Indeed, it may sound strange, yet it is quite correct: This mother's milk in the shape of a human being consumes again new mother's milk, and, by respiration, by evaporation and secretion of matter, casts out the used-up milk.
This being so, it will now appear evident to every one, that by a profound chemical knowledge of our daily food, we may readily learn to know the chemical components of man, and vice versâ; knowing the substances of which man is made, it is easy for us to determine, what kind of food he must take, in order to continually renew his body.
Since the mother's milk is the simplest and most natural food for the child, let us consider it according to its importance. We shall then have a stepping-stone towards the knowledge of the food of adults and its effects. The mother's milk contains all the elements, with which the human body can renew itself; should there be but one of those elements wanting in it, the child would inevitably perish.
If, for example, milk did not contain calcareous earth, the consequence would be, that the bones of the child would, soon after its birth, neither grow nor increase in number, but they would fast diminish, and the child would die in consequence of this. The attempt was once made to feed animals on articles without calcareous parts, when, strange to behold, they all grew fat, but very weak in their bones, and finally broke down.
If milk contained no phosphorus, not only would the bones and teeth suffer from the want of it, but even the completion of the child's brain could not properly take place, and the child could not replace the quantity of brain which it emits and loses every moment by breathing.
If there were no iron in the mother's milk, the child would die from the green-sickness, a malady which, by the way, is dangerous also for grown people, and which is cured by medicines containing plenty of iron.
If there were no sulphur in it, the child's bile could not develop; the bile, as every one knows, has an important function in the human body.
These are but accessory elements of the mother's milk, elements which usually are not looked upon as articles of food; for who is aware that he must eat, and actually does eat daily, phosphorus, iron, calcareous earth, and sulphur? And not only these; there are a great many other articles, such as magnesia, chlorine, and fluor, that we eat without being aware of it; moreover, our proper food consists also of three gases: nitrogen, oxygen, and hydrogen; and of a solid substance called "carbon," which is no less and no more than pure coal.
All these, my friendly readers, are contained in milk – all these are the elements which in truth constitute the human body. Perhaps some persons believe that there is nothing easier than to procure proper food. It would only be necessary to take a certain quantity of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen; a little bit of potassium, natron, calcium, and magnesia; to mix a small piece of iron, sulphur, phosphorus, chlorine, and fluor, and take this mixture by the spoon at regular intervals, in order to give the body the necessary aliments. This, however, would be a mistake, for which the perpetrator would pay with his life.
Although it is true that these substances form the proper and most important constituents of our daily food; yet, in order to enjoy the desired result, we must not partake of them in their primary forms; they can actually feed our body only when they are combined together in a peculiar, wondrous manner.
In the next chapter it may be seen how nature first must combine these substances before they are presented to us as proper food; and it will also be seen, that we receive them sometimes in altogether different forms and combinations; for example, in the mother's milk, when we eat the above-named elements in the forms of caseine (cheese), butyrine (butter), sugar of milk, salt, and water.
These latter names have a more savory sound, have they not?
CHAPTER IV.
HOW NATURE PREPARES OUR FOOD
In the preceding article it was stated, that the food of the child which lives on mother's milk, consists in its primary elements of peculiar substances. These are principally oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen; three gases to which may be added a large quantity of carbon, or, what is the same, coal. Besides this wondrous mixture of air and coal, the mother's milk contains still other elements, but in a smaller proportion. In every-day life many of them are unfamiliar; for example, natron, calcium, magnesia, chlorine, and fluor; the others, however, are known to every one; viz., iron, sulphur, and phosphorus. All these strange ingredients nature has carefully transformed into milk. For in their primary state, and even in various chemical combinations that may be produced artificially, they would be little adapted for the purpose. It is therefore essentially necessary that nature herself should make them ready for us. This she does by letting them pass first into the vegetable state, and changing them afterwards into new forms.
The plant feeds on primary chemical elements; or, to state it more correctly, the plant is nothing but transformed primary elements! Not before the transformation of these elements into plants are the elements adapted for food for animals and men.
Moreover, all that man eats must first have been in the vegetable state. Now, it is true that man also eats the flesh, fat, and eggs of animals; but whence have the animals meat and eggs? Only from the plants they consume.
There is a remarkable succession of transformations in nature. The primary elements nourish the plant; the plant nourishes the animal; and both, plant and animal, form the nourishment of man.
Even the mother's milk, the simplest and most natural food of the child, owes its existence only to the fact that the mother has eaten vegetable and animal matter. This food, prepared for the mother by nature, has been changed into the body of the same; and partly, also, it has become the milk destined to nourish the child.
Hence it is evident that mother's milk consists of oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, carbon, and a small portion of other chemical primary elements. But these substances when appearing in the shape of milk, are combined in such a manner as to form ready-made food; as such they constitute, as stated above, caseine, butyrine, sugar of milk, salt, and water.
The next questions are: "What do these elements of food perform when in the child's body? What becomes of these substances after they have been eaten by the child? How are they changed during the time of their stay in the body? And in what condition do they leave the child's body, and how do they force him to desire food again?"
These questions properly belong to the chapter on "Nutrition," where they will be answered in their turn. Afterwards, we must be permitted to turn our attention to a further question, viz., "What articles of food are the most advantageous to man from the time he is weaned or the time, he takes from among vegetable and animal matter the same substances for food, that are contained in the mother's milk?"
In order to arrive at the answers to all these questions, we were obliged to first prepare the ground a little. This was a gain on our part, for now we shall attain the end in a shorter time than would have been possible otherwise. We trust that we may give our reader a correct idea of the subject, if he will but come to our aid with his most earnest attention and reflection; these are needed here the more, as we have to treat a difficult subject in a very short space.
CHAPTER V.
WHAT BECOMES OF THE MOTHER'S MILK AFTER IT HAS ENTERED THE BODY OF THE CHILD?
When the child has freed itself from the body of its mother, it consists of blood, flesh, and bones, which heretofore were formed and nourished by the blood of the mother.
As soon, however, as the child is born, it ceases to be nourished in this manner. It ceases, also, to secrete through its mother, substances which are useless to it. The child now begins to breathe for itself, and by its breath secretes carbon in the form of carbonic acid. Its skin begins to perspire, and secretes chiefly hydrogen and oxygen in the shape of water or vapor; by the urine, finally, it secretes nitrogen. These substances – carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen – before their secretion, constituted vital parts of the child's body; now, however, they are wasted, and for this reason must be thrown off.
It is evident that the child wants compensation for this loss. This is given by the mother's milk; for it contains