This can only loosely be described as research but I thought it was such a kick. It just shows how knowledge can be common in one generation and lost to another.

I was reading an Erle Stanley Gardner novel, published in 1955. Perry Mason is explaining why he has to save his client from life imprisonment. Here is part of the paragraph in which he describes her potential fate:
"She lives on prison grub. It's a diet that will keep her nourished but it consists of starches in place of proteins. She gets fat. Her tissues become water-logged. She loses her figure. . . "

Now isn't that interesting?