissues ; and this 
 defective tissue circulation is the effect of uric acid, to 
 which the xanthins in tea and coffee are equivalent. 
 
 The first effect of these xanthins is to act as acids, 
 and clear the blood of uric acid, hence they are 
 stimulants ; later they come into the blood as uric 
 acid and increase the depression. 
 
 Practically those, who cannot get through their 
 daily work without calling out their reserves with 
 alcohol or tobacco, the action of which I have con- 
 sidered in " Uric Acid," are weak or diseased, and 
 are entering on the road to physiological bankruptcy. 
 And who are the people that are thus constantly 
 calling on their reserves? Not those that live on 
 the diets in the above Tables, far from it, for those 
 who go on these diets commonly give up alcohol 
 and tobacco, if they used them before when on other 
 diets. 
 
 It is the flesh eaters who want the stimulants, 
 and the reason is simple, for on all flesh diets they 
 
102 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 are constantly taking those terrible poisons, uric acid 
 and the xanthins, and these are first stimulants and 
 afterwards depressants ; they first unnecessarily call 
 out the reserves and then plunge all into depression 
 and feeble nutrition, by blocking the circulation ; 
 and while this is going on other stimulants, as 
 alcohol and tobacco, or tea, have to be called in to 
 keep things going (see also p. 40). 
 
 It follows that the only way to get clear of stimu- 
 lants is to give them up altogether ; if you keep on 
 any of them you must be led to take more and 
 more, and gradually to add others which are more 
 powerful. 
 
 On the other hand, to live on one's income, to 
 have one's reserves entire and untouched for that 
 evil day of trial which is sure to come to all, to 
 work calmly and steadily without fuss and without 
 friction is alone sufficient to make life worth living ; 
 and so great is the difference between physiological 
 solvency and physiological bankruptcy, that I do not 
 exaggerate when I say that the knowledge of how 
 to attain to the former has repaid me a thousand 
 times over for all the time and trouble expended 
 on experiments. Then, again, the physiologically 
 solvent know to the full the joys of a strong and 
 useful life, while the bankrupt knows these joys 
 but once, in the memory of what he was before 
 he began to call on his reserves, and as these re- 
 serves get smaller and smaller, the stimulants, even 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 103 
 
 the more powerful ones, such as raorphine and 
 cocaine, which he eventually calls in, fail ever more 
 and more to bring him even for a moment to the 
 level of physiological health, which the solvent man 
 enjoys continually. 
 
 But the difference must be felt and cannot really 
 be described, and I know also that there are condi- 
 tions of ignorance combined with prejudice, which 
 are too deep for words, and on which mere words 
 produce no more effect than water on the back of 
 the proverbial duck, and that the people living 
 under these conditions may for practical purposes 
 be divided into those who do not know and those 
 who do not want to know. 
 
 Now the case of the latter is at once hopeless ; 
 but for those who are simply ignorant, and have no 
 objection to knowledge if they can obtain it, a 
 demonstration, which is far more powerful than 
 words, can always be obtained by putting in force 
 the calculation of albumens for body weight and 
 watching the result for themselves. It will not do 
 to measure milk by the cupful, or to imagine that an 
 ounce of cheese is no larger than a hazel nut ; these 
 foods must be measured and weighed at first, till the 
 proper quantity comes to be accurately known at 
 sight. 
 
 Then part, at least, of the bona fide doubts of the 
 ignorant may be due to the fact that numbers and 
 numbers of people, who call themselves " vege- 
 
104 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 tarians," or others who for one reason or another 
 have abjured flesh as food, have had no real physio- 
 logical knov^ledge, and have only too often quite 
 failed to put an adequate quantity of albumens in 
 place of those they left off : the result has been that 
 their nutrition has often failed either to quite satisfy 
 themselves, or to commend their methods to others. 
 
 Here, also, probably originates the doubt, one not 
 infrequently hears expressed, as to v^hether patients 
 can " stand " the diet. I can only say that the great 
 majority of people I see have no difficulty in digesting 
 most of the foods enumerated in the above Tables ; 
 and that if they take sufficient of these, and digest 
 them, they need have no anxiety, either about nutri- 
 tion or strength, and they are likely to find their 
 powers of endurance much increased. 
 
 No doubt those whose bodies are full of urates, as 
 the result of years of flesh diet and tea, are likely to 
 get pale at first on the new diet, as it will bring a 
 large quantity of uric acid into their blood on its 
 way to be eliminated ; but this is merely the evil 
 of the old diet being brought out, and if they per- 
 severe they will in 12-18 months have abetter colour 
 than most meat-eaters, as the uric acid having been 
 eliminated, their blood will recover and improve 
 (See " Uric Acid," chapter xii.). 
 
 And I have found the colour and condition of the 
 blood such a useful guide to the effects of treatment, 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 105 
 
 that I have been led to produce a card of colours/ 
 for the approximate estimation of the blood decimal 
 from the corresponding colour of the mucous mem- 
 branes of the patient. 
 
 Thus a patient whose colour, as seen in tongue, 
 gums, or eyelids, corresponds to that marked 4 on 
 the card, may, at the end of three months on 
 diet, be the same, or the colour may have fallen 
 to 3, or improved to 5 (these being intermediates 
 between 2 and 4, and 4 and 6) . 
 
 If he is the same I am content, as the blood does 
 not improve much at first on diet ; if he has im- 
 proved to 5 he has done more than usually well, but 
 if he has fallen to 3 he has done badly, and the uric 
 acid of the old diet has been rushing too much into 
 his blood, and the rush requires to be moderated. 
 I then investigate the matter and probably find that 
 he has not been taking enough food, or has not been 
 digesting what he takes, or that he has been over- 
 tiring or over-working himself, or living in a hot, 
 relaxing climate, any of which would increase the 
 rush of the uric acid into the blood, and I then 
 proceed to adjust the diet better, or to give a tonic 
 to hold back the uric acid flood for a little. 
 
 Later on after six and still more after nine and 
 twelve months on the diet, the colour should show 
 
 ^To be obtained from Messrs. Bale, Sons and Danielsson, 
 Ltd., 85, Great Titchfield Street, W. Price Is. each. 
 
106 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 very decided improvement, being perhaps somewhere 
 near 6 at the end of twelve months, and about 7 
 after eighteen months if all goes well ; and failure 
 to attain these colours is a sign that all is not going 
 well, and that care and attention are required. The 
 colour 8 is one attained only after a good many 
 years on diet, or by children w^ho are brought up 
 on it ; adults or old people need hardly expect to 
 attain to it. 
 
 For further information I must refer my readers 
 to chapter xii. of " Uric Acid," in which the whole 
 subject of the condition of the blood and its relation 
 to uric acid is treated. 
 
 Then, again, if the muscles produce force 
 more smoothly, continuously and pleasantly, with 
 less friction on a supply of albumens which are 
 free from the poisonous products of dead animal 
 tissues, and if muscular life becomes more pleasant 
 from this cause, how much greater is the value of 
 this physiological solvency, when we realise that it 
 applies also to the great nerve-centres, the organ of 
 the mind, and find that here also the result is better 
 work, better and more easily performed, and not only 
 better work, but a better, more kindly, true and 
 noble relation to all the conditions and phenomena 
 of hfe. 
 
 Indeed, I think it is not too much to say that, just 
 as in regard to force and nutrition, insolvency leads 
 to ever less and less work, worse and still worse 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 107 
 
 performed, as the reserves are one after the other 
 called out and used up ; so in regard to mind, does 
 insolvency lead to ever less and less mental range 
 and activity, and worse than all, to a narrovi^, mean, 
 selfish view of the world and all it contains; and 
 this mental attitude is, in many cases, the prelude 
 to that complete loss of mental power and balance — 
 insanity. Our asylums are full to overflowing, and 
 we are building new ones day by day. Would it 
 not be wiser to spend a little money in cutting off 
 the stream at its source ? Should we not put our 
 insane population on a diet which at least does not 
 increase the mischief ? 
 
 On the other hand, perfect, complete and con- 
 tinuous solvency of mind and body lifts both to 
 ever higher and higher levels of power, beauty, and 
 knowledge of the truth ; forming at once the highest 
 attainable development of the mens sana in corpore 
 sanOy and leading ever upwards " into the higher 
 sunlit slopes of that mountain which has no sum- 
 mit, or whose summit is in heaven only " (" Sartor 
 Eesartus ")• 
 
 In the foregoing pages I have not attempted to 
 give a complete physiological explanation of all the 
 conditions ; I have tried rather to put the knowledge 
 we have into the most useful form for practical 
 purposes. For these purposes, I think we may say 
 that the force produced by muscle is, other things 
 equal, proportional to the albumens available. 
 
108 DIET AND FOOD — CHAPTER IV 
 
 The same quantity of albumens will produce the 
 greater result the less the friction in the machinery 
 they have to overcome, that is to say, when the 
 muscles are in training the same excretion of urea 
 will correspond to a greater number of miles covered, 
 than when the muscles are soft and out of use. 
 
 Similarly, a given quantity of albumens will pro- 
 duce a greater result when the circulation of the 
 blood is free and complete, that is when it is clear, 
 and kept clear of the obstructing and friction-caus- 
 ing xanthins and uric acid. 
 
 And when the circulation is thus obstructed, a 
 greater quantity of albumens will be used up by the 
 heart muscle in the increased work imposed upon it, 
 and, therefore less albumen will be available for 
 the body muscles in general. 
 
 It follows from this that 1 oz. of albumen from 
 bread, milk, or cheese, will produce a greater ex- 
 ternal result than a like amount of albumen from 
 the tissues of dead animals. 
 
 Man has no doubt been misled, by the stimulating 
 properties of animal tissues and their extracts, to 
 believe just the reverse of the above ; and this is 
 specially noteworthy in the case of beef-tea, which 
 has been almost universally used in spite of the fact 
 that it contains little or no albumen available for 
 force production, and is thus nearly as pure a 
 stimulant as a glass of wine. 
 
 But the facts now admit of no doubt, and can be 
 
VALUES OF FOODS 109 
 
 easily noted and verified ; though the mournful fact, 
 that the deadly path of stimulation once entered 
 upon has only too often led to the complete ruin 
 of mind and body, can scarcely, I think, at this 
 period of the world's history, require further 
 demonstration. 
 
 As regards pathology it will one day, I doubt not, 
 be evident to all that many diseases now called by 
 different names are really not diseases at all, but the 
 effects of uric acid and similar food poisons. 
 
 The full effects of these poisons on the physical, 
 mental and moral nature of man wdll only become 
 visible when large numbers of people live on a uric 
 acid free diet for the whole of their lives, which 
 almost no one has yet done. Then only will it be 
 possible to calculate the price we are now paying for 
 our stimulant poisons. 
 
 Mr. Miles estimates his mental and physical gain 
 at 50 per cent., but it is probably considerably more 
 for those who begin diet early in life, before they 
 become diseased ; and who thus have the advantage 
 of growing and developing on foods, and not on 
 poisons. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Acids, effect on excretion of area . . . . . . . . . . 21 
 
 Albumen, dry and hard, the digestion of . . . . . . 16, 60 
 
 „ ,, ,, may do harm . . . . . . 17, 60 
 
 „ ,, ,, effects on constipation . . . . 17, 60 
 
 „ physiology of 1 
 
 ,, whether animal or vegetable, matters little . . 11, 37 
 
 ,, values of foods . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 
 
 Alcohol, not a force producer . . . . . . . . . . 98 
 
 ,, tobacco and stimulants .. .. .. .. ..96 
 
 Anaemia, the all-pervading, its cause . . . . . . . . 73 
 
 Athletics, the best diet for 84, 90, 106 
 
 Bankruptcy, physiological, its cause . , . . . . . . 100 
 
 Blood, its colour as a guide to nutrition and the presence of 
 
 excess of uric acid in the blood . . . . . , . . 104 
 
 Bread as a food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 
 
 Capillary circulation, measurement of . . . . . . . . 31 
 
 ,, ,, a guide to the quantity of uric acid in 
 
 the blood 32 
 
 Cereals, effects on acidity of urine . . . . . . . . . . 50 
 
 ,, importance of taking them dry and well cooked 50, 51, 66 
 Cheese as a food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 
 
 Children, food required . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 
 
 ,, urea excretion of . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 
 
 ,, ,, ,, case to illustrate . . . . . . 8 
 
 Circulation, factors that control it . . . . . . . . 22, 29 
 
 Cost of the various diets . . , . . . . . . . . . 84 
 
 Constipation, treatment of . . . . . . . . . . 17, 00 
 
 Diet of training and athletics . . . . . . . . . . 84 
 
 ,, how to begin its alteration . . . . . . . . . . 60 
 
 „ tables 59, 62, 63 
 
 ,, of milk, cheese, potatoes and fruit . . . . . . . . 63 
 
 ,, ,, „ ,, ,, effects on reaction and 
 
 clearness of the urine . . . . . . . . . . . . 69 
 
 Diets, convenience of . . . . . . . . . . . . 80, 83 
 
 Drinks, not required on a milk and fruit diet . . . . . . 81 
 
 ,, what to make them of . . . . . . . . . . 81 
 
 Dyspepsia , some causes of . . . . . . . . . . 60, 65 
 
 „ and debility, how to diet . . . . . . . . . . 64 
 
 Effects of producing force on insufficient food . . . . . . 85 
 
 Endurance, power of, conditions that produce . . . . 28, 37 
 
 Factors of nutrition, the chief . . . . . . . . . . 28 
 
 Fasting, effects on excretion of urea . . . . . . . . 3 
 
 Fatigue, physiology of . . . . . . . . .. 30, 35, 45 
 
INDEX 111 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Fatigue, effects of diet and drugs . . . . . . . . . . 33 
 
 , , how to prevent . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 
 
 , , its two kinds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 
 
 Feeding, effects on excretion of urea . . . . . . 3, 12, 15 
 
 Fluids, excess of, a cause of dyspepsia . . . . . . . . 66 
 
 Food poisons, their full effects not seen . . . . . . . . 109 
 
 Foods, advantages of simple . . . . . . . . . . . . 74 
 
 ,, and drinks that irritate the stomach and stop digestion 81 
 
 , , available . . , . . . . . . . . . . . 46 
 
 ,, care as to eating .. .. .. .. .. ..65 
 
 , , during exercise . . ..... . . . . . . 87 
 
 ,, general rules as to quantities . . . . . . 6, 57 
 
 ,, on which it is possible to live . . . . . . . . 55 
 
 ,, suggestions for a day's supply . . , . . . . . 74 
 
 Force, the production of, how conditioned . . 2, 4, 5, 23, 28 
 
 ,, proportional to urea . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 
 
 Friction in the machinery, its cause and results. . , . 90, 108 
 
 Fruits as food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54 
 
 Growth and development on foods free from poison . . . . 109 
 
 Hunger, what it means . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 
 
 ,, and feelings of emptiness. . .. .. .. 26,27,78 
 
 Ignorance of what constitutes good health . . . . 74, 102 
 
 Intestines, irritation of, some causes . . . . . . 17, 60 
 
 Meals, how many in the day . . . . . . . . 65, 74 
 
 Meat, a stimulant 37, 39, 40 
 
 ,, and late hours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 
 
 ,, eating and numerous meals .. .. .. .. ..39 
 
 „ stimulation of, mistaken for power and strength. . 39, 108 
 
 Mental effects of diet 74, 106 
 
 Miles, Mr. E. H,, his records 91 
 
 ,, „ his gain in power . . . . . . 91, 109 
 
 Milk as a food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 
 
 ,, effects of quantity of .. .. .. .. ,. 59,63 
 
 Moral effects of diet 74, 107 
 
 Nuts as food 52, 59 
 
 Obesity, prevention and treatment . . . . . . . . 92 
 
 ,, relation to high blood-pressure and apoplexy . . 93 
 
 Old people, albumens required by . . . . . . . . . . 7 
 
 Potatoes as food . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 
 
 ,, advantages of, for the rheumatic . . . . 72, 73 
 
 Pulses, why left out 72 
 
 ,, as causes of disease in India . . . . . . . . 73 
 
112 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Quantities, figures given, only a rough guide 
 Quantities required ... 
 
 Rice as a food . . 
 
 „ its advantages in diet of obesity 
 Rheumatism, and overfeeding 
 
 „ the best diet for 
 
 „ why horses and natives in India suffer from it 
 
 PAGE 
 
 . 86 
 . 57 
 
 51 
 94 
 
 72 
 72 
 73 
 
 72. 
 
 Shock, pathology of . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 
 
 ,, why less in abstainers from flesh and tea . . . . 45 
 
 Solvency, physiological, its advantages . . . . , . 102, 106 
 
 Stimulants, as beef tea, mislead many . . . . . . . . 108 
 
 ,, experiences of athletes as to . . . . , . . . 99 
 
 ,, never produce force, only condition its produc- 
 tion . . 96, 99, 102 
 
 ,, required by flesh eaters, and why . . . . 39, 101 
 
 Stimulation a call on the reserves, and leads to bankruptcy . . 100 
 ,, always wrong . . . . . , . . . . . . 98 
 
 ,, and the want of alcohol , . , . . . 101 
 
 „ is always followed by depression . . . . 38, 98 
 
 ,, is not strength . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 
 
 ,, leads to ruin . . . . . . . . . . 39, 106 
 
 ,, not proportional to quantity of stimulant . . 99, 102 
 
 Sugar effects on excretion of urea . . . . . . . . . . 18 
 
 ,, its effects on gout and rheumatism . . . . , . . . 19 
 
 ,, only produces force indirectly . . . . . . . . 24 
 
 Tea a poison as well as a stimulant . . . . . . 100, 101 
 
 Training on meat and tea, its dangers . . . . . . . . 90 
 
 ,, the best diet for .. .. .. .. ., ..84 
 
 Tuberculosis, overfeeding of, possible on a uric acid free diet . . 95 
 
 Urea, as a guide to food and feeding 
 
 „ effects of fasting and food on excretion 
 ,, ,, ,, an acid on excretion of 
 
 „ cheese 
 
 „ „milk 
 
 „ „ „ sugar . . 
 
 ,, relation to body weight 
 
 Uric acid, first a stimulant, then a depressant 
 ,, ,, disease is food poisoning . . 
 
 Urinary deposits, prevention of 
 
 Vegetarian " victory in athletics 
 Vegetarians," where they might do better 
 
 61 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 18 
 
 6, 8 
 
 101 
 
 . 109 
 
 70, 71 
 
 89,90 
 37. 104 
 
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