THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOUSEKEEPING: A Scientific and Practical Manual FOR ASCERTAINING THE ANALYSIS AND COMPARATIVE VALUE OF ALL KINDS OF FOOD, ITS PREPARATION FOR THE TABLE, THE BEST MODE OF PRESERVING ARTICLES OF DIET, THE PROPER CARE OF HEALTH, REMEDIES IN SICKNESS, AND THE INTELLIGENT AND SKILLFUL PERFORM、 ANCE OF EVERY HOUSEHOLD OFFICE, WITH AN APPENDIX OF RECIPES. BY JOSEPH B. LYMAN, Agricultural Editor of New York Tribune, Associate Editor of "Hearth and Home.” AND LAURA E. LYMAN, Author of the Agriculturist Prize Essay on Housekeeping, W.iter in Home Circle Department of the World, and "Hearth and Home." TX 145 1986 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by JOSEPH B. LYMAN, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the District of Connecticut. PREFACE. THE authors have had three objects in view in preparing and sending out to the world the treatise here published. First: We are not aware that the reading public is supplied with any popular treatise on the science of food; and the endeavor, in the pages that follow, is to throw a pontoon, so to speak, from the laboratory to the kitchen, and give the conclusions of organic chemistry, on subjects most intimately connected with human happiness, in language that all can understand. Second: We have labored at the same time to produce a manual which the house-keeper can take in hand, with a certainty of finding direction and assistance in most of the doubts and perplexities which beset her daily life; a book to aid in choosing food prescribed to her in cases of accident and sickness, guide her in the selection of cloth, and in the making-up of every article of dress, or of domestic decoration; a book of which, if studied and followed, will render her sagacious, able, well-informed, ready, skilful, tasteful, and accomplished in whatever makes HOME the centre of our dearest comforts, and the fountain of our purest delights. Third: While our aim has been to give the public a volume, thoroughly practical and matter-of-fact, we hope it will be found, not a dry compilation of empirical rules, but a live book, a readable essay, not without felicity of treatment and amenities of style, — the agreeable so blended with the useful, that whoever takes it up for suggestion on a single subject, will continue to read for the rational delight which the pages may afford. The authors cannot but hope that this volume may lead some minds to reflect how directly the most recondite truths may conduce to our daily weal and happiness; how science its not only glorious for the splendors which she reveals, but a benignant guide, a wise fireside companion, no less admirable in her stately steppings, than when she compounds the sick man's broth, or bends over the cradle of the nursling. J. B. L. L. E. L. CONTENTS. Duty of woman in the domestic relation. Compared with man in this respect. Knowledge required by her. She should be well ac- quainted with the organs and processes by which the human frame is nourished. Amount of waste and of supply in twenty-four hours of a human life. Vigor depends upon aliment. General description of the alimentary canal. Its divisions and various digestive juices. Two grand reasons why we eat. To secure warmth and to create strength. Division of food into tissue-making and heat-producing. The demand for a variety of food. Function of the mouth and the saliva. Description and office of the stomach. What conditions are required to secure easy digestion. Digestibility of food varies. Oily matters in the stomach. Different foods benefit the body in various ways. Duty of a housewife to adapt food to persons whose age, health, and occupations differ. The table as a place for the The division of food into that which makes heat, and that which gives |