The corn bread furnished was made, according to the evidence, from corn
and the cob, ground up together, and sometimes mixed with what is called
in the south cow peas. It varied from four to twelve ounces in weight
daily, generally from four to eight ounces. A pound (of sixteen ounces) of
corn bread contains, according to chemical analysis, two thousand eight
hundred grains of carbon and one hundred and twenty-one grains of
nitrogen, and therefore the highest quantity of corn bread furnished, say
twelve ounces, afforded but two thousand one hundred grains of carbon and
ninety grains of nitrogen, leaving a deficiency, according to the
physiologists, of more than twelve hundred grains of carbon and two
hundred grains of nitrogen, to be supplied by the two or four ounces of
doubtful bacon.
That the bacon could not furnish this deficiency must be apparent to the
scientific observer. The quantity of bread alone, required to furnish the
desired amount of carbon and nitrogen, would have been over three pounds
daily, which quantity the prisoners did not have.
Milne Edwards, after treating at length the subject of alimentation, and
offering many examples, arrives at the conclusion that the mean quantity
of bread and meat required to sustain the life of man, consists of sixteen
ounces of bread and thirteen ounces of beef daily. This conclusion is
sustained by most of the experimentalists, and if lesser quantities are
used, they must be of choice selections. A small loaf of bread made of
flour, ground from ripe, healthy wheat, will accomplish more for nutrition
than two or three larger loaves, baked of damaged and unripe grain; and
likewise it is with meat: half a pound of beef from cattle killed
instantly in their native pastures, when the flesh retains all its natural
juices and sweetness, is worth more for the support of the system than two
or three pounds of beef from animals that have been fasted and terrified,
and have thereby lost, in a very great measure, their nutritious
qualities.
The flesh of mammalia undergoes a great change in its nutritive qualities
by reason of fasting, disturbance of sleep, and long-continued suffering,
resulting in its becoming not only worthless, but deleterious.