The value of good food : no. 3 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women.

Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The value of good food : no. 3 of deposits in the Savings' Bank of Wisdom, made in behalf of working men and women. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/36 (page 16)
    We still want four pounds more to make up our 150. Where are we to get these ? Why we have got them already. Have we not already learned that there are four pounds of freshly digested food being washed along through the supply-pipes of the body ? We have only to add to the previous 146 pounds Dry substance of the blood . 4* „ and our tally is completed to 150 „ As the blood is the direct source of supply to all the structures of the body, the material which is being poured out through the supply-pipes,—it follows that those four pounds must contain within themselves flesh-substance, mineral ash, and fuel. There are in 20 pounds of blood, 16 pounds of water to wash along the more substantial part through the supply-pipes, three pounds ten ounces of flesh-substance, four ounces of fuel, and about 2 ounces of mineral matter; salt, phosphorus, lime, and the rest. The blood is speedily exhausted of its richness, because it gives up its several ingredients to the different parts of the living frame to confer warmth, repair, and active strength upon them. The warmth is procured by burning the fat; you will easily under- stand that; you know that an oil lamp gets very hot whilst its flame is kept up. The repair is effected by the plastering of new matter out of the blood, upon all the different structures as they wear away. Each structure selects for itself out of the blood what it wants, and arranges what it takes in due order. But you would now like to know how active strength is supplied by the blood. It will not be possible just now to tell you concerning this, all which might be, and indeed ought to be told, because we have other and more practical things to bend our attention to. But this much you will easily comprehend. The power COMES OUT OE THAT TEEY CHATS'aE of SubstanCO, which we call wear. The wear is actually the turning of