Linimentum Chloroformi.--Cotton seed oil being very soluble in chloroform, the liniment made with it leaves nothing to be desired.
Linimentum Plumbi Subacetatis.--When liq. plumbi subacet. is mixed with cotton seed oil and allowed to stand for some time the oil assumes a reddish color similar to that of freshly made tincture of myrrh. When the liquor is mixed with olive oil, if the oil be pure, no such change takes place. Noticing this change, it occurred to me that this would be a simple and easy way to detect cotton seed oil when mixed with olive oil. This change usually takes place after standing from twelve to twenty-four hours. It is easily detected in mixtures containing five per cent., or even less, of the oils, and I am convinced, after making numerous experiments with different oils, that it is peculiar to cotton seed oil.--American Journal of Pharmacy.
THE FOOD AND ENERGY OF MAN.
[Footnote: From a lecture delivered at the Sanitary Congress, at Newcastle-on-Tyne, September 28, 1882.]
By PROF. DE CHAUMONT, F.R.S.
Although eating cannot be said to be in any way a new fashion, it has nevertheless been reserved for modern times, and indeed we may say the present generation, to get a fairly clear idea of the way in which food is really utilized for the work of our bodily frame. We must not, however, plume ourselves too much upon our superior knowledge, for inklings of the truth, more or less dim, have been had through all ages, and we are now stepping into the inheritance of times gone by, using the long and painful experience of our predecessors as the stepping-stone to our more accurate knowledge of the present time. In this, as in many other things, we are to some extent in the position of a dwarf on the shoulders of a giant; the dwarf may, indeed, see further than the giant; but he remains a dwarf, and the giant a giant.
The question has been much discussed as to what the original food of man was, and some people have made it a subject of excited contention. The most reasonable conclusion is that man is naturally a frugivorous or fruit-eating animal, like his cousins the monkeys, whom he still so much resembles. This forms a further argument in favor of his being originated in warm regions, where fruits of all kinds were plentiful. It is pretty clear that the resort to animal food, whether the result of the pressure of want from failure of vegetable products, or a mere taste and a desire for change and more appetizing food, is one that took place many ages ago, probably in the earliest anthropoid, if not in the latest pithecoid stage. No doubt some advantage was recognized in the more rapid digestion and the comparative ease with which the hunter or fisher could obtain food, instead of waiting for the ripening of fruits in countries which had more or less prolonged periods of cold and inclement weather. Some anatomical changes have doubtless resulted from the practice, but they are not of sufficiently marked character to found much argument upon; all that we can say being that the digestive apparatus in man seems well adapted for digesting any food that is capable of yielding nutriment, and that even when an entire change is made in the mode of feeding, the adaptability of the human system shows itself in a more or less rapid accommodation to the altered circumstances.
Food, then, is any substance which can be taken into the body and applied to use, either in building up or repairing the tissues and framework of the body itself, or in providing energy and producing animal heat, or any substance which, without performing those functions directly, controls, directs, or assists their performance. With this wide definition it is evident that we include all the ordinary articles recognized commonly as food, and that we reject all substances recognized commonly as poisons. But it will also include such substances as water and air, both of which are essential for nutrition, but are not usually recognized as belonging to the list of food substances in the ordinary sense. When we carry our investigation further, we find that the organic substances may be again divided into two distinct classes, namely, that which contains nitrogen (the casein), and those that do not (the butter and sugar).