Part 5

Physiologists divide alimentary substances into two classes: the nitrogenous, which, according to Dumas, supply the demands of assimilation, and the non-nitrogenous, which are called by Liebig respiratories, from furnishing the products consumed by respiration. Neither the one nor the other will alone support life indefinitely, and when one or the other decreases below well-defined limits, health declines, and finally life becomes extinct from inanition.

Milne Edwards gives, as the mean amount of these two classes, required for all climates, not less than three hundred and fifteen grains of nitrogen and thirty-three hundred and fifty grains of carbon in the twenty-four hours. These views are adopted by most physiologists; yet the analyses of Schlossberger and Kemp indicate that the idea of estimating the value of food by the quantity of nitrogen it contains is a fallacious one.

The beautiful experiments of Bernard and the modern physiologists have unfolded many of the laws that regulate digestion and assimilation. Yet the human researches in the great arcana of nature are extremely limited, in comparison with the vast range of physical phenomena, and every day we are reminded of the remarks of Boerhaave to his students: "Let all these heroes of science meet together; let them take bread and wine, the food which forms the blood of man, and by assimilation contributes to the growth of the body; let them try by all their art, and assuredly they will not be able from these materials to produce a single drop of blood,--so much is the most common act of nature beyond the utmost efforts of the most extended science."

The composition of the typical food of nature is revealed to us in the analysis of human milk.

VII.

The need of varied food is apparent to the casual observer, and it is well proven in the immortal work of Cabanis. "The experience of civilized life has shown," says Professor Horsford, in his admirable pamphlet on the marching ration of armies, "that the human organism requires, to maintain it in health, both organic and inorganic food.

"Of the organic, it needs nitrogenous food for the support of the vital tissues for work; and saccharine, or oleaginous food, for warmth. Of the inorganic, it needs phosphates for the bones, brain, muscles, and blood; and salt for its influence on the circulation and the secretions, and for various purposes where soda is required for a base; and doubtless both phosphates and salt for many offices as yet imperfectly understood. 'A man may be starved by depriving him of phosphates and salt, just as effectively as by depriving him of albumen or oil.' (Dalton's Physiology.)

"The salts of potassa, magnesia, and iron, of manganese, silica, and fluorine, are always present, and perform services of greater or less obvious moment in the animal economy. These organic and inorganic substances are essential, but they are not all that are needed. Man, especially when compelled to exhausting labor, requires beverages and condiments. He wants coffee, or tea, or cocoa; or, in the absence of these, he may feel a craving for wine or spirits. He wants salt, pepper, and vinegar. To preserve a sound body, then, there are required organic and inorganic food, beverages, and condiments."

"A mixed food," says another writer, "which varies from time to time, seems to be essential; and there can be no doubt that the changes which physicians have recognized in the nature of the predominating diseases, from century to century, are connected with changes which have taken place in the nature of the diet. Excess of oil, albumen, and starch produce liability to arthritic, bilious, and rheumatic affections; a deficiency of oleaginous materials, scrofula, &c."

VIII.

In attempting to form a proper estimate of the alleged ration furnished by the rebels to their prisoners at Andersonville, we will endeavor to arrive at just conclusions by comparing the known quantities with the dietaries of long-established hospitals, prisons, and the ration of armies of different periods of history.

The effects of food upon the civil prisoners, both of the long and short term, have been carefully studied by Christison, Liebig, Barral, and Edwards; and it is conclusively shown by their statistics of the prisons of Europe how much food will keep the prisoners in athletic condition when exposed to healthy influences. The quantity of food required depends upon the wants of the system and the quality of food consumed. Some articles are far more nutritious than others, and are far less bulky; for instance, the rice eaters of China, the potato and milk consumers of Ireland, eat enormously, compared with the beef-eating people.

But rarely will a less quantity than seventeen ounces suffice for the animal economy, and not then, even, unless it is the concentrated essences and principles of carefully selected grains, and healthy meat from cattle killed in their native pastures, like the scientific ration correctly proposed by Professor Horsford. This ration is intended to enable armies to change their base with intervals of more than a month, and to assist raiding parties to perform long journeys without relying for subsistence on the doubtful and difficult forage along the route, or on the distant depots at the point of departure.

A handful of the ripe, golden grains, roasted and mixed with a little sugar, with a few ounces of beef dried from the meat of healthy cattle killed instantly, will sustain the power of life wonderfully. This is shown by the mountaineers of the Cordilleras, of the Andes, and the Rocky Mountains.

It was substantially the same ration that enabled the Romans to traverse countries far remote from their main depots of supplies, and the Greeks to advance across, with safety, the immense arid deserts of Asia. Any of our splendidly equipped and fed armies of modern times would perish in a few days along the route where Xenophon and his immortal ten thousand passed with safety, and without much loss.

IX.

The mode of rationing the Roman armies, and the manner in which the supplies were obtained and preserved, is well shown in the extant writings of those times. Besides the allowance of wheat daily,--one to two pounds,--the Roman soldiers often received a ration of pork, mutton, legumes, cheese, oil, salt, wine, and vinegar. With the grain, a porridge-pot, a spit, the casque for a cup, and with vinegar to mix with their water,--which formed the regulation drink posea, or acetum,--they marched rapidly, and retained their extraordinary vigor in the midst of pestilential regions. Every soldier carried his own food for a given length of time, which was from eight to twenty-eight days. "_Cibo cum suo._" Hence Josephus wrote, the Roman soldier is laden like a mule. This food was always of the best quality; and the wheat was always carefully selected by a commission appointed for the purpose, as we may learn from the inscription on the column of Trajan. This wheat was not always eaten raw; but was oftener roasted, and crushed upon a stone.

"Frugesque receptas Et torrere parant flammis et frugere saxo."

With all of these arrangements and movements, there was method even as to the time of taking food. The soldier ate twice a day, and at appointed hours--at the sixth hour, "Prandium;" and at the tenth hour, "Vesperna."

X.

The requirements of the system differ greatly, according to the degree of heat, the purity of the air, and the degree of physical exercise. What suffices at the equator would be but a morsel at the pole. What sustains the quiet student would starve the active athlete.

When Volney spoke in surprise of the few ounces required to sustain the Bedouin, he forgot the purity of the air of the desert, as well as the indolent life of the Arab.

When we offer as example the frugal diet of Cornaro, which was twelve ounces of solid food, with fourteen ounces of wine, daily, we must remember that the celebrated man lived a life of moderation, avoided bad air, and guarded against the extremes of heat and cold.

The data of Frerichs, the observations of Sir John Sinclair, and the determinations of Professor Horsford, show that eighteen ounces of properly selected food may sustain life; and they also show that the nutrient substances must be of known value.

XI.

In forming our ideas as to the required amount of food necessary to healthy vigor, we will not attempt to analyze the magnitudes of Lehman, nor accept the statement of Chossat, that the animal body loses daily about one twenty-fourth of its weight by the metamorphosis of tissue; but will again examine the diet tables of the prisons, hospitals, and armies of Europe, leaving the reader to form his own conclusions.

The distinguished physiologist, Milne Edwards, maintains that the food must contain three hundred and fifteen grains of nitrogen and three thousand three hundred and fifty grains of carbon, otherwise the animal economy loses force, and gradually deteriorates. The data of Frerichs give the same views, and they accord with the observations of the ten years' study of the regimens of the prisons of Scotland. Dumas, in his calculations of the ration of the French army, gives as its equivalent three hundred and thirty-five grains of nitrogen and four thousand nine hundred and fifty grains of carbon.

In the prisons and hospitals of England, Scotland, France, and Germany, the dietaries furnish from seventeen to twenty-eight ounces of nitrogenous and carbonaceous food.

For a time, the solid ration of the prisons of Scotland was reduced to seventeen ounces, but the prisoners lost weight. In the public institutions of England we find the total quantity of solid food to be as follows: The British soldier receives in home service 45 ounces; the seaman of the Royal navy 44 ounces; convicts 54 ounces; male pauper 29 ounces; male lunatic 31 ounces. The full diet of the hospitals of London furnish from 25 to 31 ounces of solid food, besides from one to five pints of beer daily. The Russian soldier has about 50 ounces; the Turkish more than 40 ounces; the French nearly 50 ounces; the Hessian 33 ounces; the Yorkshire laborer 50 ounces; United States navy 50 ounces; and the soldier of the United States army about 50 ounces, of solid food.

XII.

The food allowed to the prisoners at Andersonville, according to the statements of the prisoners and other witnesses, was from two to four ounces of bacon, and from four to twelve ounces of corn bread daily; sometimes a half pint to a pint of bean, pea, or sweet potato soup, of doubtful value. Vegetables were unknown. Thus giving a total weight of solid food, per diem, of six to sixteen ounces of solid food. The amount was not constant: some days the prisoners were entirely without food, as was the case at Belle Isle and Salisbury. Neither was the deficiency afterwards made good. The amount given was oftener less than ten ounces than more.

The contrast furnished by the dietaries of our own military prisons, of those of the British hulks (so much cursed during the last war), or by the food given by the Algerine pirates to their prisoners and slaves, gives rise to terrible convictions as to the regard the rebel authorities placed upon the lives of their prisoners. The United States allowed to the rebel prisoners held by them thirty-eight ounces of solid food at first; but afterwards, in June, 1864, they reduced the ration to thirty-four and a half ounces per day. The range of articles composing the ration was the same as with our own troops, the exception being in the weight in bread. In the Dartmoor prison in England, where our men were confined by the English, when taken prisoners during the last war, and of which so much cruelty has been alleged, the authorities allowed to the prisoners for the first five days in the week 24 ounces of coarse brown bread, 8 ounces of beef, 4 ounces of barley, 1/3 ounce of salt, 1/3 ounce of onions, and 16 ounces of turnips daily (or more than 50 ounces of solid food); and for the remaining two days the usual allowance of bread was given with 16 ounces of pickled fish. The daily allowance to our men, at the Melville Island prison, at Halifax, during the last war, was 16 ounces of bread, 16 ounces of beef, and one gill of peas; the American agent furnishing coffee, sugar, potatoes, and tobacco. The allowance on the noted Medway hulks was 8 ounces of beef, 24 ounces of bread, and one gill of barley, daily, for five days; and 16 ounces of codfish, 16 ounces potatoes, or 16 ounces of smoked herring, the remaining two days of the week. Furthermore, in addition to these generous allowances of the British people, it can be said that the quality of the food was almost always excellent.

The writer, with one exception, knows of no dietary to compare with that adopted, or made use of without the formality of adoption, by the rebel authorities in the treatment of their prisoners.

This exception is found in ancient history, which Plutarch has handed down to us. The Athenians, captured at the siege of Syracuse, were placed in the stone quarries of Ortygia, and fed upon one pint of barley and half a pint of water daily. Most of them perished from this treatment.

XIII.

The corn bread furnished was made, according to the evidence, from corn and the cob, ground up together, and sometimes mixed with what is called in the south cow peas. It varied from four to twelve ounces in weight daily, generally from four to eight ounces. A pound (of sixteen ounces) of corn bread contains, according to chemical analysis, two thousand eight hundred grains of carbon and one hundred and twenty-one grains of nitrogen, and therefore the highest quantity of corn bread furnished, say twelve ounces, afforded but two thousand one hundred grains of carbon and ninety grains of nitrogen, leaving a deficiency, according to the physiologists, of more than twelve hundred grains of carbon and two hundred grains of nitrogen, to be supplied by the two or four ounces of doubtful bacon.

That the bacon could not furnish this deficiency must be apparent to the scientific observer. The quantity of bread alone, required to furnish the desired amount of carbon and nitrogen, would have been over three pounds daily, which quantity the prisoners did not have.

Milne Edwards, after treating at length the subject of alimentation, and offering many examples, arrives at the conclusion that the mean quantity of bread and meat required to sustain the life of man, consists of sixteen ounces of bread and thirteen ounces of beef daily. This conclusion is sustained by most of the experimentalists, and if lesser quantities are used, they must be of choice selections. A small loaf of bread made of flour, ground from ripe, healthy wheat, will accomplish more for nutrition than two or three larger loaves, baked of damaged and unripe grain; and likewise it is with meat: half a pound of beef from cattle killed instantly in their native pastures, when the flesh retains all its natural juices and sweetness, is worth more for the support of the system than two or three pounds of beef from animals that have been fasted and terrified, and have thereby lost, in a very great measure, their nutritious qualities.

The flesh of mammalia undergoes a great change in its nutritive qualities by reason of fasting, disturbance of sleep, and long-continued suffering, resulting in its becoming not only worthless, but deleterious.

XIV.

Vegetable substances alone will not sustain life for a great length of time in every climate, but there is a vast difference between the wants of man at the equator and his necessities at the pole.

Nature requires for the working of her plans materials of diverse natures: neither the oil, nor starch, nor sugar, will sustain life alone. Chemical analysis and physiological history point out to us how positive is the law which fixes the component parts of grains and plants, and how imperative the necessity of adjusting in alimentation these forms of nutritive matter, which spring up on every side in profusion, and offer endless variety to the wants of man.

There must be harmony of certain principles; there must be union of starch, of gluten, and fat, to complete the process of digestion and assimilation. To feed a patient upon arrow-root, tapioca, or sago, and the like, is to consign him to certain death. Instinct impels us sometimes to make use of articles which our habits have thrown aside.

XV.

It appears from the reasoning of Baron Liebig, that when we replace the flesh and bread of ordinary diet by juicy vegetables and fruits, the blood is beyond all doubt altered in its chemical character, the alkaline carbonates being substituted for the phosphoric acid and alkaline phosphates, which are supposed to exert a disturbing influence in so many diseases, especially typhoid and inflammatory affections. The gluten of grain, and the albumen of vegetable juices, are identical in composition with the albumen of blood, but there are varieties of wheat, the ashes of which are in quantity and in relative proportion of the salts the same as those of boiled and lixiviated meats, and it cannot be maintained that bread made of such flour would, if it were the only food taken, support life permanently.

The experiments of the French academicians, show that dogs fed exclusively on white bread, made from the sifted flour, died in forty days; but when fed on black bread (flour with the bran), they lived without disturbance of health. Bread should always be made of grains grown in healthy places, and should contain the entire seed, with the exception of the husk; then it will realize the idea of Paracelsus: "When a man eats a bit of bread, does he not therein consume heaven and earth, and all of the heavenly bodies, inasmuch as heaven by its fertilizing rain, the earth by its soil, and the sun by its luminous and heat-giving rays, have all contributed to its production, and are all present in the one substance?"

Desiccated vegetables, which have lost the water of vegetation and other gaseous elements, which chemistry thus far has been unable to discover, cannot adequately replace the fresh articles; the particular principle, the water of vegetation, can no more be restored to them than the dust of the crushed quartz can be recrystallized by the simple addition of water.

XVI.

In the alimentation of armies bread is the basal element. If it be poor, the whole system of the commissariat is deranged. History shows that it is the most important item in the feeding of soldiers, and that many a campaign, since the disaster to the army of Belisarius at Methon, has been lost in consequence of the quality of its munition bread.

France allows to her soldiers 26 ounces of bread, England 24, Belgium 28, Sardinia 26, Spain 23, Prussia 32, Austria 32, Turkey 33, United States 22, _Rebel Prisons_ 4 _to_ 12 _ounces_!

The quantity of corn meal allowed to the rebel soldiers by the rebel government was about one and one-third pounds daily: this would give about 28 ounces of bread, allowing 30 per cent. of water, which is the rule among bakers; at least it is the average quantity established by the civil tax commission of Paris. Besides the corn meal they had six ounces of bacon, and peas, and rice. This ration was sufficient to preserve life, as it has been shown by the condition of the rebel armies; the bread alone contained 4900 grains of carbon, and 210 grains of nitrogen, without the aid of bacon or the peas. The bread alone has an excess of 1600 grains of carbon, and a deficiency only of about 100 grains of nitrogen, which was readily supplied by the bacon and other articles. Corn bread is one of the chief articles of diet in the Southern States, and it is likewise used extensively in the South of Europe. It makes heavy bread unless carefully prepared and mixed with flour, and when mixed with the cob it often produces a laxative effect, the degree of which depends greatly upon the quantity the meal contains. When properly prepared with milk and the usual ingredients, it becomes an agreeable and nutritious article of diet, but carelessly handled, it is disagreeable to the palate and difficult to digest.

The bread furnished to the prisoners was simply mixed with salt and the dirty water from the brook, or the foul spring in the rear of the bakery, and then dried in the heat of the oven. That bad effects arose from such a quality of bread cannot be doubted; the injurious influences of impure water in panification have been pointed out by Boussingault, in a paper presented to the French Academy in 1857.

It is the common saying in the Southern States, where the use of wheaten bread is comparatively rare, that a bushel of corn contains more nutriment than a bushel of wheat. Yet the southern wheat is superior to the northern varieties, and is richer in the azotized, glutinous principles so essential to the formation of blood and muscle. Vermicelli and macaroni can be made only from the best southern wheat.

Of the varieties of Indian corn in America, the yellow flinty corn is reckoned the sweetest and most nutritive; the white corn of the South makes the fairest, but considerably the weakest flour. We do not find special fault with the coarsely ground meal, provided the cob is not included, for Mayer has pointed out, in discarding the commercial bran we throw away fourteen times as much phosphoric acid as there is in superfine flour. In this bran are contained most of the layers of gluten, in which are lodged the phosphates and the companion nitrogenous compounds--the sources of living tissues. The nutritious Graham bread is an example; also the pumpernickel of Westphalia, the black bread of Russia, the coarse oatmeal of Scotland, contain all the gluten, all the phosphates and nitrogenous compounds, as well as the starch of the grains. Such was the bread that Celsus considered as equal to flesh in its capacity of nourishing.

XVII.

Fresh meat was rarely furnished to the prison, according to the reports and statements of witnesses, and we should doubt that it was furnished at all, if it were not for the number of sections of the horns of cattle which are strewn about the enclosure, and which the prisoners had used for drinking dishes; still, many of these horns may have been taken from the cattle killed for the guards.

That the issue of fresh beef would have been beneficial to the men, there is no doubt; in fact, the experiment at Jamaica, which continued twenty years, proves it; for the troops who were fed with a larger allowance of fresh meat suffered far less from dysentery than any of the troops of the West India islands. There is always great difficulty in preserving the good qualities of fresh meat in hot climes, and, on the other hand, the use of salt meat in the same regions is apt to engender scorbutic disorders. Whenever putrefactive fermentation begins with any kind of meat, or any recently living nitrogenized substance, catalytic action takes place, ammonia is evolved, and the product is no longer pleasant to the taste or nutritious to the system. Food, when even exposed to vitiated air, becomes deteriorated in quality, just as good flour is rendered worthless by mixture with the damaged fungoid grain. Butchers' meat on the average affords but thirty-five per cent. of real nutritive matter, at least such was the opinion presented to the French Minister of the Interior by Vauquelin and Percy. Accepting this determination, we may form some idea of the relative value of the scanty allowance of the doubtful beef furnished to the prisoners, if it was furnished at all.