In forming our ideas as to the required amount of food necessary to
healthy vigor, we will not attempt to analyze the magnitudes of Lehman,
nor accept the statement of Chossat, that the animal body loses daily
about one twenty-fourth of its weight by the metamorphosis of tissue; but
will again examine the diet tables of the prisons, hospitals, and armies
of Europe, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions.
The distinguished physiologist, Milne Edwards, maintains that the food
must contain three hundred and fifteen grains of nitrogen and three
thousand three hundred and fifty grains of carbon, otherwise the animal
economy loses force, and gradually deteriorates. The data of Frerichs give
the same views, and they accord with the observations of the ten years'
study of the regimens of the prisons of Scotland. Dumas, in his
calculations of the ration of the French army, gives as its equivalent
three hundred and thirty-five grains of nitrogen and four thousand nine
hundred and fifty grains of carbon.
In the prisons and hospitals of England, Scotland, France, and Germany,
the dietaries furnish from seventeen to twenty-eight ounces of nitrogenous
and carbonaceous food.
For a time, the solid ration of the prisons of Scotland was reduced to
seventeen ounces, but the prisoners lost weight. In the public
institutions of England we find the total quantity of solid food to be as
follows: The British soldier receives in home service 45 ounces; the
seaman of the Royal navy 44 ounces; convicts 54 ounces; male pauper 29
ounces; male lunatic 31 ounces. The full diet of the hospitals of London
furnish from 25 to 31 ounces of solid food, besides from one to five pints
of beer daily. The Russian soldier has about 50 ounces; the Turkish more
than 40 ounces; the French nearly 50 ounces; the Hessian 33 ounces; the
Yorkshire laborer 50 ounces; United States navy 50 ounces; and the soldier
of the United States army about 50 ounces, of solid food.