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A treatise on food and diet: with observations on the dietetical regimen suited for disordered states of the digestive organs; and an account of the dietaries of some of the principal metropolitan and other establishments for paupers, lunatics, criminals, children, the sick, etc / [Jonathan Pereira].

  • Pereira, Jonathan, 1804-1853.
Date:
1843
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on food and diet: with observations on the dietetical regimen suited for disordered states of the digestive organs; and an account of the dietaries of some of the principal metropolitan and other establishments for paupers, lunatics, criminals, children, the sick, etc / [Jonathan Pereira]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    26/602 (page 6)
    These substances I now proceed to notice indivi- dually. 1. Carspon.—In the pure and crystallized state, car- bon constitutes the diamond, a substance which Sir D. Brewster * suspects to be of vegetable origin. In its more familiar but impure forms, carbon constitutes plumbago (graphite or black-lead) and charcoal (animal and vegetable). ‘The last-mentioned substance is always contaminated with various earthy bodies de- rived from the organic matter from which the charcoal was made. Thus animal charcoal obtained from bones, and known as bone black, contains only ten per cent. of carbon. COMPOSITION OF BONE BLACK. Carbon::{ 10003 reo inte +68 ak 208 Phosphate of dive wis te teh te 0 Carbonate of Lime . dilis: af eh 88 -Carburet or Silicet of Iron . . . . 2°00 Sulphuret of Calcium, or Iron . . . traces Animal Charcoal or Bone Black t+ . . 100°0 Vegetable Charcoal, obtained from wood, contains a much larger proportion of carbon. In some countries, siliceous and aluminous substances are eaten, but they can scarcely be denominated aliments; and I have not, there- fore, inserted silicon and aluminum among the elements of the food of man. “The negroes of Guinea, the Javanese, the New Caledonians, and many South American tribes, eat clay as a luxury” (Elliotson’s Human Physiology, p. 63, 1840). The Otomacks, a savage race on the banks of the Orinoco, appease their hunger for two or three months, ac- cording to Humboldt, by distending their stomachs with clay. The fossil farina, which, according to Stanislas Julien (Comptes Rendus, 1841, 2 Semest. p.358), is used in China, in times of great scarcity, as a food, contains 13-2 per cent. of organic matter (Payen, Jdid. p. 480), and may, therefore, possess some slightly nutritive qualities. * Edinburgh Philosophical Journal, vol. iii. p.98; and Philosophical Magazine, vol. 1. p. 147. 1827. + Dumas, Traité de Chimie appliqué aux Arts, t. i, p. 450.