Quantity and Variety of Foods.  -- as we have already seen, the human body consists of numerous mechanics or artisans, who are constantly at work repairing and upbuilding the unceasing destruction that is continually going on.  If fresh food be not daily supplied, this work would soon cease, and the lamp of life flicker out.  To replace this constant waste we required nearly 3 pounds of solid food, and fully 3 pounds of liquid food for our daily allowance.  But to convert the pent-up energies of bread, meat and vegetables into the tissues of our own mechanism require a number of differently constructed organs, and these we now desire to draw your attention to this beautiful chart.  The organs consist of the stomach, liver, pancreas and intestines, which comprise the principal organs concerned in the process of digestion.

-- -- -- -- -- --

In 2007 I can hardly imagine what eating 3 pounds of food a day might be like, and I tend to eat a lot having a very high metabolism.  For example I had two waffles for breakfast, two products on hot dog buns for supper and to bananas today.  I think the total of all that food combined may have been a pound for pound and a half if you don't count the banana peels.  To put it differently, I can't quite imagine eating six half pound cheeseburgers every day.  Not to mention the half pound cheeseburgers that you get a fast food place like Wendy's, are weighed before they're cooked and not after.  So a half pound cheeseburgers going to weigh less when you eat it because they took out some of the crease and fat, but probably not enough.

Drinking 3 pounds of liquid definitely caught my attention.  There have been many references over the years to the US nutritional food pyramid.  By many accounts the pyramid has been traced to some Washington, DC bureaucrat that came up with a concept that a person needs to drink eight glasses of water every day.  To my knowledge, no one has come up with any scientific basis for why that Washington bureaucrat would chose an eight glasses as opposed to five or 10, or even just stating that a person should drink as often as they are thirsty.  Now I'm curious to learn if 3 pounds of water equates to approximately 8 glasses of water.  This book was published in 1916 and the food pyramid was was written up in the 1930s approximately 14 years later.

Is it possible that I found an early reference in this medical textbook that may have been the basis for that quackery prescribing eight glasses of water every day?

It definitely could be possible as this to tomb of a book was definitely reference material that I could envision a bureaucrat pulling off a shelf of the Library of Congress, what better book than the Library of Health to be found in the Library of Congress.  I don't expect ultimately be accredited with finding the source for that quackery anymore than you or I expect to find a publisher's clearing House letter in our Mailboxes containing an actual check for $1 million.

Additional Articles from the Book of Medicine:

• From Mothers Home Nursing Families to Nurses Traveling Across the US
  
  

  I was doing some research on nursing last night and I came across an interesting trend.  Nurses today in the present-day are finding in taking temporary positions that enable them to travel across the United States to work as a nurse in multiple locations, or should say in different locations.  So for example if you are a nurse and you wanted to spend the winter in Miami, you could accept a position as a travel nurse and work in Miami for two or three months during the middle of winter.  These positions seem to be available all around the United States, and they offer outstanding pay rates and even benefits that are normally associated with full-time work such as a 401(k) plan.

  This concept of travel nursing seems to have evolved and changed over the years quite a bit.  As we continue to dig within the book of medicine, we are repeatedly reminded that the book was written 90 years ago for an audience primarily consisting of mothers caring for their families and nurses in remote locations where other medical care was unavailable.  A single doctor might cover a single town or even a county or territory back then.  A traveling nurse back then might have to go by horseback to take care of an ailing patient, or they might work in a hospice or alms house typically for very low pay if they were paid anything at all.  Room and board were actually the standard pay of the time.

  Fast-forward 90 years and the situation has changed dramatically.  Nursing is very high in demand to the extent that people will actually pay a nurse to travel across the country and work for a few months at a time.  Part of this is probably driven by the shortage of nurses and a number of different areas and part of it probably relates to the fact that elderly and ailing patients are much more mobile these days.  It has been very common for a couple decades now for people to travel south for the winter to Florida or Phoenix or even Southern California.  This influx of people that need medical attention seems to be matched by nurses that are willing to go to those locations and work.  Furthermore, were not necessarily talking about a live-in nurse that works 24 hours a day taking care of an elderly patient, were talking about a nurse that works a shift sometimes in a home sometimes a hospital or other medical facility.  That leaves pony of time for a real life after hours and many opportunities to explore the location that they’re visiting. 

• Iron in Water
  
  

  Iron in Water. — the presence of iron in a water, rendering it what is called Chalybeate, from the old Greek name for iron, renders it to many persons only a useful topic, but in some people it causes severe headache and serious disturbance of the digestive organs.

  When I was younger I have distinct impressions of hand pumping old farm wells to water plants and things like that in my grandparents flower gardens. The water would be a very rusty brown and smell metallic. One of the things that I am unclear about here is whether or not that ‘rusty’ color of the water was actually iron in the water or something else. I think it might have been, and I’m under the impression that Iron is less dangerous than lead, but then again any metal in your body is likely to be a bad thing.

  These days, I suppose I’d rather see one of those old water pumps incorporated and recycled into modern furniture rather than have to pump water to water the flowers by hand let alone drink it, but its again another sign of the times and the progress that has been made in 100 years.

• Health
  
  

  Health.-Disease can be prevented by the individual doing everything in his power to keep in the best physical condition.  Disease is a common enemy of all of us, waiting to destroy, but nature is in league with us if we obey her laws.  With a normal body and pureblood should the invader arrived, the fight is on our side.  But once the body is weakened by heredity as a result of our parent’s or forefather’s neglect of the body, through the abuse of alcohol, tobacco or immoral living, lack of exercise, over eating and loss of sleep, overworked or lack of work or improper food, then will the soil be fertile for the planting of the germs of disease.  When exposed and once planted the flight will be in their favor, as the rundown body will not have sufficient vitality to overcome the invader and sickness and death will result.

  Its an interesting perspective that the author offers up about the abuse of alcohol and its impact on babies.  This is something that is well documented today with fetal alcohol syndrome, but somewhat remarkable that they made the link 100 years ago.

  Its remarkable, but it might also point to the direction of science and how unsubstantiated beliefs of 100 years ago, pushed the logical research in one direction or another.  Hypothesis followed by experiment to result in a proven rule or dismissal or refinement of the hypothesis.  But it requires that first notion and direction to research.  Similar things can be seen in the evolution of other areas of science from airplanes to vacuum cleaners and Ladybug steam cleaners.