as each one receives its portion of chyle, a wonderful thing
happens. About half of it is changed into small round
bodies called corpuscles, and they float with the rest of
the milky fluid through delicate pipes which take it to a
sort of bag just in front of the spine. To this bag is
fastened another pipe or tube — the thoracic duct — which
follows the line of the spine ; and up this tube the small
bodies travel till they come to the neck and a spot where
two veins meet. A door in one opens, and the transfor-
mation is complete. The small bodies are raw food no
more, but blood, traveling fast to where it may be purified,
and begin its endless round in the best condition. For, as
you know, venous blood is still impure and dirty blood.
Before it can be really alive it must pass through the
veins to the right side of the heart, flow through into the
upper chamber, then through another door or valve into
the lower, where it is pumped out into the lungs. If these
lungs are, as the}^ should be, full of pure air, each cor-
puscle is so charged with ox^^gen, that the last speck of
impurity is burned up, and it goes dancing and bounding
on its way. That is what health means : perfect food
made into perfect blood, and giving that sense of strength
and exhilaration that we none of us know half as much
about as we should. We get it sometimes on mountain-
tops in clear autumn days when the air is like wine ; but
Crod meant it to be our dail}- portion, and this very de-
spised knowledge of cookery is to bring it about. If a
lung is imperfect, supplied only with foul air as among the
very poor, or diseased as in consumption, food does not
nourish, and you now know why. We have found that the
purest air and the purest water contain the largest propor-
tion of oxygen ; and it is this that vitalizes both food and,
through food, the blood.
THE BODY AND ITS COMPOSITION. 67
To nourish this body, then, demands many elements ;
and to study these has been the joint work of chemists
and physiologists, till at last every constituent of the body
is known and classified. Many as these constituents are,
they are all resolved into the simple elements, oxygen,
hj^drogen, nitrogen, and carbon, while a little sulphur, a
nttle phosphorus, lime, chlorine, sodium, &c., are added.
Flesh and Blood are composed of water, fat, fibrine,
albumen, gelatine, and the compounds of lime, phos-
phorus, soda, potash, magnesia, iron, &c.
Bone contains cartilage, gelatine, fat, and the salts of
lime, magnesia, soda, &c., in combination with phosphoric
and other acids.
Cartilage consists of chondrine, a substance somewhat
like gelatine, and contains also the salts of sulphur, lime,
soda, potash, phosphorus, magnesia, and iron.
Bile is made up of water, fat, resin, sugar, cholesterine,
some fatty acids, and the salts of potash, iron, and soda.
The Brain is made up of water, albumen, fat, phos-
phoric acid, osmazone, and salts.
The Liver unites water, fat, and albumen, with phos-
phoric and other acids, and lime, iron, soda, and potash.
The Lungs are formed of two substances : one like gel-
atine ; another of the nature of caseine and albumen,
fibrine, cholesterine, iron, water, soda, and various fatty
and organic acids.
Page 33
Presented as published in 1881. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
as each one receives its portion of chyle, a wonderful thing happens. About half of it is changed into small round bodies called corpuscles, and they float with the rest of the milky fluid through delicate pipes which take it to a sort of bag just in front of the spine. To this bag is fastened another pipe or tube — the thoracic duct — which follows the line of the spine ; and up this tube the small bodies travel till they come to the neck and a spot where two veins meet. A door in one opens, and the transformation is complete. The small bodies are raw food no more, but blood, traveling fast to where it may be purified, and begin its endless round in the best condition. For, as you know, venous blood is still impure and dirty blood. Before it can be really alive it must pass through the veins to the right side of the heart, flow through into the upper chamber, then through another door or valve into the lower, where it is pumped out into the lungs. If these lungs are, as the}^ should be, full of pure air, each corpuscle is so charged with oxygen, that the last speck of impurity is burned up, and it goes dancing and bounding on its way. That is what health means : perfect food made into perfect blood, and giving that sense of strength and exhilaration that we none of us know half as much about as we should. We get it sometimes on mountaintops in clear autumn days when the air is like wine ; but Crod meant it to be our daily portion, and this very despised knowledge of cookery is to bring it about. If a lung is imperfect, supplied only with foul air as among the very poor, or diseased as in consumption, food does not nourish, and you now know why. We have found that the purest air and the purest water contain the largest proportion of oxygen ; and it is this that vitalizes both food and, through food, the blood.
To nourish this body, then, demands many elements ; and to study these has been the joint work of chemists and physiologists, till at last every constituent of the body is known and classified. Many as these constituents are, they are all resolved into the simple elements, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, and carbon, while a little sulphur, a nttle phosphorus, lime, chlorine, sodium, &c., are added. Flesh and Blood are composed of water, fat, fibrine, albumen, gelatine, and the compounds of lime, phosphorus, soda, potash, magnesia, iron, &c.
Bone contains cartilage, gelatine, fat, and the salts of lime, magnesia, soda, &c., in combination with phosphoric and other acids.
Cartilage consists of chondrine, a substance somewhat like gelatine, and contains also the salts of sulphur, lime, soda, potash, phosphorus, magnesia, and iron.
Bile is made up of water, fat, resin, sugar, cholesterine, some fatty acids, and the salts of potash, iron, and soda.
The Brain is made up of water, albumen, fat, phosphoric acid, osmazone, and salts.
The Liver unites water, fat, and albumen, with phosphoric and other acids, and lime, iron, soda, and potash.
The Lungs are formed of two substances : one like gelatine ; another of the nature of caseine and albumen, fibrine, cholesterine, iron, water, soda, and various fatty and organic acids.