Composition of the Human Body.
Not only does food supply the daily waste of the human body, but, as the body increases in size from birth to adult age, it is supplied with materials for this increase by the aid of food. In order, therefore, to understand the value of food from its composition, it is necessary to know the composition of the human body. Just as any other compound substance can be submitted to chemical analysis and the elements of which it consists ascertained, so can the composition of the human body be discovered. Such analyses of course become difficult in proportion to the complication of the body analysed, and only an approach to the true quantities in which the elements exist can be expected. In Case No. 1, Division A., the results of such an analysis have been attempted, and the quantities of each element entering into the composition of a human body weighing 11 stone or 154 pounds are (as far as possible) presented to the eye.
The following are the elements and their quantities:—