Food in health and disease / by I. Burney Yeo ; with illustrations.

  • Isaac Burney Yeo
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Food in health and disease / by I. Burney Yeo ; with illustrations. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by University of Bristol Library. The original may be consulted at University of Bristol Library.

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    Metabolism.—The word metabolism is often used in connection with the utilisation of the food received into the body. It refers in the first place to those phenomena manifested by all living organisms in the exercise of their power of appropriating the substances taken in us food and incorporating them into the tissues of their bodies ; the process, in short, of assimilation. It also refers to that power which the animal organism possesses of accumulating from its food supplies a store of 'potential energy, which it is able to transform into kinetic energy, and which manifests itself com- monly in the form of muscular work and the produc- tion of heat. It further includes the formation of those excretory products which result from the changes which occur in the constituents of the tissues as the necessary accompaniment of such transformations of energy. Normal, healthy metabolism, therefore, requires a due supply of suitable food, suitable in quality and quantity ; it also involves the storing up of a portion of this food within the body; and it demands a regular chomical transformation of the tissues, and the forma- tion of the effete excretory products resulting from these changes, which have to be eliminated through the organs provided for that purpose. The term equilibrium of the metabolism is used to signify that the bodily income and expenditure are balanced ; that while the normal physiological condi- tions are maintained, there is exactly the same amount of new material absorbed and assimilated as there is of effete matter, the products of the retrogressive tissue-changes, removed by the organs of excretion ; the destruction of tissue is exactly compensated for by the formation of new tissue. Of course, while the body is growing rapidly there is greatly increased formation in the parts participating in the rapid growth, and the metabolism in these parts is coric- spondingly increased; on the other hand, during senile decay the expenditure is in excess, and the body in consequence wastes.
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