SAUCES FOR MEAT.

FOOD AND NUTRITION IN DISEASE.

A physician, writing to the New York Medical Journal, says the chemical composition of the body is quite similar to the composition of the foods which nourish it. Protein, fats, carbohydrates, mineral salts, and water are the compounds we need in our foods, and they are found in flesh foods and vegetables. Protein, the most important element, is derived principally from meat, eggs, and milk. It is also furnished by some vegetables, as beans, peas, and the gluten of wheat; but in these it is mixed with too much extraneous matter, as husks, bulbs, woody fiber, etc., to be useful in the diet of the sick. Extractives, as beef-tea, are included in the nitrogen compounds, but they neither build tissue nor furnish energy; they are appetizers and stimulants. Animal and vegetable fats are useful; these are found in meat, fish, milk, eggs, some cereals, olives, and nuts. The carbohydrates include sugars, starches, cellulose, and the fibers of plants. Potatoes, sago, farina, and arrowroot are rich in them. Fats should be used with caution in disease, because they retard the formation of hydrochloric acid, which excites the pancreatic secretion, an important factor in digestion. Man can live better without a stomach than without a pancreas. Physicians realize that they must rely on diet rather than drugs to cure indigestion, as the food varies in its proportion of fat, protein, and carbohydrates; the digestive juices are poured out or repressed and altered in strength and quantity.

Milk is not an ideal food for the sick, too large a quantity being required, and the large curds it forms in the stomach often rendering digestion difficult. Boiled with rice it forms an excellent diet.

In acute diseases lasting from four to six weeks no great effort should be made at forced feeding. Thin soups, flooding the stomach with unnutritious fluids, should be avoided. It is unnatural to take food during physical or mental suffering. Appetite is wanting, and imperfect assimilation adds to the physician’s worries and the patient’s discomforts. When there is no appetite the digestive juices are absent. Feed a convalescent when, through conversation about some dainty dish, interest is aroused and saliva is secreted.

DIET-LIST.

Liquid diet consists of:
Water of all kinds.Cocoa.
Ginger ale.Kumiss.
Lemonade.Buttermilk.
Orangeade.Milk punch.
Albumin water.Malted milk.
Broths.Milk.
Tea.Cream.
Coffee.Egg-nog.

Soft diet consists of:
Liquids of all kinds.
Soups (vegetable and strained).
Milk toast.Soft-boiled eggs.
Gravy “Oysters.
Bread without crusts.Baked apple.
Cereals.Apple sauce.
Custard.Stewed fruits (no seeds).
Rice.Mashed potato.
Ice cream.Baked“
Milk puddings.Purées and milk.
Plain“Toast.
Soft-poached eggs.

Light diet consists of soft diet, including:
Whitefish.Quail.
Codfish.Sweetbreads.
Finnan haddock.Chicken.
Bacon.Chops.
Scraped-beef.Steak.
Squab.Vegetables only when ordered.

Typhoid diet, as soon as food is ordered, is as follows:

First week—
Coffee for breakfast.
Tea for dinner.
Cereals (well cooked and strained).
Eggs lightly boiled.
Poached eggs and soft toast.
Broths (chicken, oyster, and meat).
Scraped-beef.Custards.
Bread without crust.Ice cream.
Milk toast.Orange-juice.
A glass of milk, t. i. d.