A BRIEF GUIDE
TO
THE FOOD COLLECTION. {9}
*** _An Inventory of the Collection_, _arranged alphabetically_, _and
containing fuller information than this Guide_, _can be obtained at the
Catalogue Stall_, _Price Sixpence_.
THE idea of the Food Collection (originally formed in 1857), now removed
from the South Kensington Museum and arranged in the lower Gallery on the
North side of the Branch Museum at Bethnal Green was suggested by Thomas
Twining, Esq., of Twickenham, as part of a plan for the establishment of
an Economic Museum that should comprise illustrations of every-day life
for the working classes. The Food Collection was at the commencement of
its formation carried on under the direction of Dr. Lyon Playfair, M.P.,
and, as now constituted, has been arranged with the express object of
teaching the nature and sources of the food which rich and poor alike
need for the maintenance of their daily life. Considerable progress has
been made in carrying out this design, and the present brief Guide is
intended as an introduction to the general principles and plan upon which
the Collection has been arranged. Two great objects have been kept in
view in the Collection:—
First, to represent the chemical compositions of the various substances
used as food; and, secondly, to illustrate the natural sources from which
the various kinds of food have been obtained. Where the processes of the
preparation of food admit of illustration, these are also exhibited.
There are many methods by which such a Collection might be arranged; but
the Chemical Composition of Food has recently been discovered to have so
close a connexion with its action on the system, that it has been deemed
advisable to follow a _Chemical arrangement_. All food is found to be
composed of the same materials or elements as the Human Body. The
necessity of the supply of food from day to day depends on the fact, that
the elements of the human body are daily wasted by the processes of life.
As a fire cannot _burn_ without a supply of _fuel_, neither can the human
body _live_ without its daily supplies of _food_.