b. A diet more nutritious than the preceding consists of vegetable products, containing, along with one or more of the principles above treated of, others supposed to be identical with certain essential constituents of the animal tissues, and in most instances nitrogenous. These are albumen, gluten, and the vegetable fixed oils. They are highly nutritious without being stimulant, and are consequently well adapted to that stage of inflammation and fever, in which the strength begins to decline, but a degree of excitement continues requiring antiphlogistic regimen. These principles are never used in an isolated state, but combined with gum, starch, sugar, etc., as they exist in nature in the different grains. Gruel made of Indian meal or oatmeal, Indian mush, boiled rice, panada made from wheat bread, toasted wheat bread, and water crackers, are forms in which these substances may be used.

In nature, the two sets of nutritious principles above treated of are often associated with an indigestible principle called lignin or woody fibre, which appears to answer the purpose of stimulating the peristaltic movement of the bowels, and thus obviating costiveness. This frequently gives a fibrous and tenacious quality to the products in which it is contained, rendering them difficult of solution in the gastric juice, and consequently liable to irritate a delicate stomach. On this account, the products alluded to are unfit for febrile cases, in which the digestion is feeble; but, as they are in no degree stimulant to the system, they may be used in mild or chronic inflammation unattended with fever, or deficiency of digestive powers. Such are the edible fruits, and the various garden vegetables.

c. Next in order of nutritive quality I would place milk, which seems, in relation to its qualities as an article of diet, to hold a place between vegetable food, and the more nutritious and stimulating animal products. its prominent constituent, called casein, is a nitrogenous principle analogous in composition to the vegetable albuminous substances, though, as I believe, somewhat more readily assimilable, and more supporting. The oily matter, too, which it contains suspended in water, through the instrumentality of the casein, is both readily digested and highly nutritious. As infants, and the young of many animals are supported for a long time wholly on milk, it follows that it contains everything requisite for the formation of the body, and may be given in cases requiring nourishment with an entire confidence that it will fully answer the purpose. it is an excellent article of food in cases in which it is still necessary to withhold the full ordinary diet, but an indication exists for improving the blood. I am very much in the habit of using it in low fevers, after the first stage is passed; in enteric or typhoid fever, for example, in the second week. in these cases, I prescribe it in doses of a tablespoonful every hour, which alone, or with a little gruel two or three times a day, or a piece of dry toast and a cup of tea morning and evening, is often sufficient for the nourishment of the patient at this period; before decided debility or prostration has set in, requiring stimulation. in other febrile cases, under similar circumstances, and in inflammations when it becomes desirable to support the strength, I use the same method. This administration of the milk in small quantities, frequently repeated, is often essential to its proper digestion in a feeble stomach. When taken largely, it is apt to be coagulated in a large clot, which the gastric juice cannot readily penetrate, and which, lying heavily on the stomach, sometimes provokes vomiting. Given in the way 1 have mentioned, it is readily dissolved, and never aggregates into large homogeneous masses. I consider milk also as preferable to almost any other kind of food, when, in cases requiring a slight reduction of the diet from the ordinary standard of health, there is also evidence of depraved blood. By administering pure milk in such cases, along with remedies calculated to correct the disordered digestive and assimilative processes, we are at least sure of having all the materials necessary for making sound wholesome blood.

d. There is one other modification of food which may be classed with sedative agencies; because, though highly nutritious, it is considerably less stimulating than an ordinary full diet, and may be employed where a slightly depressing influence is required; as in chronic inflammations with a certain degree of debility, which forbids any considerable curtailment of nutrition. I refer to boiled meats, including the flesh of birds, and fish. These are destitute of the more stimulant and soluble ingredients of flesh, and consist mainly of coagulated albumen and fibrin. The former is the chief constituent of the serum of the blood, the latter of the muscular fibre; and both consequently exist in flesh, which always contains blood. They are closely analogous to the albumen and gluten of vegetables; and by most chemists are" considered identical. The physician, deciding from his observation of the comparative effects of boiled meats and bread in disease, would entertain some doubt of the entire accuracy of these results. I do not, myself, believe in their identity. I cannot think that the albumen circulating with the blood, and the fibrin of the muscles, are exactly the same as the albumen and gluten of wheat flour. I am quite sure that a diet of the former would be found to be less adapted to inflammatory cases than one of the latter; and that bread might be allowed in fevers where boiled meats could not be prudently given. The casein of milk is placed in the same category with albumen and fibrin; and the three, whether found in animals or vegetables, are supposed to be modifications of a peculiar principle called protein; and hence have been denominated protein compounds. But this view is hypothetical, and would, I think, be quite premature if applied to therapeutics. The probability is that all of them, when taken into the stomach, undergo modifications through the influence of the gastric juice, preparatory to being taken up by the lacteals and venous radicles. The point upon which I would particularly insist is, that the animal products should not, in consequence of close analogy in composition with the vegetable, be considered as identical in physiological properties, and therefore employed indiscriminately as articles of diet in disease. The vegetable are calculated for a higher grade of inflammatory action than the animal; and the latter hold a position in the scale of diet but a little lower than that adapted to full health. I am not confident that meats thoroughly boiled, so as to be deprived of all their soluble parts, would be entitled to a higher place than milk; but I have no doubt that, imperfectly deprived of their soluble matter, as they generally are when boiled for the table, they are decidedly more stimulating. Soups, oysters, soft-boiled eggs, and roasted, baked, and broiled meats, though good articles of diet when the object is to stimulate and support an enfeebled system, cannot be admitted among sedative agents; and all stimulant drinks and condiments are of course excluded.