To the Editor of the St. James’s Gazette
Sir,—In connection with the question, naturally raised by the performance now going on, as to how far abstinence from solid Food, but not from Water, deserves the name of “Fasting,” the following quotations may be of interest to your readers.
“Our classification of Food falls under two main divisions—Inorganic and Organic Substances; and, doubtless to the reader’s surprise, the Inorganic turns out to be the more important of the two. We are not, indeed, accustomed to consider minerals as food, or Water as highly nutritious; but that is because we are not accustomed to consider the subject with the needful accuracy. Tell the first man you meet that Water is on the whole more nutritious than roast-beef, and it is probable that he will throw anxious glances across the street to assure himself that your keeper is at hand. Make the same statement to the first man of science you meet, and the chances are that he will think you very ignorant of organic chemistry, or that you are playing with a paradox. Nevertheless, it is demonstrably true, and never would have worn the air of a paradox, if men had steadily conceived the nature of an alimentary substance. That is an aliment which nourishes; whatever we find in the organism, as a constant and integral element, either forming part of its structure, or one of the conditions of vital processes, that, and that only, deserves the name of aliment. If ‘to nourish the body’ means to sustain its force and repair its waste—if food enters into the living structure—and if all the integral constituents of that structure are derived from food—there can be nothing improper in designating, as nutritious, substances which have an enormous preponderance among the integral constituents. People who think it paradoxical to call Water ‘Food,’ will cease their surprise on learning that water forms two-thirds of the living body.”—Lewes’s “Physiology of Common Life,” Vol. I., p. 96.
“Surely the only real test of the alimentary character of any substance, is its power to support life for a longer period than it could subsist if deprived of all external help. Let us see how this principle would work. The most important food would then be Oxygen. Next to Oxygen we should rank Water, without which large mammalian animals perish within three or four days, but with a supply of which, in addition to the atmosphere, the want of other food may be sustained for many days, without the occurrence of fatal inanition.”—Anstie’s “Stimulants and Narcotics,” p. 268.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Lewis Carroll.
April 9.