The relations between food and work naturally present themselves as topics of the highest importance. In determining the standard of health, it is clear that from our food alone, we can obtain the energy or power of work required for the discharge of the duties of life. An interesting point therefore arises regarding the differences which are entailed by varying conditions and amounts of labour. Dr Letheby tells us that an adult man in idleness requires, to obtain from his food for the support of his body, 2.67 ounces of nitrogenous matter and 19.16 ounces of non-nitrogenous matter per day. If the individual is to participate in ordinary labour, the amount of nitrogenous matter obtained from his food must be increased to 4.56 ounces, while the non-nitrogenous must be represented by 29.24 ounces. In the case, lastly, of active labour the amount of food required must be increased to 5.81 ounces of nitrogenous, and 34.97 ounces of non-nitrogenous matter.
Dalton gives the following as the quantity of food, per day, required for the healthy man, taking free exercise in the open air: meat, sixteen ounces; bread, nineteen ounces; fat or butter, three and a half ounces; water, fifty-two fluid ounces. It ought to be borne in mind that these amounts of food represent the diet for a whole day compressed, so to speak, into a convenient and readily understood form. Another calculation, setting down the daily amount of food required by an adult, at nitrogenous matter three hundred grains, and carbon at four thousand grains, shows that these amounts would be obtained from eighteen ounces of bread; one ounce of butter; four ounces of milk; two ounces of bacon; eight ounces of potatoes; six ounces of cabbage; three and a half ounces of cheese; one ounce of sugar; three-quarters of an ounce of salt; and water (alone, and in beverages) sixty-six and a quarter ounces—a total of no less than six pounds fourteen and a quarter ounces. Summing up the question of the amounts of food required by a healthy adult daily, and excluding water in all forms as a matter of separate calculation, it may be said that four and a half ounces of pure nitrogenous matter would be required in addition to three ounces of fatty food, fourteen ounces of starch or sugar, and one ounce of mineral matter. An ordinary adult consuming in twenty-four hours, food items equal to those contained in one pound of meat and two pounds of bread, may be regarded as consuming food of sufficient amount for ordinary work. When the work is increased, the diet must naturally be increased likewise. We find that persons in active employment require about a fifth part more nitrogenous food, and about twice the quantity of fat consumed by those engaged in light work; the sugars and starches remaining the same.
An interesting practical calculation has been made regarding the amounts of different foods required to perform a given and fixed piece of work. Taking the work performed by the German observers already named, as a standard, namely, that of raising a man’s weight (one hundred and forty pounds) ten thousand feet high, it has been found that the amounts and cost of various foods required for the performance of this work is as follows: Bread, 2.345 pounds, cost 3½d.; oatmeal, 1.281 pounds, cost 3½d.; potatoes, 5.068 pounds, cost 5¼d.; beef-fat, 0.555 pounds, cost 5¼d.; cheese, 1.156 pounds, cost 11½d.; butter, 0.693 pounds, cost 1s. 0½d.; lean beef, 3.532 pounds, cost 3s. 6½d.; pale ale, nine bottles, cost 4s. 6d.
The proportion of the different food-elements in an ordinary dietary has been set down as follows: nitrogenous matter one, fats six, starches and sugars three; and these proportions appear to be represented with singular exactness in the ordinary dietaries which experience has recommended to mankind. Excess of food in the matter of nitrogenous elements tends to induce diseases of an inflammatory and gouty nature, and likewise leads to fatty degeneration of the tissues. When, on the other hand, there exists lack of nitrogenous substances, the individual experiences weakness, want of muscular power, and general prostration. The healthy mean is that in which the proportions of nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous food are maintained as above indicated.
In the construction of dietaries, a few practical hints remain for notice. Thus, as regards sex, the dietaries of women are usually, in the case of the working-classes, estimated at one-tenth less than those of the opposite sex. Age has an important influence in determining the amount and quality of food. The growing body consumes more food, relatively to work and weight, than the adult, inasmuch as it requires material for new tissue. An infant under eight or nine months should receive no starch whatever in its dietary, because it is unable to digest that substance. Health is naturally a condition in which the question of foods assumes a high importance, and various dietaries, as is well known, are adapted for the cure of disease. The relation of food to work has already been alluded to, and statistics detailed; but it may be added that the brain-worker requires his food in a more readily digestible form, and also in smaller bulk and in more concentrated shape, than the muscle-worker or ordinary labourer. What has been said concerning foods will tend to show how wide is the field which the subject of nutrition occupies. It may only here be added, that the education of the individual in health laws and in the science of foods and food-taking, forms the only sure basis for the intelligent regulation of that all-important work—the nourishment and due support of the frame in relation to the work we perform and to every circumstance of life.
THE COMMON-SENSE OF SUPERSTITIONS.
Out of a medley of magpies, May cats, broken looking-glasses, crickets, village cures, lucky days, and tumbles up-stairs, there dawns a hint towards the solving of a very puzzling problem. The problem is, not why these things are called lucky or unlucky, but how it is that multitudes grow up in every generation to believe the same absurdities, and that still in this world of common-sense such items of uncommon nonsense keep their character for ‘coming true.’ How is this, and where do the secret links exist between the sense and the nonsense? If any one takes the trouble to gather together about a hundred rustic superstitions and old beliefs of quackery, the reason of the character for ‘coming true’—that is, the reason of the traditional hold upon the people—will presently begin to be plainly written across the whole medley, dawning by degrees, just as writing in acid might dawn upon an apparently blank missive held to the heat.
Most superstitions are signs of ill-luck. This in itself is a tell-tale fact. Unlucky omens are so numerous, that no believer could escape them for long; and in all likelihood he observes not only the unlucky signs, but his ill-luck following. The truth is, that the magpie on his path had no connection with his loss of money; and on his wedding-day, his bride’s unlucky glance in the looking-glass after she was fully arrayed, had nothing to do with her discontent as a wife; nor need the servant who broke the looking-glass have cried, looking forward to seven years of ill-luck. In all three cases, as all the neighbours knew, the ill-luck came. But it came because of the prepossessed frame of mind that observed and discounted these signs. The superstitious character lacks those practical and courageous qualities which wrest luck from fortune and make the best of life. The omens of ill-luck have come to the fortunate as often; but they were never noticed, because they who were cheerily fighting the battle had better use for their time. At this moment, the present writer knows of no household more radiantly prosperous than one in which the largest looking-glass was broken a few days after a move to their newly-built home; and no marriage more replete with happiness than a Saturday marriage, though proverbially Saturday’s marriage ‘has no luck at all.’ Of course, neither the prosperous household nor the well-matched pair were of that languid and timid mind that takes nervous note of superstitions.
But, it may be objected, there are signs of good luck too, though not so many. Certainly; and there is no truth better known than that courage commands success, and such courage in exceptional cases may come from a very trivial encouragement. There is a country superstition that if a man sets off running and runs round in a circle, when he hears the cuckoo for the first time, he will never be out of work till spring comes again. But the man who valued steady work would exert himself in a more sensible direction than unproductive circle-running, and be safe from idle days. Again, if a tumble up-stairs is lucky, the predisposition to luck is in the person who will be active and quick enough to run up the staircase. Another good omen, the turning of a garment inside out in dressing, though it seems to tell of the slovenliness that will not succeed, has probably an origin that indicated something better; it is a country saying, and it might well refer to the hurry and awkwardness of rising without artificial light before day—a habit likely to help the farmer’s household to good fortune. Or as proof of the real nature of many good signs which time has perverted into superstitions, can we doubt that the crickets which chirp round the hearth for luck were first noticed there because crickets, as a rule, only come to a warm and cosy fireside—the kind of hearth that marks a happy cottage home?
A simple grain of common-sense like this must have been the origin of many senseless observances. It was necessary to guard ladders from being knocked down, so superstition began to warn the passers-by: if the children went under the ladder, they would not grow; if girls went, they would have no chance of being married within the year; and if a man passed under, he would be hanged—in memory of the criminal’s ladder under the gibbet.