Albert Benjamin Prescott

“ A misapprehension sometimes occurs, from lack of reflection, as to the effect of sugar on the acidity of fruits. Sugar has no chemical effect upon acids. Its very sweet taste masks or overpowers to the sense the sour taste of free acids; but the acids remain free, all the same. Whatever effect the sugar eaten with fruits has on digestion and nutrition is due to the sugar itself; not to any change of the acids by the sugar, for there is no such change. Indeed, sugar approaches to the nature of an acid, though properly classed as a neutral body. ”

“ For the redundant resources, we will take carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. Then, for the adequate resources, we will examine nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
Carbon is the one element never left out of an organic compound. Its atoms are not only constituents, they are corner-stones of all the organic molecules. In the human body, thirteen parts in a hundred, or forty per cent, of the solids, are carbon. Looking for its supply, we see that it is obtained for the organic world by the plants, and from the carbonic-acid gas of the air. ”

“ If nitrogen compounds could be laid down cheaply enough, it would augment the supplies of food and raiment, and the comfort of man, in no small degree.
Right here it comes to mind that uncombined nitrogen forms over three-fourths of the weight of the air—a provision of about eleven pounds on every horizontal square inch—and a question rises, "Why cannot the vital forces take hold on the pure element and use freely from its most lavish supply?" Well, because the universe exists. The stomach does not digest the carbon of charcoal; nor do the lungs take oxygen from water. ”

“ It is an evergreen, with leaves four or five inches long and one and a half or two inches wide, and bearing clusters of white and richly fragrant flowers, the fruit being dark-red when ripe, and each holding two seeds, the coffee-berries of commerce. ”

“ However the peoples of the world—while wholly unconscious of the identities of chemical science—have been guided in their search over forest and field for a herb to infuse, in a beverage that should cheer but not inebriate, it is certain that no hint of common qualities is to be gained from the external aspect of the plants so brought into use. Between the leaf of the tea-plant and the long pod of the cacao-tree there is no visual resemblance to indicate a common constituent, or to suggest a parallel use. ”

“ The seeds with succulent coverings, the fruits, yield a great number of sharply-defined substances, most of which claim the approval of man, and some of which require for their due application the best efforts of the human intellect. Without the grains, the fruits, and the nuts, man would be left to browse with the ox and prey with the wolf.
In this abundant material gathered around the seed-germs, chemistry has achieved more success than elsewhere in the organic world. It is well understood that chemists have no reason to boast of what they can do with the products of living cells. ”

“ This supply of elemental oxygen, a necessity for all animal life, is a necessity that is imminent in direct proportion to vital activity, and for man is absolutely imperative. When supplied with oxygen, we can subsist days without other food; when deprived of oxygen, life fails in a few minutes. It is scarcely a figure of speech to say that the breath is the life. The energy of oxygenation is told in every stroke of the heart. The food that is eaten does not raise an iota of bodily strength without the help of the pound and a quarter of pure oxygen that is daily inhaled. ”

“ From the provision of the first class of materials, it results that, in certain great essentials of organization, all individuals are placed on a footing of equality with their fellows. It results from the provision of the second class of materials, that unequal qualities and quantities of organization are derived by different individuals of the same species. Through our redundant resources we are taught the common brotherhood of the created. Through our adequate resources come the assurances of our responsibility—our commissions as stewards of the earth. ”

“ In Nature's economy, the same carbon-atoms are used over and over again as material for organization. This perpetual replenishment, a thrifty provision against future exhaustion, is one not peculiar to carbon, but it is a provision made in good degree for every one of the elemental resources of life, whether redundant or only adequate in its immediate supply.
That plants feed upon the carbonic acid of the air is known to the school-children, and has been known to men for a hundred and one years at least. ”

“ Even the entire coffee-berry is sometimes counterfeited—a suggestion from the legendary wooden nutmegs of New England invention. But we may trust that the great body of tea and of unground coffee in commerce is nearly or quite innocent of adulteration. No positively hurtful impurities are apt to be found, but not the less all falsifications of these or other articles of food should be severely punished. It is clearly a misdemeanor to tamper with the food which any man may select by its distinctive name, in his own discretion, for his personal use. ”

“ It seems, indeed, more than a coincidence that this narrow, rainless, wind-nurtured slope of land should send to all the earth three such eminent resources as Peruvian nitre, Peruvian guano, and Peruvian bark.
Another of the materials adequate for no more than the needs of life is phosphorus. This element so far differs from nitrogen that it is not found uncombined in Nature, and if separated by art it immediately enters into combination on exposure to the air. It occurs chiefly as phosphate of lime, taken from the mineral kingdom by plants and also by animals. ”

“ A child would ask the question, What is there so very good in the tea-plant or in its dry leaf? And a philosopher may well ask, What is there about it, that this article has had a commercial history since the early middle ages, and men toil to till it, and with infinite detail to pick it and dry it and roll it, and spread and stir and roast and toss it, and then carry it over the globe in quantities to distribute for every household and amounting in sum-total to a quarter of a billion of pounds every year? ”

“ TO be able to live, in any way known to us, it is indispensable to have a body. And, as living bodies come by growth and continue by nourishment, it is first necessary to have materials whereof bodies can be made—and renewed and kept in warmth and strength. Just these materials, with permission of the reader, we will try to take account of, as resources of life. Life is not maintained "by bread alone;" other needful resources being known to physical science, and still other resources greater than all being recognized by their results in life ”

“ The chemist has yet to find, if he can, a plant on the globe containing the alkaloid theine, or its chemical associate, theobromine, that has not been, by some of the races of men in some of the ages of the world, brought into use as a refreshing beverage, or adjunct to food, prized for adding cheerfulness to nourishment, and giving solace to fatigue. ”

“ But in the coatings and coverings of the seed we find a large and abundant supply of substances, in variety and quantity the rarest and richest stock in the vegetable commonwealth. Indeed, the wrappings of seed-germs constitute the especial provision for the nourishment of the human race. The seeds enveloped with starch and albuminoids, as in the cereal grains, make up "the staff of life" for man. Seeds with oily coatings, including the nuts, present a good supply of fats for food. ”

“ Nowhere in the world but on the borders of the Himalayas and in the wild regions of Assam is the tea-plant found growing uncultivated, but it was not discovered in this its natural habitation until the present century. As a cultivated plant, the Chinese have certainly had it since the fourth century, and they claim it to be indigenous to their own soil—just as confidently as they claim the parentage of numerous valuable articles. China has given tea to the world, and has furnished a favorable home to the plant, which is nevertheless quite as well suited in its native land, farther east. ”

“ In the first place, there is the danger in concentrating what the Creator has diluted. The oxygen of the air itself is poisonous when concentrated. Bungling art is almost sure to "o'erstep the modesty of Nature" by using good things in hurtful excess. The essential oil of bitter-almonds extracted from cherry-laurel leaves, or from bitter-almond kernels, is liable to retain a poisonous proportion of the hydrocyanic acid, and its use in flavoring extracts, for pastry, etc., has now and then produced illness and even fatal results, more frequently with children. ”

“ In chemical analysis coffee yields an alkaloid, at first named caffeine, but long since determined to be identical with the alkaloid of the tea-plant, so that while the terms theine and caffeine are both in use, chemists recognize them as synonyms. Theine is found not only in the seed—the "berry" of the coffee-plant but even more abundantly in the leaf, though the latter, of less agreeable flavor, has been little used, and is not in commerce. The use of the coffee-leaf is further discouraged by the fact that the plucking of the leaf is injurious to the crop of the berry. ”

“ If not from organic accumulations, we seem to be referred to the air as the source of nitrogen, and left to conjecture the conditions and forces which could bring elemental nitrogen into union in so great a quantity. Without pursuing these inquiries, it may be permitted to cite a fact which seems entitled to consideration in the case, namely, the conditions for an unusual overflow of atmospheric ammonia in this region. It is fed by perpetual trade-winds—winds coming from the southeast across a wide continent of soil that is rich to rankness, and warmed under a vertical sun. ”

“ PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.
TO form the seed seems to be the chief end of the plant. When in the vigor of its own maturity, and when receiving the sun's strongest rays and the earth's richest nourishment, the plant gathers all its resources, and devotes them to the building of the seed. When done, the seed itself, the embryo, commonly possesses little substance and serves little use beyond its primary purpose, the reproduction of the plant. ”

“ Whether the sugar of fruits is formed within them, or introduced through the stem, and, if formed in the fruits, from what substance formed, are questions which have been investigated, but not wholly settled. It has been pretty generally held that starch in the unripe fruits is converted into sugar in the ripe fruits; the fruit acids inducing the change, as we know they have power to do. But starch is not found in the unripe stage of all fruits, and, in the cases where found, its quantity is sometimes too small to serve as the source of all the sugar of the ripened fruit. ”

“ It is only about a hundred years since man began to attain such definite knowledge of the components of matter as enables him to trace (we by no means say to understand) the transmutations of earth and air into tissues fit for life. Thirty-six years ago, Liebig commenced giving the people the first really systematic lessons upon the material resources of life. ”

“ In general terms, sugar suffers oxidation in ripe fruits, small portions being oxidized away even during the production of larger portions, and before perfect maturity. We do not know what fruit constituents, if any, result in this oxidation. The final products of oxidation, carbonic acid and water, are exhaled during ripening, and with greater rapidity after maturity has been passed.
It seems to be established that sugar in fruits is liable to traces of the alcoholic fermentation, even before maturity is passed. ”

“ Notwithstanding the adoption of theine-containing beverages by mankind at large, we can not hesitate to commend that robust habit which discards all dependence on adventitious food, even on so mild a stimulus as that of the tea-cup, and preserves through life the fresh integrity of full nervous susceptibility. ”

“ The fragrant principle of tea, the essential oil, already referred to, has not been separated in notable quantities, but it is recognized as a diffusible stimulant, transient and harmless in its effect on the system, and certainly attracting no little favor to the tea-cup. The diffusible flavorous substance of coffee is a product of its roasting, and the same is true of the proper fragrance of cacao, to which other odors are often added. ”

“ The hard part of bone is about nine-tenths phosphate, and phosphorus is an element of molecules organized into muscle and nerve.
The proportion of phosphates in the crust of the earth below organic remains is very slight, insufficient for the support of the higher forms of vegetable or animal life. It has been concentrated and gathered into the soil by the selective agency of the organic world, as it continues to be concentrated from the soil by each individual plant, and from vegetable products by each individual animal. ”

“ Some of the simpler forms of life subsist almost wholly upon the three elemental materials we have had in consideration, with a few others of the plentiful resources; and living beings taken together use much larger quantities of these than of the substances more sparingly supplied. But, as to the relative importance of the two classes of resources, it can only be said that the higher forms of life can no more exist without the one than without the other. ”

“ In the salt-beds of Stassfurt, Germany, there is a good proportion of potassa, and the use of this supply has been steadily increasing, both as material in manufactures and as a fertilizer.
At the present time, the market value of the resources of life engages little general attention. There is a narrow branch of commerce, wherein the prices-current of the three elemental materials which we have taken as "adequate resources" are the values constantly under calculation in daily business. In this guild, one sells nitrogen at thirty cents, another offers phosphoric acid at five cents ”

“ The other elemental resources are available only in their compounds; oxygen does its best service when alone. The others serve life as materials for its bodily tissues; oxygen has an additional duty, the maintenance of operations giving warmth and strength. The activities of life consume various materials, but most constantly of all they demand a raw material of inorganic nature, a simple material in its primitive condition. ”

“ Plants doubtless gather directly from the nitrogen compounds of the air without help of the rain, and obtain a larger supply from the organic mould of good soils; but that all these sources together provide hardly enough is pretty clearly proved by feeding the roots of the plant with additional nitrogen compounds. On all but the richest soils, the suitable application of ammonia or nitrates causes a notable increase in the quantity of food-plants, and also causes an increased proportion of the nitrogenous constituents of plants. ”