The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-09

the organ not requiring so much to fill it, can get along with less than the nor maj diet for a while without complain ing. A trouble about condensed foods is that soldiers are apt to eat too much of them, not realizing their concentra- tion. l have known men to devour a quantity of compressed wheat-cake and then drink lot of water, the result be- ing very distressing. Foods may be ar ranged for a field ration so that the fighting man will have the exact amounts of all the elements required for the support of life, and yet certain things will be missing whose absence brings disease and death. A percent age of indigestible matter is necessary for the digestive organs to work upon. If the concentrated food be a powder or a liquid, no solids being furnished, a law is violated There is no chewing, and without mastication saliva, which is one of the most important digestive fluids, is not secreted and poured into the stomach. A human being ordinari- ly will secrete from a quart to three pints of saliva, mostly at meal-times, in l twenty-four hours. The soldier fed on liquids only will suffer from diarrhoea and collie.
 "Stlmulants are necessary to soldiers. They keep up their cheerfulness and en- able them to endure fatigue and prlva- tions, Depressed troops do not fight well. Accordingly, tea and coffee are l included in emergency ratons, It seems not unlikely that the kola nut may be used for military purposes, on | account of it's wonderful power asa stim
 ulant, reviving the Exhausted, mitiga- | ting hunger and thirst, and enabling men to do much more work. It acts in an exaggerated manner like tea or cof- l fee, without producing any subsequent reaction or bad effects. Its employ
 ment would be a great help in forced marches. South American Indians use | the cocoa leaf for this purpose on long
 marches without food across the pam | pas; but the cocoa is dangerous The l kola is equally efficient and is harmless 1 Already experiments have been made | in the French army with so-called ac- celebrating rations, composed of kola lnuts, flour and sugar in cakes. But l they proved a failure because they
 were made from worthless dried nuts.
 '"The kola nut, to be worth anything
 must be fresh Before long, doubtless 1 it will be a common commercial article
 It is successfully cultivated in the West
 Indies and along the adjacent shores of South and Central America, where | it is consumed in immense quantities almost replacing tea, coffee and alec. 1 hol It is the fruit of a large tree, and is l about as big as a h0rse-ehestnut, grow.
 ing in pods of three to eleven nuts in g pod. Undoubtedly the tree would grow
 in southern California, and very likely | it might be cultivated in the Gull | States. Chewing the nut stimulates
 the brain and acts as a tonic on the
 muscles. Its peculiar action is due to 2
 specific alkaloid called "lkolanin,'
 which has not yet been isolated In 2
 pure state. In military life the use o1
 the kola would be limited to rare occa sions, as in forced marches or just be
 fore a battle Iftw equal armies face
 each other and one, by the help of the
 kola, can do one-tenth more than the
 other, it will be successful, other thing! being equal, For, if there are two hun
 dred and fifty thousand men engaged
 on each side, the effect will be the same
 as a reinforcement of twenty-five thou
 sand mens"