Diet and food considered in relation to strength and power of endurance, training and athletics.

  • Haig, Alexander, 1853-1924.
Date:
1901
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Diet and food considered in relation to strength and power of endurance, training and athletics. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    quantity of albumen, force, and urea (see fig. 5); but tea and coffee are worse, much worse, for though at first they act as stimulants in much the same way as the acids and alcohol, later on they come into the blood as the very poison uric acid, which is the cause of much of the depression ; for we have seen above that fatigue is partly due to deficiency of albumens, and also partly due to deficient tissue cir- culation, rendering the stock of albumens useless because they cannot get to the tissues; and this defective tissue circulation is the effect of uric acid, to which the xanthins in tea and coffee are equivalent. The first effect of these xanthins is to act as acids, and clear the blood of uric acid, hence they are stimulants; later they come into the blood as uric acid and increase the depression. Practically those, who cannot get through their daily work without calling out their reserves with alcohol or tobacco, the action of which I have con- sidered in Uric Acid, are weak or diseased, and are entering on the road to physiological bankruptcy. And who are the people that are thus constantly calling on their reserves? Not those that live on the diets in the above Tables, far from it, for those who go on these diets comixionly give up alcohol and tobacco, if they used them before when on other diets. It is the flesh eaters who want the stimulants, and the reason is simple, for on all flesh diets they