There is yet another point to be considered in respect to carbon. Carbon need not be taken in the form of carbohydrate, the alternative being fats and oils. Fats and carbohydrates are both composed of the elements carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, but the proportions in which they are joined are different. Fats are not such useful foods as carbohydrates, nor to most people so pleasant—compare a spoonful of olive-oil and a lump of sugar. But there is one important point to be urged in their favour: they yield twice as much heat as either proteids or carbohydrates; so their position among foods is assured. The other chemical necessities of the body we need only mention here. Hydrogen is one of the components of proteid, carbohydrate, fat, and water; and if it does not enter in the last form, it—at any rate, most of it—leaves as such, being oxidized in the tissues. Sulphur and iron deserve honourable mention; common salt is required by the blood; lime and phosphates go to make bone; but important as they all are, they need not detain us further at present. With regard to the amount of these elements which is required per day, and which is ascertained by collecting and weighing all that is given off, it is found that about ½ ounce of nitrogen and 10 ounces of carbon are necessary to an average man—_i.e._, weighing about 10 stone. The ½ ounce of nitrogen and about 2 ounces of the carbon are contained in 4 ounces of dry proteid, which leaves a balance of 8 ounces of carbon to be made up; and this is usually obtained by eating 4 ounces of fat and 18 ounces of carbohydrate. Roughly speaking, these principles are contained in ¾ pound of ordinary butcher’s meat and 2 pounds of bread; but it would be well to defer considering diet for the present, until we have examined the apparatus by which the body extracts what it wants from the raw materials, and which of these offer it the least resistance. II.