The book presents ten essays focusing on the state of knowledge of some basic issues of nutrition in various periods and the ways of thinking about them, e.g. the digestion of food, the utilization of nutrients and their conversion into body substance, obesity, dietary standards or the need of specific nutrients. In the introduction, Professor Guggenheim endeavors to place each essay in its historical context. As a result, without claiming to present an abridged history of nutrition, the book encompasses a span of 2,400 years, from the Greco-Roman Antiquity until the twentieth century.