degree in the absence of any food whatever, there is fair ground
for the opinion, however heterodox, that tea directly affords
nutriment to the human organism, and, possibly, to the brain and
nerves in particular, as with phosphoric acid.

Animal gelatine has been placed in the same class with tea by
Liebig, Dr. John W. Draper, and others, and it is asserted that
it conserves waste without itself entering into the substance of
human tissue. It is an accepted physiological law that nothing
taken as food or drink can support expenditure of human energy in
sensible motion, in heat, or in the nervous waste of mental or
emotional exercise without first being built up into living
tissue; the breaking down or chemical decomposition of which
tissue, and subsequent oxidation of less complex compounds or
their constituents, is the direct source of bodily energy of
every description. This, at least, is our reading of modern
authorities, like Foster. If tea and gelatine, and possibly
alcohol, are to form exceptions to the law, the law no longer
stands. But it would seem more reasonable to amend the hypothesis
concerning exceptions, and bring them into line by admitting that
they are nutritious in a manner not yet ascertained. All
physiological laws are provisional, good until proved
insufficient, and then to be amended in the light of accumulating
facts.



CHAPTER VIII.

Meanwhile Hanna the housemaid had closed and fastened the