“A mixed food,” says another writer, “which varies from time to time, seems to be essential; and there can be no doubt that the changes which physicians have recognized in the nature of the predominating diseases, from century to century, are connected with changes which have taken place in the nature of the diet. Excess of oil, albumen, and starch produce liability to arthritic, bilious, and rheumatic affections; a deficiency of oleaginous materials, scrofula, &c.”
VIII.
In attempting to form a proper estimate of the alleged ration furnished by the rebels to their prisoners at Andersonville, we will endeavor to arrive at just conclusions by comparing the known quantities with the dietaries of long-established hospitals, prisons, and the ration of armies of different periods of history.
The effects of food upon the civil prisoners, both of the long and short term, have been carefully studied by Christison, Liebig, Barral, and Edwards; and it is conclusively shown by their statistics of the prisons of Europe how much food will keep the prisoners in athletic condition when exposed to healthy influences. The quantity of food required depends upon the wants of the system and the quality of food consumed. Some articles are far more nutritious than others, and are far less bulky; for instance, the rice eaters of China, the potato and milk consumers of Ireland, eat enormously, compared with the beef-eating people.
But rarely will a less quantity than seventeen ounces suffice for the animal economy, and not then, even, unless it is the concentrated essences and principles of carefully selected grains, and healthy meat from cattle killed in their native pastures, like the scientific ration correctly proposed by Professor Horsford. This ration is intended to enable armies to change their base with intervals of more than a month, and to assist raiding parties to perform long journeys without relying for subsistence on the doubtful and difficult forage along the route, or on the distant depots at the point of departure.
A handful of the ripe, golden grains, roasted and mixed with a little sugar, with a few ounces of beef dried from the meat of healthy cattle killed instantly, will sustain the power of life wonderfully. This is shown by the mountaineers of the Cordilleras, of the Andes, and the Rocky Mountains.
It was substantially the same ration that enabled the Romans to traverse countries far remote from their main depots of supplies, and the Greeks to advance across, with safety, the immense arid deserts of Asia. Any of our splendidly equipped and fed armies of modern times would perish in a few days along the route where Xenophon and his immortal ten thousand passed with safety, and without much loss.
IX.
The mode of rationing the Roman armies, and the manner in which the supplies were obtained and preserved, is well shown in the extant writings of those times. Besides the allowance of wheat daily,—one to two pounds,—the Roman soldiers often received a ration of pork, mutton, legumes, cheese, oil, salt, wine, and vinegar. With the grain, a porridge-pot, a spit, the casque for a cup, and with vinegar to mix with their water,—which formed the regulation drink posea, or acetum,—they marched rapidly, and retained their extraordinary vigor in the midst of pestilential regions. Every soldier carried his own food for a given length of time, which was from eight to twenty-eight days. “Cibo cum suo.” Hence Josephus wrote, the Roman soldier is laden like a mule. This food was always of the best quality; and the wheat was always carefully selected by a commission appointed for the purpose, as we may learn from the inscription on the column of Trajan. This wheat was not always eaten raw; but was oftener roasted, and crushed upon a stone.