On the same principle, but more reliable and of greater value, is the scale constructed by Leube, according to the results obtained by emptying the stomach of patients by means of a tube, after different kinds of food had been taken. We think it advisable and useful here to give Leube's scale:

1st Diet

Bouillon, Leube-Rosenthal's meat solution, milk, soft raw eggs, zwieback, English cakes (biscuits containing no sugar), water, natural acidulous waters (Apollinaris, Kronthaler, Seltzer, etc.).

2d Diet

Boiled calf's brain, boiled calf's sweetbread, boiled chicken (young without the skin), boiled pigeon, boiled calves' feet, tapioca pap boiled in milk, beaten white of egg.

3d Diet

Kaw beef (chopped very fine), raw ham (chopped very fine), beefsteak (superficially fried in freshest butter), finely scraped tenderloin of beef, mashed potatoes, white bread (stale), coffee with milk, tea with milk.

4th Diet

Fried chicken, fried squab, roast venison, guinea hen, roast beef (cold), roast veal (leg, saddle), boiled pike, macaroni, rice pap, finely chopped spinach, asparagus, stewed apples.

This table has been verified by the above-mentioned Penzoldt's investigations. All these experiments, however, only show what food remains in the stomach the shortest time. This would perhaps give reason for inferring what food may be easily digested as far as the stomach is concerned, but not what is more easily digested as a whole, i.e., made use of for the economy of the body with the smallest amount of work. The digestibility of food substances depends firstly upon their shape and quality; secondly, upon their percentage of convertible material.

"Corpora non agunt nisi fluida," is an old, well-known axiom. Following this law one could arrange the following scale of digestibility, which is constructed according to the different physical conditions of the food:

1. Food In Liquid Form

(a) Liquid at ordinary temperature - milk, meat juice, beef tea, bouillon, peptone or sarcopeptone dissolved in water, bread water,1 strained barley, oatmeal, rice water, strained oyster soup, egg-albumin water; (6) liquid at the body temperature - jellies, fruit jelly, calf's-foot jelly, icecream, water-ice.

2. Pulpy Form

The food is mechanically converted into very minute particles and well mixed in liquid - pap soups (barley, oatmeal, farina, rice, sago); egg in bouillon; Leube'smeat solution, pulverized meat, pulverized crackers in milk, water, or bouillon; buttermilk, kumyss, cream, butter.

3. Food which by slight trituration in fluids separates into minute particles; White bread in milk or water; the tips of well-boiled asparagus; carrots, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes; the yolk of hard-boiled eggs; oysters (raw).

4. Solid Food

White bread, rye bread; meat, hard-boiled eggs, fish, cheese.

5. Substances Not Easily Digested

Meat with tough fibre; lobster; sausages and Swiss cheese on account of their solidity; all substances containing much cellulose, principally when eaten raw; cold slaw; all salads, cucumbers, pickles, raw fruit, apples, pears, pineapple; fruit which contains much acid, therefore all unripe fruit, strawberries; substances containing much sulphur and forming gases in the intestines: all kinds of cabbage, principally white cabbage; beans.

1 Bread water. Stale bread is cut into slices and put in water at temperature of room for from two to three hours, then the water is strained.

This theoretically constructed scale of the digestibility of food is, at the same time, in the main points, similar to the one which has long stood the test of empiricism and which I ordinarily employ in my practice.