Legislation has been doing all in its power to limit the deleterious effects of poisons upon those who are compelled to work in them. Yet it is exceedingly difficult to get factory workers to wash their hands before eating, and many firms have been severely censured when cases of chronic poisoning have occurred in their works, when the sufferers themselves were entirely to blame because they would not wash their hands. To return to the dinner. At the table, soups are divided into two groups—thick and clear. Dietetically, the division is extremely well marked, for the actions and uses of the two are totally different. Clear soup—that is, soup which is quite free from floating particles—is not a food and contains no nourishment. This may seem a strong statement to make and you may disbelieve it; but still it is a fact. Clear soup is a solution of the _débris_ of animal tissue. The nourishing part of animal flesh is insoluble in boiling water and therefore is not present in clear soup. The only fluid which contains nutritive animal matter after it has been boiled is milk.[2] But if it is not a food, clear soup is a powerful stimulant and is a good opening to a big meal. But it should only be taken in very small quantities, and by most persons beyond middle age it is better not taken at all! Thick soup is a nutritious preparation owing its nourishing power entirely to the solid particles suspended in it. Like clear soup, however, it is chiefly a solution of animal _débris_—the waste products of life. It used to be the rule to give beef-tea and other meat extractives in all illnesses, but fortunately the custom is dying out as our knowledge increases. There are many diseases—for instance, gout—which are due to excess of waste products in the blood; or, to put it in an intelligible form, they are due to substances identical with beef-tea circulating in the blood. And yet these people used to be fed on soup, when of all things in the world it is that which they should avoid. Before we continue the dinner, we wish to say a few words about this custom of giving beef-teas, etc., to invalids. The ordinary soups, beef-teas, meat essences and suchlike, which are commonly given to the sick, are inappropriate for their purpose and are frequently exceedingly injurious. You cannot feed anybody on beef-tea. It is a fairly useful stimulant, but as a food it is worthless. But you can make a liquid food which contains a considerable part of the nourishment of meat and is, moreover, not indigestible.