The philosophy of eating. By Albert J. Bellows, M.D.

100

MOLASSES AND MILK.

too much carbonaceous and too little nitrogenous food,
it would be that class who are idle; and yet the one
hundred prisoners of Dundee, with one ounce a day
more of the fat and heat-making principle than those
of Edinburgh, lost two hundred and seventeen and one
half pounds, while the same number in Edinburghl lost
only twenty-seven pounds; the difference in their diet
being, as stated in the report, that the prisoners of
Edinburgh had milk with their porridge and cakes,
while those of Dundee had molasses instead.
If the same experiment had been tried on men in
active life, or on children, who are never still except
when asleep, the results would have been more remarkable, in proportion to the greater waste of muscle in
those who are active, and the greater demand for nitrogenous food; and yet how few mothers stop to consider,
or take pains to know, whether gingerbread, made of
fine flour, which has but a trace of food for muscle or
brain, and sugar or molasses, and perhaps butter,
which have none, or cakes made with unbolted wheat,
mixed with milk or buttermilk, all of which abound in
muscle and brain-feeding materials, is the best food for
a growing, active child; indeed, the whole food of the
child is given with the same want of knowledge or consideration.
But, in view of these simple experiments in the
Scotch prisons, who can doubt that a want of consideration of these principles of diet is the means of consigning to the tomb many of our most promising
children. An intelligent farmer knows how to feed