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Liebig's Soups for Invalids and Children

seed meal. When the poultice is prepared, and as hot as the patient can bear it, about 2 oz. of the prepared liquor must be poured equally over the whole of the surface of each, without its being imbibed; the part affected is then to be wrapped up in it, and bour d up with flannel and bandages to preserve the heat. The poultice is generally changed every 24 hours, sometimes at the end of twelve.

Liebig's Soup for Invalids.

Take lb. of newly-killed beef or fowl, chop it fine, add 14 lbs. of distilled water, with 4 drops of pure muriatic acid, and 34 to 67 grains of common salt, and stir well together. After an hour the whole is to be thrown on a conical hair-sieve, and the fluid allowed to flow through without any pressure. The first thick portions which pass through are to be returned to the sieve, until the fluid runs off quite clear. Half a lb. of distilled water is to be poured, in small portions at a time, on the flesh residue in the sieve. There will be obtained in this way about 1 lb. of fluid (cold extract of flesh), of a red color, and having a pleasant taste of soup. The invalid is allowed to take it cold, a cupful at a time, at pleasure. It must not be heated, as it becomes muddy by heat, and deposits a thick coagulum of albumen and coloring matter of blood. In soup prepared in the usual way by boiling, all those constituents of flesh are wanting which are necessary for the formation of blood albumen; and the yolk of egg, which is added, is poor in those substances, for it contains in all 824 per cent. of water and fat, and only 17+ per cent. of a substance, the same or very similar to albumen of egg. But whether it is equal in its power of nutrition to the albumen of flesh, is at least doubtful from the experiments of Magendie.

Besides the albumen of flesh, the new soup contains a certain quantity of coloring matter of blood, and with it a much larger quantity of the necessary iron for the formation of the blood-corpuscles, and finally, the muriatic acid to assist digestion. A great obstacle to the use of this soup in summer is its liability to change in warm weather. It enters into fermentation like sugar with yeast, but without acquiring a bad odor.

What may be the substance which gives rise to this fermentation is a question well worthy of being investigated. The extraction of the flesh must consequently be made with very cold water, and in a cool place. Iced water, and external cooling with ice, completely removes this difficulty. But the most important point to be attended to is to employ meat quite recently killed, and not several days old. The soup has been successfully employed in low fevers and the summer-complaint of children.

Liebig's Soup for Children.

With that remarkable estimation of the greatness of small things which is the most valuable of his many high intellectual qualities, and with a tender appreciation of the importance of small people, Baron Liebig devotes a special article in an English scientific periodical to the description of a new diet which he conceives to be the most fitting substitute for the natural nutriment of children robbed of their mother's milk. It is well known the cow's milk does not adequately represent the milk of a healthy woman, and when wheaten flour is added, as it commonly is, Liebig points out that, although that starch be not unfitting for the nourishment of infants, the change of it into sugar in the stomach during digestion imposes an unnecessary labor on the organization, which will be spared it if the starch be changed into the soluble forms of sugar and dextrine. This he effects by adding to the wheaten flour a certain quantity of malt. As wheaten flour and malt flour contain less alkali than woman's milk he supplies this when preparing the soup.

This soup may be shortly prepared, as follows: "Half an oz. of wheaten flour and an equal quantity of malt flour; 74 grs. of bicarbonate of potash and 1 oz. of water are to be well mixed; 5 oz. of cow's milk are then to be added, and the whole put on a gentle fire; when the mixture begins to thicken it is removed from the fire, stirred during 5 minutes, heated and stirred again till it becomes fluid, and finally made to boil. After the separation of the bran by a sieve it is ready for use. By boiling it for a few minutes it loses all taste of the flour." The immediate inducement for Baron Liebig making this soup arose from the fact that one of his grandchildren could not be suckled by its mother, and that another required, besides his mother's milk, a more concentrated food. The soup proved an excellent food - the children thrived on it. Baron Liebig has himself used this soup with tea as a breakfast, and a most thoroughly nutritious meal it must be. The temperature before boiling should not exceed 148° Fahr. To Write for the Use of the Blind.

Let an iron pen be used, the point of which is not split. Blind persons writing without ink, and pressing on a strong paper, will produce characters in relief, which they can immediately read by passing their fingers over the projecting characters on the opposite side of the paper, in the contrary direction. On the Honing and Stropping of a Razor.

Let the hone be seldom and but sparingly resorted to, and never, unless by frequent and repeated stropping the edge of the razor is entirely destroyed; use the best pale oil, and be careful to preserve the hone clean and free from dust.

Previously to the operation of shaving, it will be found of service, particularly to those who have a strong beard and a tender skin, to wash the face well with soap and water, and the more time is spent in lathering and moistening the beard, the easier will the process of shaving become. Dip the razor in hot water before applying it to the face; use the blade nearly flat, always taking care to give it a cutting instead of a scraping direction. Strop the razor immediately after using it, for the purpose of effectually removing any moisture that may remain upon the edge, and be careful not to employ a common strop, as the composition with which they are covered is invariably of a very inferior quality, and injurious to a razor. The strop should always be of the best manufacture, and when the composition is worn off it will be found particularly useful to rub it over, lightly, with a little clean tallow, and then put upon it the top part of the snuff of a candle, which, being a fine power, will admirably supply the place of the best composition ever used for the purpose. Another excellent mode of renovating a razor-strop is by rubbing it well with pewter, and impregnating the leather with the finest metallic particles.

Paste for Sharpening Razors.

Take oxide of tin levigated, vulgarly termed prepared putty, 1 oz.; saturated solution of oxalic acid, a sufficient quantity to form a paste. This composition is to be rubbed over the strop, and when dry a little water may be added. The oxalic acid having a great attachment for iron, a little friction with this powder gives a fine edge to the razor.