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

28 THE EVILS OF EATING DEFECTIVE FOOD.

e'Ut one also who keeps fowls knows, that to get
a supply of eggs, and raise chickes, hens must be
supplied with other food.tha: Indian corn meal, which
contains too many of the carbonates, or fattening elements, and too few of the phosphates and nitrates, to
supply the shells of the eggs or muscles of the future
chick. They are therefore fed with ground bones and
egg-shells for the one, and meat or insects for the other
purpose. But how many expectant and nursing mothers, not knowing or considering their responsibilities,
live on superfine flour bread, and butter, and puddings,
and sweet sauce, and cakes, and confectionery, which
contain little else than the three articles of food before
mentioned, and in which are only found the carbonates,
or fat and heat-producing elements, and only very little
of food for the muscles and tissues, or bones, or brain!
The results are inevitable. One half of the children
die before they are five years old, and many before that
age have, for the want of the phosphate of lime, defective teeth and soft and rickety bones. If they live to
grow up under the same disregard to their natural
requirements, their muscles are poorly developed, their
tissues are weak, and susceptible to disease for the
want of the nitrogenous elements of food; their bones,
and brains, and nerves are weak, and subject to disease
for the want of the phosphates; while, by over feeding
with the carbonates, the whole system is heated and
excited, and ready to be inflamed by the first spark of
disease; and the inevitable results are inflammations,
fevers, neuralgic pains, consumptions, defective teeth,