Review of Dr. Caldwell's pamphlet : entitled Physiology vindicated, in a critique on Liebig's Animal chemistry / by Robert Peter.

  • Peter, Robert, 1805-1894.
Date:
1843
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Review of Dr. Caldwell's pamphlet : entitled Physiology vindicated, in a critique on Liebig's Animal chemistry / by Robert Peter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    justify me in giving a few additional fact?, to those mentioned by Liebig, illustrative of the influence of the food on the heat-producing power of the animal body. In the Narrative of the Second Voyage of Capt. Sir John Ross, in search of a north-west passage, (Am. ed. 1835. pp. 115) we find the fol- lowing statement as the result of his extensive experience on the point in question: * * * <.- But this at least seems certain, that men of the lar- gest appetites and most perfect digestion produce the most heat; as feeble stomachs, whether dyspeptic, as it is termed, or merely unable to receive much food, are subject to suffer the most from cold • never generating heat enough to resist its impressions. « Physicians must determine whether the strong digestive power, and the heat-generating one are but parts of one original constitution, or wheth- er the large use of food is not a cause of the production of heat; but what follows is at least practically true, as the reason seems abundantly plain. He who is well fed, resists cold better than the man w7ho is stint- ed, while the starvation from cold follows but too soon a starvation in food. This, doubtless, explains in a great measure, the resisting pow- ers of the natives of these foreign climates: their consumption of food, it is familiar, being enormous, and often incredible. But it is also a val- uable remark for those who may hereafter be situated like ourselves; since if these views are correct, as I believe them, both from experience and reasoning to be, it shows that no effort should be spared to ensure an am- ple supply of the best food.' Our system, whether in the navy or merchant's service, and in what- ever parts of the world, be it the icy seas or the tropical ocean, has been as fixed as it is uniform; and perhaps 1 ought not to blame those who have made regulations, when they did not know, and could not therefore take into consideration the grounds on which their orders ought to have been regulated. If the allowance of the food for seamen, under all differences of climate, or labor of service, technically speaking, has been fixed and uniform, implying circumstances and involving consequences respecting which I dare not here take room to speak, so in the case immediately be- fore me, have we been accustomed to fix the allowance of food, to restrict it, 1 may fairly say, through an experience founded on far other circum- stances, or under a system calculated from very different data. The conclusion therefore in which I wish to rest, willingly as I