Note 258 — ON THE THEORY AND ART OF PRESCRIBING.

The capacity of our digestive organs sufficiently testifies that nature never intended them for the reception of highly concentrated food, while this idea is farther strengthened by perceiving how sparingly she produces concentrated aliment; the saccharine matter of esculent fruits is generally blended with acidulous and mucilaginous ingredients; and the oleaginous principle of seeds, kernels, and other similar substances, is combined with farinaceous matter: the capacity observable in the organs of graminivorous animals evidently shews that they were also designed for a large bulk of food, and not for provender in which the nutritive matter is concentrated; the gramineous and leguminous vegetables do not present their nutritive matter in a separate state, nor is the animal furnished with an apparatus by which he can separate the chaff and straw from the grain,—the obvious inference is, that he was intended to feed indiscriminately on both.

Some years ago I constructed a Logometric scale of Equivalents, analogous in principle to that which I have now introduced under the title of the “Medicinal Dynameter,” to shew the relative nutritive strength of different vegetables, and to work problems connected with them; I soon found, however, that unless bulk was taken into calculation, it was incapable of furnishing even an approximation to truth.