on.

160 gallons of his soup No. 6 (a fish soup) would give sufficient
nutriment to 700 such children for one day. Its price was only
1-3/4d. the gallon.[249]

So that the famous cook of the Reform Club did not know the comparative
nutritive qualities of his own soups.

But a still greater came on the scene in the person of Sir Henry Marsh,
the Queen's physician, and long at the head of his profession in this
country. He published a pamphlet of some ten pages, not for the purpose
of finding fault with M. Soyer or his soups, but evidently to set the
public right on the question of food, as they seemed to have taken up
the idea that there resided some hidden power in the cook's receipt,
distinct from the ingredients he used. Sir Henry thus deals with soup
food:--

"A soft semi-liquid diet will maintain the life and health of children,
and in times of scarcity will be sufficient for those adults whose
occupations are sedentary, and is best suited to those who are reduced
by and recovering from a wasting disease. Such persons stand in no need
of the more abundant and more substantial nutriment which is essential
to those who are daily engaged in occupations exacting much muscular
labour. In the preparation and distribution of food, this I believe to
be an important point, and one which should be held steadily in view.
For the labourer the food must be in part solid, requiring mastication
and insalivation, and not rapid of digestion. Food, however nutritious,
which is too quickly digested, is soon followed by a sense of hunger and
emptiness, and consequent sinking and debility. Food of this description
is unsuited to the labourer. It will not maintain strength, nor will it
maintain health, and, if long persevered in, it will be followed by some
one or other of the prevailing diseases which result immediately from
deficient, imperfect, and impoverished blood."

Again:--

"Our attention must not be too exclusively directed to soups and other
semi-liquid articles of food. These pass away too rapidly from the
stomach, are swallowed too hastily, and violate a natural law in
superseding the necessity of mastication, and a proper admixture with
the salivary secretion. Restricted to such food the carnivora cannot
maintain life; nor can man, being half carnivorous, if laboriously
employed, long preserve health and strength on food of such
character.... Food, to be at once sustaining to the labourer, and
prevent