LECTURES ON PHYSIOLOGY FOOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5497, 30 June 1879, Page 5

LECTURES ON PHYSIOLOGY FOOD.

Mr C. A. Robertson delivered the fourth of the series of his lectures on the above' subject in the Wellesley-street School-room, on Saturday evening. . In this lecture the substances which are required to form and maintain the living animal Btrncture were spoken of. These substances were obtained from the seeds of cereal plants and flesh chiefly, and were called albumin, fibriD, casein, &c, and resembled each other in their chemical composition, although physically they were not similar. These substances were obtained ready-made from the plants by animals, and since the albuminous compounds found in flesh came from plants, it was evident that plants were the true makers of flesh, and that animal life was not only dependent upon vegetable life, but the former was impossible without the latter preceding it. What the animal did in the vital processes was .--only to place these Babstances where they were required, when a flesh - eater lives on the flesh of another animal, aud requires only to give it a new phase and form. "Vegetable feeders did the same thing, finding in vegetable albumen, fibrin and casein, the substance cf their flesh ready made. After stating that the nutritive valne of food depended upon its proportion of flesh-forminc; substances, the lecturer t;ave a description of the various grains, a chemical analysis of which was given on a diagram. While oats contain more nitrogenous or nutritious matter than wheat, yet wheat contains the other ingredients of food iu a proportion better adjusted to the requirements of the system. Scotchmen, although partial to oatmeal, sooner or later give up using it as an article of daily diet after leaving Scotland ; yet oats were doubtless well-adapted to the needs of a hardworking people. The chemistry of baking iras explained, also of cheese-making. The seeds of food plants, milk, and eggs, resembled one another in being the means elaborated by the organism for the rearing or feeding of its youug, and they were all nitrogenous. If the value of food be measured by its working power, a mixture, say, 2!bs. of bread to jib. of meat per diem was the most economical of the force of the body. For, just by so much as the force of the body was used up iu digesting and assimilating unnecessarily, so much the less force would there be for useful work, and stomach work was very hard work. About sozs. of dry flesh were consumed or wasted by the average adult in 24 hours, and this average adult would perform a total of about 3000 foot tons of work, but 2600 foot; toDS were used up in the vital processes, leaving about 400 to bo performed iu movement or other kind of work. All kinds of bodily work was performed through the media of muscles, either stringer or plain, and of all kinds of work whatever, mental work was the most costly to the organism, producing greater waste of the nervous Bubstance. The lecturer theu gave in conclusion, a brief description of the ganghomic and nervous tissue and its functions, shewing that the brain requires more nuitrition than any other organ in comparison to its bulk, and that it received about one-fiUb. of the whole of the circulation. There were a number of subs'.iaces used as food by s?J. human beings, chiefly on account of the influence which they j>*ve upon the nervous substance which waii the seat of sensation. Mr. Robertson uoacluded a most instructive and entertaining lecture by announcing that en the next occasion the subject of thv injure would be those substances used in this way, viz., tea, coffee, tobacco, opium, and alcoholic compounds.