Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1881-08-18
The Value Of Instinct In Guiding the
Appetite.

instinct. as falStan says, is q
great matter" and it is curious and in
structive TO note how. in the absence of
scientific knowledge, it has guided the
human race in the selection and prepa-
ration of their food as well as such
knowledge could have guided them,
and in some cases even better. 1t has
sometimes been right when science for
the time was wrong, and the latter has
eventually had to acknowledge the mis-
take it had made. 1t is not many years
since the discovery was announced that
the bran of wheat has a high nutritive
value, and forthwith We were admon-
ished by dietetic refOrmers that fine
wheaton bread was not an economical
food for the workingman. But that I'M
scientific parsonage had learned to pre-
fer the fine white loaf to the coarse
brown one, and declined to be a con-
vert to the new theory. His scientific
brother naturally ascribed this to the
force of habit or prejudice, and was
very severe upon the obstinate waste
fitness of the poor in throwing away an
important part of their scanty fare.
But, as we now know, the instinct
thsht iVst VIC WI W sliCh W tuC
bread which the experience of many
generations had taught him to prefer
was right in its choice. The brown
bread did. indeed contain more nutri-
ment than the white, but in the process
of digestion the body got more nutri-
ment from the latter than the former.
The action of the bran particles on the
alimentary canal caused the coarse
bread to pass through it too rapidly.
and the loss in this way was greater
than the gain in the other Improved
processes now furnish us fine flour in
which the old waste of nutritious mate
rial is largely prevented; but even
under the old methods of milling, the
notion that ''white bread is the poor
mans food was correct. 1t was
brown bread that was the luxury, suited
to the dyspeptic rich man. but too dear
for the healthy and Woodworking poor
Science was too hasty in its first infer
ences. and has since learned that the
of food and its aptitude
for assimilation must be considered,
and not merely its chemical compost
ton.
Equally based upon sound principles
is the wOrkingman's liking for animal
food. Scientific men have demonstrated
that vegetable food contains essentially
the same nutritive matter, while it is a
good deal cheaper. They have ex-
planned that the fibrine of flesh has :,
very close analogy 20 the gluten of
wheat. ami is fitted to serve the same
purpose in nourishing the body. and so.
with animal fats and vegetable oils. and
the other leading constituents of the
two kinds OF diet; but the poor man
persists in spending as
much of his hard earnings for meat as
he can possibly afford. If he cannot
have the coveted food every day, he
will have it when he can, if only once a
week. an
Recent German investigations prove
that this preference for flesh has some
what the same economical arguments
in its favor as that for the fine bread in
with the coarse. Ii has
long been known that, as a general rule,
flesh is easier of digestion. and is there
lore more perfectly a>similated than
bread and other vegetable food. We
must consider not merely how much
lutriment each puts into the body, but
now much OF it remains there. and how
much is rejected as waste. Good au-
horities have stated that, if equal nu-
.rtive quantities of each are eaten, the
oss from the vegetable is twice As much
Is from the animal food; but it would
eem from these recent experiments
md analyses that the waste of nutri-
nent is often much greater in the case
If vegetables.-Joarust Of Chemistry.
In the swimming schools of Berlin
experiments have been made with
lew style of life-preserver. 1t is sort