therwise its price would be
higher than it is. It is at present sold at about 4d. or 5d. per pound,
sometimes even at a lower rate. Apart from the disgusting process of
"blowing" veal, so generally adopted, the use of this food is extremely
objectionable, owing to its great tendency to produce diarrhoea. To
the truth of this assertion every physician who has studied the subject
of dietetics can testify. I have analysed a specimen of it (purchased
from a person who admitted that it was part of a calf a day old), and
obtained the following results:--

100 parts contain--

Per cent.

Water 72.25
Fat 6.17
Lean flesh 18.46
Mineral matter 3.12
------
Total 100.00

I believe that a large portion of the lean flesh is indigestible; and
altogether I may safely say of this kind of meat that it is, especially
during the prevalence of cholera, an unsafe article of diet. Of course
these observations do not apply to _fed_ veal, the only kind which
respectable butchers, as a rule, offer for sale.

Young meat is richer in soluble albumen and poorer in fibrine and
fat than the matured flesh of the same animal. The flesh of the goat
contains _hircic_ acid, which renders it almost uneatable, but this
substance is either altogether absent from, or present but in minute
proportion in, the well-flavored meat of the kid. The flesh of game
contains abundance of osmazome, a substance which is somewhat deficient
in that of the domestic fowl.

Owing to the marked individuality which man exhibits in the selection of
his food, and to the intimate relationship subsisting between food and
the organism it nourishes, it is impossible to arrange the alimental
substances in the strict order of their nutritive values. You can bring
a horse to the water, but you cannot compel him to drink it; you can
swallow any kind of food you please, but you cannot force your stomach
to digest it. It is, therefore, vain to tell a man that a certain kind
of food is shown by chemical analysis to be nutritious, when his stomach
tells him unmistakeably that it is poisonous, and refuses to digest it.
In the matter of dietetics Nature is a safer guide than the chemist.
Many