Punch,  34 (1858), 241.

Our Bread Upon the Waters

Anon

Genre:

News-Commentary,

Subjects:

Nutrition, Chemistry


    Discusses a report in the Morning Post concerning an 'impending moral and physical revolution about to result from Chemistry'—the possibility, enunciated in a recent lecture by Edward Frankland, of producing foods from their constituents. Boasts that Mr Punch had anticipated Frankland's claim in an article on 'Vegetable Mutton' in Punch's Pocket Book for 1855. Here, Mr Punch noted that although a galvanized mixture of water, charcoal, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen cannot produce food, 'the discovery of some agent yet more subtle than electricity may one of these days' enable the production of venison from 'air, water, and cinders'. Noting the Morning Post's claim that coal could be used to make bread, surmises that all food and other 'creature comforts' may be produced from coal.



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