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Animal

Human Milk Cow's Milk Yolk of Egg Oysters 100 Lamb 833 • 237 White of Egg 845 305 Lobster 859 305 Skate 859 Cheese 331 Veal 873 Eel 434 Beef 880 Mussel 528 Pork 893 Ox liver 570 Turbot 898 Pigeon 756 Ham 910 Mutton 773 Herring 914 Salmon 776 It appears from this that white of egg is more than twice as nourishing as the yolk, and that a red herring is more than nine times as nourishing as mother's milk. What can be the worth of a science that works out such incredible results? Dr. Letheby has himself pointed out, with his wonted candour, that not only would these results -even if they were trustworthy-be valueless, since they take no account of the digestive labour required to utilise the different substances, but also that they cast doubt on the received chemical doctrine that the nitrogenous elements of food are the most nutritious. In another part of the same work he is driven to confess that, much as physicians talk about our livers and the secretion of bile, their true function in the digestion of food is at present Introduction unknown. It is notorious, too, that not one creature in the universe knows what is the use of the spleen ; and the anatomists and physiologists are still discussing what means the pancreas or sweetbread. When thus, upon the simplest of all questions in the science of food, chemists and physicians are alike at fault and impotent, we need not be too hard upon the cooks because they also are weak in science and lisp much folly.