Not only does food supply the daily waste of the human body, but, as the
body increases in size from birth to adult age, it is supplied with
materials for this increase by the aid of food. In order, therefore, to
understand the value of food from its composition, it is necessary to
know the composition of the human body. Just as any other compound
substance can be submitted to chemical analysis and the elements of which
it consists ascertained, so can the composition of the human body be
discovered. Such analyses of course become difficult in proportion to
the complication of the body analysed, and only an approach to the true
quantities in which the elements exist can be expected. In Case No. 1,
Division A., the results of such an analysis have been attempted, and the
quantities of each element entering into the composition of a human body
weighing 11 stone or 154 pounds are (as far as possible) presented to the
eye.