taken in cleaning them properly. The germs of infectious diseases, such as typhoid fever, are found in the various fertilizers used upon the soil, and vegetables washed in polluted water may also be a source of infection.

The farinaceous (prepared starch) foods are arrowroot, tapioca, cooked chestnuts, and sago, all easily digested and much used in diet for the sick.

Vegetable fats are derived from nuts, olives, and cotton seed.

Olive oil is the most valuable as well as palatable vegetable oil used for food. Pure olive oil is of a greenish yellow color. The adulteration of olive oil with cotton-seed oil has been very common.

Nuts are very nutritious on account of their large proportion of fat, but are difficult to digest. The nuts most commonly used in the United States are peanuts, walnuts, hickory nuts, cocoanuts, almonds, and chestnuts. Peanuts contain less fat and more protein than any of the others. In Italy, France, and Spain, chestnuts are used in many cooked forms, very largely in bread, or simply roasted.

Fruits. By fruits we generally understand the products which are sufficiently palatable to be used raw as desserts. They are chiefly valuable for their mineral salts.

Eaten when ripe, and in moderation, they are wholesome and easily digested; unripe or decayed fruit produces digestive disturbances of more or less violent character.

It is considered better to eat fruit early in the day, as at breakfast. Fresh fruit is better than dried or pre

served fruit, but fruit in some form should form a part of the diet throughout the year.

Bananas and figs are the most nutritious fruits, both being staple articles of food in the countries where they grow.

Of the large number of berries used in the United States, cranberries and gooseberries are the only varieties which need cooking and the addition of sugar to render them palatable.

Some persons are unable to eat strawberries, either by reason of the intestinal disturbance produced, or because of urticaria resulting.

Sugar for food is obtained from sugar cane, glucose from corn, dextrose or grape sugar and beet sugar; beet sugar being much used in Europe.

Maple sugar, made by boiling the sap of the maple tree, is probably made only in the United States, where it is used as molasses or as a confection rather than for

general purposes.

Honey, which contains about 73 per cent of sugar, may be regarded as a vegetable product.

Mineral Food. The mineral most important as an element of food is salt (chloride of sodium). It stimulates the flow of gastric juice, thus promoting digestion.

Vegetables are deficient in salts, and the addition of sodium chloride while cooking renders them more palatable and digestible. The phosphates, sulphates, and other salts of sodium, potassium, and magnesium are present in sufficient quantities in a mixed diet.

Beverages.

Besides water, the important non-alcoholic beverages are tea, coffee, milk, cocoa, chocolate, and the various carbonated drinks made by charging

Ꭰ

a mixture of fruit sirup, flavoring, and water with carbonic acid gas.

Of the various mineral waters there are alkaline and sulphur, besides the various purgative waters.

Tea, coffee, and cocoa have a mildly stimulating effect, producing what Egbert describes as a "sense of comfort.” Used to excess they produce insomnia, indigestion, nervous irritability, and palpitation of the heart. Tea and coffee are not nutritious in themselves, but are made slightly so by the addition of cream and sugar.

Cocoa and chocolate contain a considerable amount of nutrition, but by some persons are not easily digested, especially chocolate.

"But these beverages may all be abused in their use as readily as may alcohol, and 'tea-drunkards' and coffee-drunkards' are not uncommon. The teacup is not always the one that 'cheers but does not inebriate.' Women especially who drink much tea are apt to be nervous and dyspeptic, to have the 'teadrinker's heart,' and to suffer from headaches and neuralgias. They depend upon tea to take the place of nutriment, and soon use up what little store of force they may have had, since they fail to replenish it with fuelfood. Men are more addicted to the use and abuse of coffee, and often manifest symptoms directly traceable to such intemperance." (Egbert.)

Alcoholic beverages differ greatly in the amount of alcohol contained, from beer containing from 3 to 5 per cent, to brandy and whisky containing from 40 to 47 per cent of alcohol.

The objection to the use of alcoholic beverages is the fact that their constant use tends to the acquirement of

the drink habit, and leads to grave derangement of health, of both body and mind, and for these reasons the use of alcoholic beverages is to be strongly condemned.

The habit of using alcoholic beverages to excess is commonly supposed to be the cause of poverty, while in reality the best authorities declare that poverty is almost exclusively the cause of drink.

Liebig, who was considered one of the greatest scientists upon the chemistry of food, writes that "the use of spirits is not the cause but the effect of poverty. It is the exception to the rule when the well-fed man becomes a spirit-drinker. On the other hand, when the laborer earns by his work less than is required to provide the amount of food which is indispensable in order to restore fully his working power, an unyielding, inexorable law or necessity compels him to have recourse to spirits. He must work; but in consequence of insufficient food a certain portion of his working power is daily wasting. Spirits, by their action on the nerves, enable him to make up the deficient power at the expense of his body; to consume to-day that quantity which naturally ought to have been employed a day later." And to this Egbert adds, "This may also be the case where there is an abundance of food, but where it is improperly chosen for the needs of the individual or ruined by bad cooking. Education in the principles of the scientific and economical selection of food and its preparation may thus become a means of preventing those diseases that depend on or are aggravated by insufficient or improper food and consequent alcoholic excesses. The effect of alcohol upon the weak and savage races is much more marked and disastrous than upon the