Such persons stand in no need
of the more abundant and more substantial nutriment which is essential
to those who are daily engaged in occupations exacting much muscular
labour. In the preparation and distribution of food, this I believe to
be an important point, and one which should be held steadily in view.
For the labourer the food must be in part solid, requiring mastication
and insalivation, and not rapid of digestion. Food, however nutritious,
which is too quickly digested, is soon followed by a sense of hunger and
emptiness, and consequent sinking and debility. Food of this description
is unsuited to the labourer. It will not maintain strength, nor will it
maintain health, and, if long persevered in, it will be followed by some
one or other of the prevailing diseases which result immediately from
deficient, imperfect, and impoverished blood."
Again:--
"Our attention must not be too exclusively directed to soups and other
semi-liquid articles of food. These pass away too rapidly from the
stomach, are swallowed too hastily, and violate a natural law in
superseding the necessity of mastication, and a proper admixture with
the salivary secretion. Restricted to such food the carnivora cannot
maintain life; nor can man, being half carnivorous, if laboriously
employed, long preserve health and strength on food of such
character.
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