CURRENT LITERATURE.
Foods. By Edward Smith, M.D. (Henry S. King and Co.)—Dr. Smith discusses, with much minuteness, the economical and sanitary-value of the various kinds of animal and vegetable food which are commonly in use ; and of drinks, both alcoholic and other. The standard of comparison which he employs for the purpose of a relative estimate, is their power of producing heat in the body, a power which may be conveniently stated in the number of pounds of water which it is able to raise by one degree, or, heat being convertible with power, of the number of pounds raised to the height of one foot. Of course it must not be supposed that the food which produces the greatest effect in this way is ipso facto, and under all circumstances, preferable to all others. Many conditions come in to modify the results thus obtained, before we can reduce them to practical application. Not the least important among those is the fact that these comparative statements necessarily suppose the total combustion of the foods compared, whereas, as a matter of fact, the combustion is not total, approaching more or less nearly to totality, according to the idiosyncracy of the recipient. "Beef fat," for instance, gives very large results, but there are constitutions which would not be able to assimilate it. Still the fact remains, that these scientific statements of the comparative value of various foods are of the highest importance, and will have to be studied and acted upon. As it is now essential to good farming to know what each kind of produce takes away from the soil, and what each kind of manure restores to it, so the housekeeping of the future, which will have to be increasingly econo- mical in the largest sense of that word, will make itself acquainted with the flesh-producing and heat-generating qualities of various foods. (This division is retained as generally corresponding to facts, though it is pointed out that there is no sharp line of distinction, much less of opposition, between them.) We should say that Dr. Smith has added the results of certain experiments personally conducted by himself. These give the effects of various foods on pulsation and respiration, and on the expiration of carbonic acid. It may be taken as a curious specimen of a class of facts which men must always have noticed, but which they are only now beginning to classify, that the addition of an ounce of butter to four ounces of well-cooked rice produced an increase of pulsationa as over the rice alone of nine per minute. Dr. Smith has evidently an unfavourable opinion of alcoholic drinks. The opinion of so minute and careful an observer ought to be recorded, whether or no we may be disposed to accept it.
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