THE RAPID RENEWAL OF THE BLOOD IS AN ADVANTAGE.

Our articles of food are also called articles of life, and very properly so; for that which lives in us is, indeed, nothing but food transformed into ourselves.

According to this, it is very easy to determine what a man must eat in order to live; what kind of food can best maintain his health; what constantly renews his working-power; what compensates for the loss he experiences by emission of breath, perspiration, and excretions.

This easy task many have proposed to themselves. They believe they have solved the problem, if they can but prove that all parts of the human body are fed by the blood; and, the constituents of the blood being well known, they believe they have done enough, if they designate that food as the most proper for man which contains the constituent parts of the blood, or which, by digestion, may be changed into blood.

As a general thing this is true; yet it is not sufficient to give the necessary information about the principal articles of our food.

The poor Irishman, who lives almost exclusively on potatoes, has as much blood in his body as the Englishman, whose workmen threaten him with a strike, if they do not earn enough to have a piece of meat and a good glass of beer for breakfast. The Irishman's blood contains quite the same elements that the Englishman's does, and yet their food is very different; and the Irishman is as justly called "poor," as the Englishman is said to be "well fed."

It is evident that the blood alone does not account for this, nor can it do so. There must be other additional items; and these we shall try to learn before we speak of the different articles of food and their worth.

The first principle which we must set up before all others, runs thus: Nutrition does not depend on the blood, but rather on its quick renewal.

The blood resembles the capital which a man possesses. No one can live on his capital without consuming it; he must live on the interest of the capital; he must live by constantly turning the capital over. And so must it be with the blood. The comparison seems so perfect, that we can illustrate our idea best by an example.

Imagine two merchants, each of whom has but a hundred dollars. Both merchants are therefore equally rich in capital. But there is the following difference between them: the one goes to the country twice a week and buys cattle and brings it to market, where he sells it again. By doing this he realizes every time five dollars on his capital. The other establishes a notion-store, buys himself a hundred dollars' worth of goods, which he sells in a month, and thereby gains twenty-five dollars. Now, which of these two fares the better? The notion-dealer, who with his hundred dollars has earned twenty-five dollars, or the cattle-dealer, who gained but five? Most assuredly the cattle-dealer. For while the other has twenty-five dollars to live on, the cattle-dealer has eight times five, or forty dollars. Whence does this come? In a month the notion-dealer turns over his capital but once, while the cattle-dealer turns his eight times.

The same holds good with the Irishman and the Englishman. Both have the same quantity of blood; it is their capital, and the same for both. But the renewal is not the same. The Englishman works vigorously and eats vigorously. When he works, he spends his capital, his blood; by every blow of the hammer particles of his body are wasted; the activity of his body is great and his appetite is great. He invests his capital again and again in rapid succession, and he takes it in just as rapidly and fares well with it. The poor, unhappy Irishman, however, spends his blood but very slowly; he does not work; he eats potatoes, which, taken alone, are bad food; thus, he invests his capital very slowly and takes it in again very slowly; and though the capital is in both cases the same, its slow renewal is the cause of the Irishman's being miserable, dull, and lazy, while the Englishman is sound in body and soul.

Therefore the blood alone is not all, but its rapid consumption and renewal is the most important object.