The History of a Mouthful of Bread

The History of a Mouthful of
Bread [with accents]

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Title: The History of a Mouthful of Bread And its effect on the
organization of men and animals
Author: Jean Mace
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6970] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 18,
2003]

Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: Latin-1
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HISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD ***

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THE HISTORY OF A MOUTHFUL OF BREAD: And Its Effect on
the Organization of Men and Animals.
BY JEAN MACÉ.
Translated Prom the Eighth French Edition, By Mrs. Alfred Gatty.

EXTRACTS FROM THE PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION.
The volume of which the following pages are a translation, has been
adopted by the University Commission at Paris among their prize
books, and has reached an eighth edition. Perhaps these facts speak
sufficiently in its favor; but as translator, and to some extent editor, I
wish to add my testimony to the great charm as well as merit of the
little work. I sat down to it, I must own, with no special predilection in
favor of the subject as a suitable one for young people; but in the
course of the labor have become a thorough convert to the author's
views that such a study--perhaps I ought to add, so pursued as he has
enabled it to be--is likely to prove a most useful and most desirable
one.
The precise age at which the interest of a young mind can be turned
towards this practical branch of natural history is an open question, and
not worth disputing about. It may vary even in different individuals.
The letters are addressed to a _child_--in the original even to a _little
girl_--and most undoubtedly, as the book stands, it is fit for any child's
perusal who can find amusement in its pages: while to the rather older
readers, of whom I trust there will be a great many, I will venture to say

that the advantage they will gain in the subject having been so treated
as to be brought within the comprehension and adapted to the tastes of
a child, is pretty nearly incalculable. The quaintness and drollery of the
illustrations with which difficult scientific facts are set forth will
provoke many a smile, no doubt, and in some young people perhaps a
tendency to feel themselves treated _babyishly_; but if in the course of
the babyish treatment they find themselves almost unexpectedly
becoming masters of an amount of valuable information on very
difficult subjects, they will have nothing to complain of. Let such
young readers refer to even a popular Encyclopaedia for an insight into
any of the subjects of the twenty-eight chapters of this volume--"The
Heart," "The Lungs," "The Stomach," "Atmospheric Pressure,"--no
matter which, and see how much they can understand of it without an
amount of preliminary instruction which would require half-a-year's
study, and they will then thoroughly appreciate the quite marvellous
ingenuity and beautiful skill with which M. Macé has brought the great
leading anatomical and physical facts of life out of the depths of
scientific learning, and made them literally comprehensible by a child.
* * * * *
There is one point (independent of the scientific teaching) and that,
happily, the only really important one, in which the English translator
has had no change to make or desire. The religious teaching of the book
is unexceptionable. There is no strained introduction of the subject, but
there is throughout the volume an acknowledgment of the Great
Creator of this marvellous work of the human frame, of the daily and
hourly gratitude we owe to Him, and of the utter impossibility of our
tracing out half his wonders, even in the things nearest