The Healthy Life Part 19

"Vegetalism"[12] cannot pretend to play a similar part, or to lend itself to ambiguity. To be a "vegetalist" is to choose in the vegetable kingdom, with a justified preference, foods susceptible of filling the energy-producing needs, and the needs of the reparation of the human system.

"Vegetalism" is a chapter of dietetic physiology which must utilise the precise methods and recent discoveries of the science of nutrition.

[12] The word "Vegetarianism" implies a judgment of the qualities which such a diet entails. This word is derived, in fact, from the Latin adjective "Vegetus" (strong). The word "Vegetalism," which we oppose to the preceding one, admits only the establishing of a fact, that of the choice--exclusive or preferred--of the nutritious matters in the vegetable kingdom.

II

Before putting "vegetalism" into practice the first point is to know whether the foods of "vegetal" origin contain, and are susceptible of producing regularly, the divers nutritive principles indispensable to the organisation of an alimentary diet. The principles are the following:--Proteid or alb.u.minoid substances; hydrocarbonated and sweet substances fatty substances; mineral matters, alkalis, lime, magnesia, phosphates and chlorides, etc. In most compound foods, no matter of what origin, mineral materials almost always exist in sufficient quant.i.ties. The most important amongst them, at all events, are found combined in liberal, even superabundant, portions in dishes of vegetal origin. The a.n.a.lysis of the ashes of our most common table vegetables fixes us immediately to this subject: Leguminous plants supply from about three to six per cent. of ashes, rich in alkalis, lime and phosphates. Potatoes, green vegetables and fruit as a whole absorbing considerable quant.i.ties of mineral elements. These are the elements of a nature to allow a precise reply to this question which we propose to expound briefly.

III

In order to examine a food thoroughly, for the purpose of ascertaining if it can be advantageously introduced for consumption, whether alb.u.mins, fats, hydrate of carbon, or sugar, etc., or again an a.s.sociation of these principles in a composite article of food are in question, divers researches must be carried out before giving a final judgment.

If a more or less complex article of food is in question, before considering it as a good nutriment, its centesimal composition, or its immediate composition, should be established; its theoretic calorific power should be known, and it should be measured if this has not yet been done.

Besides the calorific yield thus estimated _in vitro_, the real utilisation in the human organism of articles of food alone or mixed with other foods should be determined, taking simultaneously into account their effects, whether tonic, stimulating or depressing.

From a different point of view it is no longer allowable to neglect before judging whether such and such a nutritive substance is advantageous, the valuation of what we have called, with Prof.

Landouzy, the economic yield--that is to say, the price of the energy, provided by the unity of weight of the article of food.

It is only in reviewing "vegetal" substances, taking these divers t.i.tles into consideration, that we shall be justified in attributing to the practice of "vegetalism," integral or mitigated, its definite value.

IV

Only a few years ago, when Schutzenberger, emulator and forerunner of Fischer, Armand Gautier, Kossel, first disjointed the alb.u.minoid molecule, to examine one by one its divers parts, the composition of the various alb.u.mins was very little known. Whether, therefore, alb.u.mins of the blood, or those of meat or eggs, were in question, these bodies were hardly ever separated, except through physical circ.u.mstances, amongst others by constant quant.i.ties of different coagulation. As to the centesimal formula and the intimate structure of the different protoid substances, they could be considered as closely brought together.

From this fact, the physiological problem of the utilisation of alb.u.min was simpler. No matter which article of food contained this alb.u.min, its nutritive power by unity of weight remained the same. At the present time the number of alb.u.mins is no longer limited. It is not now physical characteristics founded difficult separations which arbitrarily distinguish those bodies from each other. The individuality of each of the alb.u.mins results from its formula of deterioration, under the influence of digestive ferments, or of chemical bodies acting in a similar way, as do mineral acids and alkalis. For want of const.i.tuary formula this methodical deterioration makes known the number of molecules (acids or other bodies) which are responsible for the structure of each alb.u.min. These deleterious formula of proteid matter are not less suggestive than composition ones. They reveal notable differences between "vegetal" and animal alb.u.mins.

To be sure, animal alb.u.mins (beef, veal, mutton, pork, etc.) which we are offered in an alimentary flesh diet, resemble more nearly the structure of our own bodily alb.u.mins than do the gluten of bread or the alb.u.min of vegetables. This fact seems actually the best support of the theory which affirms the superiority of the flesh over the vegetable diet. Such a remark is therefore well worth discussing by showing that the consequences which can be deduced from it are paradoxical, and rest upon hypothesis which, not very acceptable in theory, are hardly verified in practice.

Admitting that alb.u.min plays in alimentary diet only the plastic part of reconstruction of used-up corporal matter, it might be advantageous to ingest but one alb.u.min the composition of which is very similar to our own. By virtue of the law of least effort such a one in equal weights ought to be of more service than a foreign alb.u.min, as it requires less organic work. For man, alb.u.min of animal origin ought to be more profitable in equal weight than vegetable alb.u.min. In the organism, indeed, alb.u.min pa.s.ses through a double labour. After the intestinal deterioration, followed by a pa.s.sage through the digestive mucus membrane, a re-welding of the liberated acids takes place, with a formation of new alb.u.min.

If, therefore, alimentary alb.u.min's mission is, not to be definitely burnt up in the organism, but to help in the plastication of the individual, the more its initial formula approaches the definite one to which it must attain, the more profitable it becomes, giving out less useless fragments and waste. Animal alb.u.min approaching more nearly to human alb.u.min, is also the one whose introduction into the daily alimentary diet is most rational. This statement seems to be the defeat of vegetal alb.u.min. But let there be no mistake. It consecrates at the same time the triumph of anthropophagy, for there could not be for man a more profitable alb.u.min than his own, or that of his fellow-man! This should make us pause and reflect, before allowing this deduction to be accepted.

Besides, these arguments _ad hominem_ do not appear to us necessary for repelling such an interpretation of facts. Modern works have shown us that the greater proportion of ingested alb.u.min played, in fact, a calorific, and not a plastic, part. Under these conditions one is justified in doubting whether there takes place with regard to the total alb.u.mins ingested a work of reconstruction thus complicated in the organism, after their first deterioration. Evidently one may come to believe that this complicated labour applies only to the more or less feeble portion of alb.u.min really integrated.

Practically speaking, the best criterion for judging the utilisation of an ingested alb.u.min lies in the persistence of the corporal weight, allied to the ascertained fact of a stable equilibrium in the total azotized balance-sheet which is provided by the comparison of the "Ingesta" with the "Excreta." From this point of view there exists the closest similitude between the alb.u.mins of animal and those of vegetable origin; both, in fact, are capable of a.s.suring good health and corporal and cellular equilibrium.

However, the digestibility of vegetable alb.u.mins seems to remain slightly inferior to that of animal alb.u.mins. 97 per cent. of the animal fibrine given in a meal are digested, where 88 to 90 per cent.

only of vegetable alb.u.mins are absorbed and utilised. It is a small difference, but not one to be overlooked. We must say, however, that the method one employs in determining these digestibilities takes from them a part of their value, and renders difficult the comparison of results obtained. Sensibly pure alb.u.mins are too often compared in an artificial diet. One deviates thus from the conditions of practical physiology. In fact, in ordinary meals, all varieties of foods are mixed together, acting and reacting upon each other, reciprocally modifying their digestibility. If one conforms to this way of acting towards alimentary alb.u.mins, the results change sensibly. In the presence of an excess of starch, under the shape of bread, for example, vegetable alb.u.min seems to be absorbed in about the same proportions as animal alb.u.min.

If, in a flesh diet, animal alb.u.mins are always consumed nearly pure (lean meat containing hardly anything but alb.u.min, besides a little fat, and an inferior quant.i.ty of glycogen) vegetable alb.u.min is always, on the contrary, mixed with a number of other substances. This is doubtless one of the reasons which causes the digestibility of vegetable alb.u.mins to vary, the foreign nutritive matters being able to bring about, under certain circ.u.mstances, and in cases of superabundant ingestions, a real alb.u.minous "saving" in the newest sense of the word.

Besides, a prejudicial question makes the debate almost vain. When it was admitted by such physiologists as Voit, Rubner and their school that from 140 to 150 grammes of alb.u.min in the minimum were daily necessaries in the human diet, a variation of a few units in the digestive power presented some importance. Nowadays the real utility of alb.u.mins is differently appreciated. The need of them seems to have been singularly exaggerated; first lowered to about 75 gr. by A.

Gautier, it has dropped successively with Lapicque, Chittenden, Landergreen, Morchoisne and Labbe, by virtue of considerations both ethnological and physiological, to 50 grs., 30 grs. and even to 25 or 20 grammes. The "nutritive relation"--that is to say, the yield from alb.u.minoid matters to the total nutritive matters of diet--is thus brought down from 1/3 its primitive value to 1/15 or 1/20 at most. It follows that the slight inferiority found in the digestive powers of vegetable alb.u.min appears unimportant. It is sufficient to add 2 or 3 more grammes of alb.u.min to a ration already superabundant of from 40 to 50 grammes of vegetable proteins to bring back a complete equilibrium in the use of vegetable and animal varieties. The theoretical inferiority of vegetable alb.u.min thus almost completely disappears.

H. LABBE.

(_To be continued._)

* * * * *

If your system has become clogged, go slow--and fast.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND.

O Wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being, Thou from whose unseen presence the leaves dead Are driven like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing, Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red, Pestilence-stricken mult.i.tudes! O thou Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low, Each like a corpse within its grave, until Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air) With living hues and odours plain and hill Wild Spirit which art moving everywhere; Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh hear!

Thou on whose stream, 'mid the steep sky's commotion, Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed, Shook from the tangled boughs of heaven and ocean, Angels of rain and lightning! there are spread On the blue surface of thine airy surge, Like the bright hair uplifted from the head Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge Of the horizon to the zenith's height, The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge Of the dying year, to which this closing night Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre, Vaulted with all thy congregated might Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere Black rain, and fire, and hail, will burst: Oh hear!

Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams The blue Mediterranean, where he lay, Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams, Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay, And saw in sleep old palaces and towers Quivering within the wave's intenser day, All overgrown with azure moss, and flowers So sweet the sense faints picturing them! Thou For whose path the Atlantic's level powers Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear The sapless foliage of the ocean know Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear, And tremble and despoil themselves: Oh, hear!

If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear; If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee; A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share The impulse of thy strength, only less free Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even I were as in my boyhood, and could be The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven, As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed Scarce seemed a vision,--I would ne'er have striven As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.

Oh lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed One too like thee--tameless, and swift, and proud.

Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is: What if my leaves are falling like its own?

The tumult of thy mighty harmonies Will take from both a deep autumnal tone, Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce, My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe, Like withered leaves, to quicken a new birth; And, by the incantation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!

Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

PERCY BYSSHE Sh.e.l.lEY.

WHAT MAKES A HOLIDAY?

What is it makes a holiday? Some people want Paris, some Monte Carlo, one man cannot be satisfied without big game to hunt, another must have a grouse moor. The student has his sailing boat, the young wage-earner his bicycle, three girl friends look forward to their week in a Hastings boarding-house. Almost anything may be "a change"; most things, to someone or other, are "a holiday." What does it all mean?

The sands of West Suss.e.x are wide and free, firm and smooth for walking with bare feet, lovely with little sh.e.l.ls and sea-worm curves and ripple marks and the pits of razor-sh.e.l.ls. Above them are the slopes of shingle, gleaming with all colours in the September sun.

Farther up again, the low, brown crumbling cliffs crowned with green wreaths of tamarisk. The sea comes creeping up, or else the wind raises great white breakers; if the waves are quiet, old breakwaters, long ago broken themselves, smashed fragments here and there of concrete protections put by man, gaps in the cliff and changes in the coast-line, remind us of the vast force behind the gentle and persistent lap of water. The beach itself reminds us of it; there a flint and here a rounded pebble made out of brick or gla.s.s, worn down from man's rubbish to sea's proof of power.

Over it all are the children, brown-legged and bare-headed. (Is it something in the weather this year that has given us the particular red-brown, suggestive of shrimp and lobster, that is the colour-vintage of 1913?) Babies with oilskin waders, bathers, girls in vividly coloured coats walking along the sands; all make up the picture and give us once again the thrill of holiday.

Inland, the Suss.e.x lanes are green and the trees are broad and shady.

Thatched cottages are everywhere, and barns with heavy brows; yesterday I saw some pots put for shelter from the sun under the far-projecting thatch of a farmhouse. The gardens are full of sun-flowers and hollyhocks, fuchsia and golden rod; the walls are covered with jasmine and pa.s.sion-flowers. Old, old churches make us feel like day-flies. The yew in the churchyard five minutes' walk from here is said to be 900 years old; the church itself is thirteenth century, but into its walls were built fragments of a former church, far older, on the same site. It carries us more than half-way back to the foundation of Christianity. Dim tales of heathen earls and Norman kings hang around the villages, and the very floor of the sea beyond the land is richly laden with stores of half-forgotten memories.

Which of all these things makes these days my holiday?