More Science From an Easy Chair

warm or cold, the leaves, twigs, fruits, juices of plants, putrid carcases, hair, feathers, skin, bran, sawdust, the vegetable mould or "humus

t or the juices of one species of animal. Some of the latter class, under stress or privation, can accommodate themselves to a new food very different in character and origin f

things, a large range of possible accommodation, but he has at the same time habits the continuance of which are necessary for the healthy working of the nervous system. The psychical element in the matter of food-habit is important in all higher animals, but most of all in man. The digestive organs are controlled by the nervous system, and the brain acts upon the latter in such a way as to favour or to restrain the "appetite" and the secretion of the elaborate digestive juices, so that fear, surprise, disgust, and "nausea" (that strange product of mental and physical reactions) may destroy appetite and inhibit the digestive process. There are vast populations of men who live on rice, or beans, or meal, and never eat anima

human progress than the roasting of meat. The Neandermen, and even the later Reindeer-men (Cromagnards), had no cultivated fields, but lived on roasted meat (of beasts, birds, and fish) and wild fruits. We know how thoroughly the most ancient Greeks enjoyed the long slices of roasted meat cut from the chine, as told in the Homeric poems, and everywhere in Europe after the neolithic or polished-stone period, meat was a main article of diet, in conjunction with the vegetable products of agriculture. In this country, after the Norman conquest, meat-eating was greatly favoured by the important industry which grew up in hides. The land

class continue to eat meat, the agricultural labourer and the poorer workmen in towns live chiefly on flour, sugar, bacon, and cheese. Probably they have become habituated to this diet, and, provided that the quantity i

recognised. Such and such inexpensive and unskilfully prepared food may contain more than the necessary amount of proteids (that is, matters like flesh, the casein of cheese and of vegetables, and the albumen of eggs), of hydro-carbons (i.e., fats), of carbo-hydrates (i.e., starch and sugar), yet if you were suddenly to compel a man accustomed to well-cooked meat to live on such food he would be unable to assimilate it, his digestive organs would refuse to work, and he would become, if no

e matter is not that of correctly determining what is physiologically sufficient for the human animal, nor even what would be a healthy diet for a community when once, after a transition period of distress and injury, habituated or "attuned" to that diet. The difficulty is to arrive at a conclusion as to what is really the suitable and reasonable diet for an individual-yourself or o

as the importance of an inviting appeal to the appetite through the sense of smell and of sight, whilst the injurious effect of the reverse conditions, which may lead to nausea, and even vomiting, is admitted. Even the ceremonial features of the dinner table, the change of clothes before sitting down to the re

e cerebral?) factor. Cases were cited of dangerous arrest of the power of digesting, or even of swallowing, food which were cured by giving the patient some apparently inappropriate and probably harmful article of food for which he or she had a fancy, such as a grilled salmon-steak, the last thing which would be spontaneously recommended by a medical man to a patient who had been suffering for weeks from inability to take food. The willingness is all-the assent, the approval of the cerebral centres, and the consequent unlocking of the whole arrested mechanism of digestive secretions and movements. Such a case is only an extreme instance. But it is undoubtedly the fact that

tinned meats do not contain the necessary constituents of food, or that they contain poisonous substances, but that they produce a sense of disgust, and arrest the digestive processes. Soldiers, travel

sey" fish, "mousey" quails, stringy meat, impossible vegetables and fruits, gathered from the cheapest markets of Europe and of a quality just not bad enough to cause a revolt among the hotel visitors. The heating of the food is done by patent machinery in ovens and by the use of boiling fat. No cook is in these circumstances possible, with his artistic feeling for the production of a perfect result of skill and taste. A kind of bottled meat-flavoured sauce, manufactured from spent yeast, is used to make the soups, and is poured, with an equally nauseatin

n the old-fashioned way on a roasting-jack, carefully "basted" during the process, and served when exactly cooked to a turn. There were, only a few years ago, one or two such places surviving-both clubs and restaurants-where proper roasting was done, but, like the rest, they have now adopted lazy, economical, money-saving methods. Their managers calculate that what they do will serve. It is good enough for the crowd! So at last you abandon the efforts to obtain decent simple food, in club or hotel, and dine with your friend en famille. The same thing confronts you.

ng joint, which drips digestion-promoting essences into the pudding whilst itself rotating, hissing and spluttering-as did the joints roasted in the caves long ago by the prehistoric Reindeer-men. The scientific importance of good roasting and grilling is that a savour is thereby produced which sets the whole gastric and digestive economy of the man who sniffs it and tastes it, at work. Possibly our successors, a genera

d. Yet the children of both rich and poor are in these early stages either left to haphazard or entrusted to ignorant nursemaids. For those of us who were not born to the present system the transition to the new methods of wholesale cookery is an abomination, and to escape from them a matter of difficulty. We have to secure an ancient roasting-jack and a large clear fire in our own kitchen, and to i

t is quite possible that all the juggling of modern "machine" cookery is a false step, and injurious to digestion and health. It is not unlikely that there is no relish which has so sure a hold on the

frequenters of restaurants in London have led to huge enterprise in "catering," and to a monopoly which has driven out of existence the smaller establishments, where alone the artist-cook can flourish. But it seems that the neglect of decent cooking is also due in this count

private house in Paris still produces the most perfect roast beef and roast saddle of mutton (better than you will find in England) in the old-fashioned way. So indifferent, or perhaps hopeless, are Englishmen in regard to cookery that they drink a strong champagne throughout dinner, content to drown the insipid taste of the food in the fine flavour of a drink upon which they can rely. An Englishman dining at a first-rate restaurant will usually spend twice as much for wine as for food, whilst a Frenchman will reverse the proportions. Another difference is one fo

r country girls (who become cooks in the majority of households) the elements of the very difficult and important duties which they are expected-in virtue of some kind of inspiration or native genius-to discharge with skill and judgment: nor is there any head of a household capable of seeing that the necessary care and trouble are given. It is wonderful, under the circumstances, how clever and willing our domestic cooks are. A considerable section of English middle-class women at the present day are allowed by the men, who should guide them so as to make them honourable and useful members of the community, to grow up in complete ignorance of the essential parts of the art of cookery. This was not the case a hundred years ago. Now a large propo

t in doubt, but did not remove them until, with reverential drooping of the eyelids, he had emptied the tankard. "The very finest beer I have ever swallowed," he said. "What in the name of goodness is it?" I told him, and ordered him more. Soon a perfectly grilled chop and a large, clean, floury potato were before him. He proceeded to eat, and was really and unaffectedly astonished. "But this is marvellous," he said, "wonderful! enchanting! I have never really tasted meat before in my life. Reitzend! Colossal!" He had a steak to follow, and I was pleased to have been able to show him something which I knew (by experience of that city) they coul

nor is it an expression of a mere personal preference. It is a protest, based on scientific grounds, against the