An argument on behalf of the primitive diet of man ... / by Frederic R. Lees.

  • Lees, Frederic Richard, 1815-1897.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An argument on behalf of the primitive diet of man ... / by Frederic R. Lees. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    Analyaii of gastric juice. 8 ON THE PRIMITIVE DIET OF MAN. An albuminate (Pepsin) coagulating with heat ... 0.780 Sugar, awcoagulable albumen, lactic and butyric acids and ammonia 38.430 Chloride of potassium 0.704 Chloride of sodium (common salt) 4.263 Potash (combined with the organic acids) 0.179 Phosphate of Lime 1.030 Phosphate of Magnesia 0.470 Phosphate of Iron 0.010 After vegetal-diet, the latter element is increased. Vegetal oil is readily digested, or resorbed, not in the stomach, but in the small intestine, if taken in small quantities-, and it essentially promotes the digestion of albumen and starch. III. The History of Nature. § 8. Man is God’s work—and man’s individual and collective expe- rience is the unfolding of the laws which govern his manifold nature— laws impressed upon him by sovereign power and wisdom. As a mat- ter of fact, then, we may ask here—before proceeding to any deeper scientific analysis of man’s wants and nature’s provisions, and post- poning the question as to the absolutely best-Aitt,—“ Does the use of common vegetal, or non-animal food, rationally selected, sustain human beings in health and strength, for the easy and satisfactory perform- ance of mental or manual labor ? ” As to physical-power, there can be little room for doubt. Whole tribes and nations, both in ancient and modern times, have practised the system with very apparent advantage. The standard-works on Vegetarianism give many pregnant examples. But there is scarcely any need to go further than our own country for evidences of its compatibility with a full physical development. The hardy peasantry of Yorkshire—of Fifeshire and the North of Scot- land—are sufficient examples. Flesh-meat with them is a rarity—oat- meal porridge and milk, with bread and kail broth, their staple food. § 9. Whether the regimen be tried in low latitudes or in high ones, it is found to be equally successful. In one of the early Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners on Education (1841), Mr William Faik- bairn, of the great Iron-foundries in Manchester and London, gives the following emphatic testimony :— “I observed, on a late journey to Constantinople, that the Boatmen or rowers to the Caiques, who are perhaps the first rowers in the world, drink nothing but water; and they drink that profusely in the hot months of the summer. The boatmen and water-carriers of Con- stantinople are decidedly, in my opinion, the finest men in Europe, as regards their physical development, and they are all water-drinkers; they may take a little sherbet [syrup and water], but in other respects are what we should call, in this country, teetotalers. “ What is their diet?—Chiefly bread; now and then a cucumber,