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.
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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:
- Why is it that Disease Spreads?
Why is it that disease spreads?-It has been found by scientists that certain definitive living bodies (germs) are the cause of certain diseases, such as tuberculosis, smallpox, typhoid fever, diphtheria, etc.; and other diseases must be caused by other undiscovered bodies, which will some day be known. These minute living bodies are active and give off poisonous material which destroys the tissues, organs, etc. of the body. When a person is ill, these germs are being continually thrown off in the waste materials of the body, in the spittle, bowel movements, sweat, saliva, urine, et cetera. If these products of disease are allowed to remain in a vessel, the carpets, floor, soil, etc., they dry and in the form of dust are blown about in here at the house, street or country road. If they come in contact with clothing or household furniture, they can be carried. Should a nurse or attendant upon a case be careless about disinfecting the hands are closing during or after the management of a contagious disease, he or she can become a common carrier by touching food, dishes, clothing, etc., used by other members of the family.
Water is a common carrier of disease, particularly typhoid fever, cholera, etc. Therefore to prevent the spread of disease every farmer, dairy man, occupant of a dwelling, factory, citizens of villages, cities and states, should see that they have a clean water supply free from germs and not contaminated by dirty water or refuse from a toilet, a pen, stable, etc.., which might contain germs carry from a patient or animal suffering from any of the contagious disease is. One case of typhoid fever along the edge of a mountain stream, carelessly managed, thus permitting bowel movements to be thrown into or washed into the stream by rain, pelting snow, etc., could cause an epidemic in every village which received its water supply from that stream or the reverence which it empty.
Milk can be a common carrier of disease, such as tuberculosis, typhoid fever, scarlet fever, measles, diphtheria, etc. Most states however, have protected the supply of milk by the enactment of laws covering the inspection of cattle, the erection of well lighted, clean and ventilated dairies, boiling and sterilization of all utensils used in its handling, even the wearing of sterile grounds by the milkers and attendants, cleansing of the cows utters before and after milking incurring and brushing the cattle and covering them with light blanket. Milk should be kept it even temperatures after being placed in sterile can prevent the formation of germs which will develop even in transit to the consumer in the country or by train or in the milk bottles prior to delivery. Railroads are compelled in some states, and should be in all states, to furnish refrigerator cans with highs and the dealers in the city should particularly during the warm weather, have a refrigerator or eyes in the delivery wagons to maintain an even temperature for all milk delivered.
There are some interesting concepts within the section some of these actually seem somewhat practical and you can get a sense of the evolution of thought and care that was starting to go into the maintenance of water supplies and especially the concept of moving milk producing milk and transmitting or delivering it logistically across long distances as people lived more in cities and away from the country away from the source of the actual cattle delivering the milk.
Its also somewhat surprising that as early as one hundred years ago they were concerned with milkers wearing sterile clothing. I have a mental image in my head of kids going out to milk the cow each morning for milk and parents that had little regard for the sterility of children’s clothes as long as they did not spoil their Sunday clothes.
- Muscles of the Eye
Muscles of the Eye.-I’m turning the flap we see four of the six delicate, who with all strong muscles which I would hold I firmly in its bony orbit, but also moved upward toward the canopied vaults of heaven, downward to view the beauties of nature on earth; or sideways to the right or left, Spain have to horizon at a single glance! The next illustration gives us a graphic and faithful to limitation of the beautiful arrangements of the numerous curtains, humors, lenses, pigments, membranes, nervous coats and blood vessels which enter into the composition of this remarkable organ, each of which is exquisitely adapted to the respective functions has to perform.
As you can tell, we are getting back on track with this effort after a couple month hiatus mostly do to (ironically) poor health. No other projects are going to slow us down and we now have a promoter that will even help us hire more transcriptionists as we cover Wilmington real estate.
- Fleas
Fleas.—There are one hundred varieties of this pest which live on dogs, cats, birds, squirrels, rats, mice, etc. It has been proven that fleas carry the germs of Bubonic Plague, which has caused as high as 113 deaths in 119 cases during an epidemic. The disease was found to be spread by means of rats, mice and squirrels of all species and the flea (pulen fasciatus) in the fur of the animals was the medium by which the disease was conveyed to human beings by biting them and injecting the germs of Plague into their blood.
The forms which pester the American homes are the Rouse Flea (Pulen Irritans), the Cat Flea (Pulen Felinius), and the Dog Flea (Pulen Canis).
While we have made major advances in the treatment and prevention of fleas, the speed of their prevention as not advanced along a path like Moore’s Law where we see advances in computer chips and flash memory doubling on a regular basis. Each female flea deposits from eight to twelve whitish ovoid eggs in dust or lint, under carpets and the larger crevices of woodwork. In the summer they develop in about four weeks from the egg to the adult flea, in winter they develop in about six weeks. Four to six broods, as a rule are hatched out during each summer.
The House Flea occurs in dwellings, breeding in bedding, clothing, carpets, window curtains, etc. They attack their victims at night. The Cat and Dog Flea, though they annoy only their respective victims, are as troublesome to human beings as the human flea.
