Cooley's Cyclopaedia of Practical Receipts Volume Ii Part 73

The milk of woman varies with the food, health, age, &c., of the nurse.

That produced from a mixed animal and vegetable diet, neither acesces nor coagulates spontaneously, like cows' milk; and when gently evaporated in an open vessel, "the last drop continues thin, sweet, and bland." Acids and rennet, however, coagulate it readily, and so does the gastric juice of the infant, as shown by the condition in which it is often ejected by the latter. The milk of a woman who lives wholly on vegetable food acesces and coagulates with equal readiness and in a precisely similar manner to cows' milk. The quality of the milk also varies with the progress of the digestion. Within the first hour or two after a meal it is thin and serous, and then gradually improves in richness and flavour, until at about the fourth or fifth hour it possesses these qualities in the highest degree. This, then, is the period at which the infant should be applied to the breast, which, according to the present habits of society, would be during the hour immediately preceding each meal, except the breakfast.

After about the fifth or sixth hour the milk gradually loses its peculiar colour and odour, until towards the tenth or twelfth hour after eating food it becomes yellowish, bitter, and often nauseous; and in this condition is frequently refused by the infant. This points out the impropriety of a nurse fasting longer than 4 to 5 hours, except during the night, when the period may be extended to 7 or 8 hours, but never longer.

The time after accouchement is another matter that influences the character of human milk in respect of its wholesomeness for the infant.

The milk secreted soon after delivery is very thin and serous, but in the course of a few days it becomes thicker, richer, and more nutritious; and a gradual change in the same direction proceeds during the usual period of suckling. When the mother suckles her own infant, or the "age of the milk," as the nurses say, corresponds to that of the child, all goes on well; but when the former much exceeds the latter, the reverse is the case. Thus, it is found that an infant is incapable of completely digesting the milk of a nurse whose own child is much older than itself; and that an infant of a few weeks old will often starve on the milk intended by nature for one several times its age. It is, therefore, necessary, in selecting a wet-nurse, to be certain that her condition, in this respect, closely corresponds to that of the mother of the infant, or that it does not differ, on this point, more than 3 or 4 weeks. In respect of the use of high-flavoured or improper food and beverages, medicine, &c., it appears that all these substances immediately affect the milk, and impart to it more or less of their peculiar flavour and properties; and, except with remedies administered under medical advice, in nearly all cases prove injurious to the infant. The diet of a nurse should be nutritious and succulent, and its healthy digestion should be promoted by exercise and pure air. Strong liquors, more especially spirits, act like slow poisons on the infant, and their habitual use by a nurse should, therefore, be considered as a positive disqualification for the duties of her office. The care of the mother or wet-nurse should be particularly directed to the maintenance of her own health and equanimity, by which both the health and good temper of the infant will be, as far as possible, ensured. A grieving, irritable, or angry mother forces her bad qualities on her offspring, in the shape of fits, convulsions, or hopeless marasmus.

See INFANCY, MILK, INFANTS, FOOD FOR, &c.

=NUT'MEG.= _Syn._ MYRISTICae NUCLEUS, NUCISTA, NUX MOSCHATA, N. MYRISTICA, N. AROMATICA, MYRISTICA (B. P., Ph. L.), L. "The sh.e.l.led seed of _Myristica officinalis_ (Linn.; _M. moschata_--Thunberg),or nutmeg-tree."

It is chiefly used as a spice and condiment, but it is also esteemed as an aromatic in flatulency and diarrha.--_Dose_. Half a teaspoonful, or more, grated. The distilled and expressed oils (OLEUM MYRISTICae) are also officinal.

Of the different varieties of nutmegs met with in commerce, those known as Penang are the most valuable. Next to these rank the Dutch or Batavian kind, and after these the Singapore nutmegs. In the Dutch or Batavian variety the exterior is composed of a number of white furrows, with brown projections, which aspect is caused by their having been dusted over with lime previous to their exportation. Besides the above, there is also a very inferior description, known as the long or wild nutmeg, which are met with either in the sh.e.l.l, out of the sh.e.l.l, or in the sh.e.l.l with the mace attached.

Nutmegs are subject to the ravages of a worm which would seem to devour or destroy their aromatic principle, since when attacked by this parasite they lose both their odour and taste.

In 100 parts sound nutmegs contain--

Volatile oil 60 Liquid fat 76 Solid fat 240 Acid 08 Starch 24 Gum 12 Ligneous fibre 540 Loss 40 ------ 1000 (BONASTRE.)

=NUTRI"TION.= The phenomena of life are accompanied by the constant and unceasing waste of the materials of which the animal body is composed.

Every act of volition, every exertion of muscular power, every functional action of the organism, whether perceptible or imperceptible and involuntary, every play of chemical affinity and decomposition, even thought itself, occasions the disorganisation and destruction, as living matter, of a portion of ourselves. But the process of respiration, and the various important changes with which it is connected, tends, more than all the other vital functions, to waste the substance of the body, the temperature of which it is its special office to support. This loss, this change, which commences with life and terminates only with death, is compensated for by the constant renewal of the whole frame by the deposition and a.s.similation, or organisation, of matter from the blood, which thus becomes gradually thinner and impoverished, unless, in its turn, it receives a corresponding supply of its vital elements. This it does from the food, which, by the functions of digestion, is converted into a 'chyle,' and after being taken up by the 'lacteals,' pa.s.ses into the blood, of which it then becomes a part, and after being animalised and rendered similar to the being it is destined to nourish, by the peculiar action of the vital affinities, it attaches itself to those organs or tissues, the loss of which it is intended to supply. This const.i.tutes nutrition.

The food of animals, or, rather, the nutritious portion of that food on which we live, is wholly organic matter, and is either directly or indirectly produced by the powers of vegetation from the inorganic world.

The plant elaborates food for the herbivora, and these, in their turn, serve as food for the flesh-eating animals. In both cases the leading alimentary principles are the same; the difference is in their proportions. Flesh is identical in composition with blood, and with the body of the animal that blood is destined to nourish. It abounds in alb.u.men, casein, and fibrin. The vegetable substances used as food also contain nitrogenised principles of a precisely similar character and chemical const.i.tution to those found in flesh, and which we are, therefore, bound to believe are absolutely the same. The gluten of wheat, when purified from gliadin, presents all the characteristics of pure fibrin. The alb.u.men extracted from vegetable juices, when coagulated by heat, cannot be distinguished from the boiled white of egg in a divided condition. The legumen or vegetable casein of almonds, peas, beans, and many of the oily seeds, bears the most striking resemblance to the casein of milk. These facts clearly show that the leading nitrogenised principles of animal bodies pre-exist in vegetables, and that the substances employed as food must have the same, or nearly the same, chemical composition as the body itself. The striking contrast of animal and vegetable food, as far as this point is concerned, is more apparent than real. The actual difference between the two is to be found in the existence of a large quant.i.ty of non-nitrogenised matter (sugar, starch, &c.) in the last, which is not contained in the other--matter which abounds in carbon, and which, by its combustion in the system, serves to support the animal heat at a less sacrifice of the organic fabric. In the flesh-eating animal the waste of the organic tissues is very rapid, and the tax upon the vital energies proportionate; for the temperature of its body is kept up, for the most part, by the burning of the nitrogenised matter of which these tissues are composed.

The process of digestion is that by which the available portions of the food are reduced to a form adapted for absorption by the vessels by which it is introduced into the system. In the flesh-eating animal this process is extremely simple, and consists in the mere comminution of the food by the teeth, and its reduction to the liquid state in the stomach, after which, from the nature of its composition, it is nearly all taken up, and at once conveyed into the blood. In the herbivora, however, the process of digestion is much more complicated, and occupies a longer period. Besides the ordinary principles of flesh, their food contains starch, sugar, gum, &c., mixed with much inert vegetable fibre and other useless substances, from which it must be separated. The first of these supply materials for the waste and growth of the body, the second meet the requirements of respiration, and the last pa.s.s unaltered through the alimentary ca.n.a.l.

The nature of the digestive process is not clearly established. The princ.i.p.al objects effected appear to be the conversion of starch, coagulated alb.u.men, fibrin, casein, &c., into a liquid form. It is known that the saliva contains a peculiar principle (ptyalin) resembling diastase, capable of trans.m.u.ting starch into sugar, and that when a little starch is held in the mouth for a short time this change actually occurs.

It is also known that the gastric juice contains a peculiar organic principle named 'pepsin,' and that this substance, in conjunction with dilute hydrochloric acid, which is likewise present in the stomach, possesses the property of dissolving the alb.u.minous principles of food.

(See PEPSIN.) These changes occur whenever these conditions are established out of the body, and hence it is inferred that the process of digestion is effected by similar means. Of this, however, there is no direct evidence.

The use of food, as already noticed, is twofold. It supplies the materials of nutrition to balance the waste of the tissues continually taking place in the body, and it conveys into the system those elements which, by their chemical combinations, produce heat. To effect this purpose in the most beneficial manner, the food should not only be sufficient in quant.i.ty, but the proportions of its nitrogenised and carbonaceous principles should bear such relations to each other as to amply meet the demands of the system for each, without the existence, however, of an undue excess of either.

When the muscular movements of a healthy animal are restrained, a genial temperature kept up, and an ample supply of food containing much amylaceous or oily matter given, an acc.u.mulation of fat in the system rapidly takes place; this is well seen in the case of stall-fed cattle. On the other hand, when food is deficient, and much exercise is taken, emaciation results. These effects are ascribed to differences in the activity of the respiratory function. In the first instance, the heat-food is supplied faster than it is consumed, and hence acc.u.mulates in the form of fat; in the second, the conditions are reversed, and the creature is kept in a state of leanness by its rapid consumption. The fat of an animal appears to be the provision of nature for the maintenance of life during a certain period under circ.u.mstances of privation. Hence it is that a lean animal suffers more from cold than a fat one, and is also sooner starved.

"The origin of fat in the animal body has recently been made the subject of much animated discussion; on the one hand, it was contended that satisfactory evidence exists of the conversion of starch and saccharine substances into fat, by separation of carbon and oxygen, the change somewhat resembling that of the vinous fermentation; it was argued, on the other side, that oily or fatty matter is invariably present in the food supplied to the domestic animals, and that this fat is merely absorbed and deposited in the body in a slightly modified state. The question has now been decided in favour of the first of these views, which was enunciated by Professor Liebig, by the very chemist who formerly advocated the second opinion. By a series of very beautiful experiments, MM. Dumas and Milne-Edwards proved that bees exclusively feeding upon sugar were still capable of producing wax, which was pointed out as a veritable fact."

Professor Liebig divided the principles found in food into two cla.s.ses:--plastic elements of nutrition, or flesh-and-blood-making principles; and elements of respiration, or those which, by their decomposition or combustion in the system, generate heat. They are as follows:--

_Elements of Nutrition._ _Elements of Respiration._ (Plastic or Nitrogenous.) (Heat-producing.) -------- -------- Animal flesh Fat Blood Starch Vegetable alb.u.men Gum Vegetable casein Cane sugar Vegetable fibrin Grape sugar Milk sugar Pectin sugar Alcohol

This division is in the main warranted by fact, but, no doubt, the nitrogenous elements of food produce heat as well as the non-nitrogenous.

=NUX VOMICA.= _Syn._ KOOCHLA NUT, POISON N., VOMIT N.; NUCES VOMICae, NUX VOMICA (B. P., Ph., L., E., & D.), L. "The seed of _Strychnos Nux vomica_, Linn." (Ph. L.), imported from the East Indies (B. P.). This drug is chiefly known as a violent excitant of the cerebro-spinal system. In small doses, frequently repeated, it is tonic, diuretic, and, occasionally, laxative; in slightly larger ones, it is emetic; and, in large doses, it is an energetic and fearful poison.--_Dose_, 1 to 3 gr.; in paralysis, nervous affections, impotence, chronic dysentery, chronic diarrha, &c.

Its frequent use is said to render the system proof against the poison of serpents. See STRYCHNINE, its active principle.

=OAK.= The British oak is the _Quercus Robur_ of Linnaeus, of which there are two varieties, _Q. peduncata_ and _Q. sessiflora_. The wood of the oak is more durable than that of any other tree, and "for at once supporting a weight, resisting a strain, and not splintering by a cannon shot, it is superior to every other kind." It, nevertheless, "warps and twists much in drying; and, in seasoning, shrinks about 1-32nd of its width." Foreign oak is less durable, but more brittle and workable. The bark (OAK BARK; QUERCS CORTEX, QUERCUS--B. P., Ph. L., E., & D.) is used as an astringent and febrifuge, in doses of 30 to 120 gr., frequently; an astringent decoction is also made of it, but its chief employment is in tanning leather. The peculiar appearance of old oak or 'wainscoting' is given to the new wood by exposing it, whilst very slightly damp, to the fumes of ammonia.

=OAT.= _Syn._ AVENA, L. The common cultivated oat is the _Avena sativa_ (Linn.), a graminaceous plant, of which there are several varieties, as the _Avena sativa alba_, or white oat; _A. s. nigra_, or black oat; the potato oat, &c. Other species are also cultivated, as _Avena nuda_ (Linn.), pilcorn, or naked oat; _A. strigosa_, or Spanish oat, &c. The seed (OATS; CARYOPSIDES, SEMINA AVENae CRUDA) form the common horse-corn of this country, but in the northern parts of the country it is extensively used as food for man. The husked grain const.i.tutes GROATS, and its meal OATMEAL. The latter does not form a dough with water, as wheaten meal or flour does.

Oats consist of from 24% to 28% of husk, and 74% to 78% of grain.

According to M. Payen, they contain of starch, 6059%; azotised matter, 1439%; saccharine and gummy matter, 925%; fatty matter, 550%; cellulose, 760%; silica and saline matter, 325%. The husks contain between 6 and 7% of saline matter. (Prof. Norton.) The ash amounts to 218%, and consists of pota.s.sa and soda, 2618%; lime, 595%; magnesia, 995%; oxide of iron, 40%; phosphoric acid, 4384%; sulphuric acid, 1045%; chlorine,26%; silica, 267%; alumina, 06%. (Johnston.)

The yield of oats is from 20 bushels per acre in poor soils, up to 60, 70, and even 80 bushels per acre in rich soils. The weight per bushel varies from 35 to 45 lbs., and the product in meal is about one half the weight of the oats.

[Ill.u.s.tration: White oat--Long, sect., 2nd and 3rd coats not separable.

_a._ Compound grains x 100; _b._ One do. x 500.]

A large proportion of the oats given to horses pa.s.ses off undigested. It has hence been proposed to prevent this loss, by either coa.r.s.ely bruising them in a mill, or by pouring boiling water over them, and allowing them to macerate till cold, when they are to be given to the horses without straining off the water. It is stated on good authority that oats thus treated will not only fatten quicker, but go twice as far as without preparation. Oat bruisers are now manufactured by most agricultural implement makers.

Under the microscope the oat is seen to consist of two or three envelopes; the outer being composed of longitudinal cells; the second obliquely transverse and not very clearly seen; in this, the cells are wanting in part or pa.s.s into the cells of the third coat; the third envelope consists of a layer, usually single, of cells, like wheat. Before the envelopes are searched for the husks must be removed. The starch-cells are small, many sided, and cohere into round composite bodies, which are very characteristic, and which, by pressure, may be divided into separate grains. A high power is necessary for the examination of these latter. The starch of the oat does not polarise light.

=OAT'MEAL.= _Syn._ AVENae FARINA, F. EX SEMINIBUS AVENae (Ph. D), L.

Oatmeal is the grain of the oat deprived of the skin, kiln-dried, and afterwards ground. It is regarded as one of the most nutritious of our cereals, being rich in nitrogenous matter, fat, starch, and sugar.

According to Letheby it contains in 100 parts:--

Nitrogenous matter 126 Carbo-hydrates 638 Fatty matter 56 Saline matter 30 Water 150 ------ 1000

Kreusler has shown that the nitrogenous principle of oatmeal contains gluten-casein, a substance very similar to the legumin of peas and beans.

Letheby points out that, although it contains more nutrient material than wheat, its higher price renders it less economical as an article of diet.

Oatmeal forms the staple of the food of the farm labourer both in Scotland and in England, being consumed more largely by the Scotch than the English peasant. Scotch oatmeal is superior to English in nutritive value.

Oatmeal, when mixed with water, does not possess sufficient tenacity to enable it to be made into bread. It can, however, be baked into excellent cakes, which, when made in Yorkshire, are leavened, and when in Scotland, unleavened.

The qualities of indigestibility and a tendency to produce irritability of the bowels and skin, have been ascribed to oatmeal; before it was so prepared as to effectually remove from it the husk and hairs by efficient screening, it was in Scotland a frequent source of intestinal concretion.

These concretions, the nature of which was unravelled by Dr Wollaston, consisted princ.i.p.ally of phosphate of lime mixed with the hairs and husks of the oat.

Of thirty samples of oatmeal examined by the 'Lancet Sanitary Commissioner,' no fewer than sixteen samples, or more than one half, were adulterated. The substance generally used for this purpose is barley meal, which is only half the price of oatmeal. Husks of barley, wheat, and of the oat itself, are also frequently used. Rice and maize are also sometimes added. That supplied to the army, navy, and the workhouses, was very commonly adulterated with whiting, plaster of Paris, or ground bones.

The mineral sophisticant may be detected by the excess of ash, which should not exceed 236 per cent. These frauds are readily detected by the microscope.

_Grits_ or _Groats_ are the decorticated grain of the oat, which when bruised or crushed const.i.tute Embden groats. Flummery (known in Scotland as _sowans_) is made by steeping the husks of the grain in water, until they become slightly sour, the strained liquid being boiled down to the consistence of gruel. Oatmeal soon becomes sour and rancid. It should be purchased at such shops as have a quick sale for it. See ACARI, STIR-ABOUT.

=OBE"SITY.= _Syn._ OBESITAS, POLYSARCA, L. Unhealthy or troublesome fatness or corpulency. Sometimes the secretion of fat, and its acc.u.mulation in the adipose membrane, is almost as rapid as that of water in anasarca; on which account some of the old writers have called obesity a dropsy of fat. Persons in easy circ.u.mstances, of indolent habits, who live freely, and who are of a cheerful and contented deposition, are those most liable to obesity. The treatment consists in the very gradual reduction of the diet, until it falls rather below the average quant.i.ty required by a healthy adult; the very gradual disuse of fermented liquors, more especially beer; the gradual abridgment of the time devoted to repose, until it does not exceed 5 or 6 hours; the employment of several hours daily in exercise in the open air, at first moderate, but increased day by day in energy, until it becomes laborious; and, lastly, arousing the mind from a state of lethargy to one of active or even hara.s.sing employment.

In some cases the acc.u.mulation of fat has been enormous. Bright, of Maldon, weighed 728 lbs.; Daniel Lambert, of Leicester, 739 lbs.; a girl, 4 years old, noticed in the 'Phil. Trans.,' 1813, weighed 256 lbs.

Persons affected with obesity are generally short-lived.

=OBSTRUCTION OF LOCAL AUTHORITY.= Various penalties are mentioned in different sections of the Public Health Act for the offence of obstructing officers, &c., representing the local authority, in carrying out the Act.

The following section, which we select, deals with the subject generally:--

Sec. 306. "Any person who wilfully obstructs any member of the local authority, or any person duly employed in the execution of this Act, or who destroys, pulls down, injures, or defaces any board on which any bye-law, notice, or other matter is inscribed, shall, if the same was put up by authority of the Local Government Board or of the local authority, be liable for every such offence to a penalty not exceeding 5.

"Where the occupier of any premises prevents the owner thereof from obeying or carrying into effect any of the provisions of this Act, any justice, to whom application is made in this behalf, shall by order in writing require such occupier to permit the execution of any works required to be executed, provided that the same appear to such justice to be necessary for the purpose of obeying or carrying into effect the provisions of this Act; and if within 24 hours after the making of the order such occupier fails to comply therewith, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding 5 for every day during the continuance of such non-compliance.

"If the occupier of any premises, when requested by or on behalf of the local authority to state the name of the owner of the premises occupied by him, refuses or wilfully omits to disclose, or wilfully misstates the same, he shall (unless he shows cause to the satisfaction of the court for his refusal) be liable to a penalty not exceeding 5."

=O'CHRES.= These are native earthy compounds of clay, coloured with oxide of iron, with frequently a little chalk, or magnesia. The differences in the colour arise partly from the quant.i.ty of iron present, and partly from the state of oxidation in which the iron is found. Several varieties are known in commerce--BROWN OCHRE, FRENCH O., OXFORD O., RED O., ROMAN O., YELLOW O. All these, with the exception of the first and fourth, have a yellow colour. ARMENIAN BOLE, INDIAN RED, VENETIAN R., and SPANISH BROWN, are also ochres.

All the ochres are darkened by calcination. The yellow ochres acquire a red or reddish-brown colour by this treatment. The pigment called 'light red' is thus prepared from yellow ochre.