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Meats

ANIMAL food in the form of meat, or the flesh of ox, calf, sheep, lamb, pig, and other animals, consists mainly of muscular substance, proteid, meat juices, and fat, being the highest kind of sustaining nutriment for man. It may be taken sometimes raw, under special conditions of deficient health, but is almost always sent cooked to table, either roasted, boiled, broiled, baked, or stewed. Full particulars as to meat constituents, and the methods of preparing them, are to be found explained in Kitchen Physic. Great care should always be exercised as to the quality, and soundness of meats which are to be served, as well for persons in good robust health, as for the weakly, and the convalescent. It must be remembered that flesh meat which shows the slightest sign of incipient decomposition is dangerous. Heat sufficient to destroy bacterial life never reaches the middle of large pieces of meat during their cooking; it penetrates only slowly into the interior of the flesh, and never reaches therein to the degree of 100° C.; so that, if present within the meat, most of such bacteria would probably survive the ordinary process of cooking, and in any case their spores would be certain to retain a dangerous vitality. If the juice which can be expressed from cooked meat is a turbid liquid, then it is likely that the temperature in cooking has not exceeded 56° C. ; if it is of a clear red, then the temperature has probably risen to between 50° and 60° C., but not exceeding 65° C.; if up to 70° C. the colour of the meat juice changes to brownish red; and between 75° and 80° C. to yellow. With respect to cold meat, it must be noted that if, after being cooked, and become cold, it remains exposed to any injurious influence, such as dust, flies, or noxious smells, even within a few hours it will generate microbic bacilli in large numbers, which are prejudicial to health. Cold meat-jelly is used as a prolific germinator in every experimental laboratory; so that re-cooked, hot meat is always more wholesome, and a safer food, than cold cooked meat, unless quite recent, and absolutely fresh.

Broiled meat is less likely to contain microbes, or bacilli still living, than meat roasted in joints, because in these latter the heat about the middle of the roasted joint does not reach a degree destructive to the microbes; whereas within the thinner broiled meats it attains a considerably higher degree, such as will put an end to the micro-organisms. No animal parasite in meat can withstand a temperature of 70° C. as attained in ordinary cooking, which therefore renders it free from any such elements of infection; but this is not the case as regards the pathogenic bacteria of typhoid, or putrescence. "Planked" meat (and fish) are in this way made antiseptic, as well as very palatable. Baked food done on a suitable plank in the oven is essentially wholesome, and dainty. On Easter Sunday (1512), in the Bay of the Cross, U.S.A., the natives were found cooking fish upon logs with a fire upon the beach. Of course the plank must be of a proper sort, recent oak being capital for the purpose; it contains pyroligneous acid, which rises by the heat of baking. Also animal oil flows out of the meat, or fish, into the plank, 66 and meets the pyroligneous acid, so that each being hot, they chemically unite, and a gas is produced which permeates the meat, or fish, as it were curing" the substance, and imbuing it with an appetizing taste, and relish. The food cooked in this way becomes immediately converted within the stomach and intestines into chyle, and is readily digested. By which plan oily fish which would be otherwise difficult of digestion, and would cause distress, also roast pork, and the like, become readily digestible; but of fish only the oily sorts can be planked in cooking, whilst nearly all kinds of meat are improved by the process. Ordinary meat-gravy furnishes nearly 50 per cent of uric acid. During continued fever there is a rapid waste of nitrogenous elements of the bodily structures, such as would in health be best restored by lean meat, and proteids of a like sort. But under such conditions of illness these are not admissible, and "it is better," as Dr. Hutchison teaches, to give then the proteidsparers, such as gelatin, the carbohydrates, and fats, than to encumber the body, and tire the digestive energies with any free supply of proteids themselves. "Milk should always form the basis of fever diet; about four pints in the day will generally be sufficient, either given plain, or diluted with some alkaline effervescing water. If seeming to be needed, one or two teaspoonfuls of milk sugar, dissolved in a little hot water, may be added to each tumblerful of the milk. Beef-tea, or simple broths, may also be allowed, about a pint a day, except when diarrhea is present." No patient with chronic kidney disease should make use as food of beef-tea, or bouillon, or the so-called beef extracts. These substances are concentrated solutions of salts identically the same as those which go to form the urine itself, in addition to some albumin; whereby the kidneys are already overworked, seeing that the blood is surcharged with these toxic products. A milk diet will be the proper course to adopt, diluted or skim milk being preferred, wherein the proportion of helpful proteid remains undiminished, and the harmless fat is retained.

Stewing is in many respects the ideal method for cooking meat: it coagulates the proteids without hardening the fibrous tissues. As concerning these proteids (superlative sustenance for restoring nervous power, and repairing muscular loss of substance) lean beef contains, roughly speaking, twice as much as wheat flour; but beef is about four times as dear as flour; therefore one may estimate that proteids from the animal source are quite twice as costly as proteids from the vegetable source, only there are additional stimulating, and cordial principles in the former, which are lacking in the latter. When the proteid of meat is swallowed, and reaches the stomach, then this animal food is converted by the gastric juice into peptones, as the first stage of digestion. Now the same early digestive process can be artificially brought about beforehand, outside the body, prior to eating the meat; and it is contended that in such a way the stomach is saved efforts which can be then utilized for the later stages of digestion. But one may fairly ask, Are the artificial peptones of as much dietetic value as the proteid meat at first hand? Are they equally well assimilated, and as capable of recruiting the invalid? We may confidently say that they can fully play the part in nutrition, which is ordinarily taken by proteids given unaltered, and swallowed as food in the customary manner. But it may not be denied that these outside peptones have a tendency to produce diarrhea, since they seem to cause a considerable flow of water from the blood into the stomach and bowels, leading to looseness. When treating fevers, and wishing to give proteids, it is found that milk albumin (or Plasmon) will nourish, without raising the bodily temperature as flesh meat does. Plasmon contains about 90 per cent of milk-albumin.

Charles Lamb, a good judge of meat, compared thereto his own literary productions; and when a contributor to The Champion (1814) begged the editor, Mr. Scott, to "wink occasionally at briskets, and veiny pieces." As a rule the flesh of a female animal is more tender, but with less flavour, than that of the male. It was Jeremy Taylor's hen-pecked husband who "found dry bread abroad better eating than roast meat at home." Mutton is the flesh of sheep (Multo, originally a ram deprived of its horns). "The Moton boyled is of nature, and complexion sanguyne, the whiche to my jugement is holsome for your Grace" (Babee's Book). A leg of Mutton for roasting may be hung until tender, and perhaps even a little high-smelling on the outside, because the action of the fire will brown, or carbonize it, making it sweet by the antiseptic brown caramel which is produced all over the outside of the roasted joint. But a leg of Mutton to be boiled must be perfectly fresh, seeing that no carbonizing of its outside is then effected, with antiseptic anti-putrescent results. Dr. King Chambers has pronounced that a leg of Mutton is "the promised land to a convalescent patient." Sheep thrive best in Scotland, and Mutton is such a constant dietetic resource there, that Scotch broth always means Scotch Mutton-broth. This Mutton is naturally accompanied therein with Scotch barley, and with turnips, upon which the sheep have mainly to live, and from which they partly derive the flavour of their flesh. Bread may be added in broken pieces, or in fried croutons of toast, pouring the hot liquid over the prepared bread in the soup tureen (Soupe au pain of the French). The Gigot à sept heures, or Gigot la cuillère, is in France a leg of Mutton which has been cooked for several hours, when it may be carved with a spoon. Charles Dickens loved "a little supper, and a glass of something hot," his favourite dish at that meal being a leg of Mutton boned, and stuffed with veal stuffing, and oysters. For the accompanying punch he had a special recipe of his own invention. There is a notable recipe for a similarly seasoned dish in the Fairfax MSS. of three hundred years ago "as to the roasting of a shoulder of Mutton with a stuffing of oysters, eggs, and sweet herbs mixed with white wine vinegar." Dr. Kitchener, famous as author of The Cook's Oracle, invited Pope, the wellknown actor, to dinner, thus raising the highest expectations of this gourmet; but the Doctor only gave him a roast leg of Mutton with boiled potatoes; and Pope to the end of his days denounced him as an infernal impostor." A stock dish of honour at a Boer table, (being placed in the centre of it), in the Transvaal, is boiled salt Mutton. A leg of Mutton which has first been salted, then soaked in water, and next coated with a paste made of mealie meal, is afterwards put into the oven for a short time to harden the covering; it is then taken out, and boiled, and proves very appetizing. At the commencement of the eighteenth century Mutton pies were much in popular esteem, being sold commonly in the streets as "All hot! all hot!" Dr. Wharton, Professor of Poetry at the Oxford University, wrote an advertisement for promoting the sale of these commodities :- 66 "All ye who love what's nice, and rarish At Oxford, in Saint Martin's Parish, Ben Tyrrell, cook of high renown To please the palates of the gown, At threepence each makes mutton pies, Which now he hopes to advertise.

He welcomes all his friends at seven Each Saturday, and Wednesday even; No relicks stale with art unjust Lurk in disguise beneath his crust :

His pies, to give you all fair play, Smoke only when 'tis market day :

If rumps and kidneys can allure you, Ben takes upon him to assure you, No cook shall better hit the taste In giving life and soul to paste :

If cheap and good have weight with men, Come all ye youths, and sup with Ben."

In some of the Northern Islands, which are particularly noted for the excellence of their Mutton, it is said that the peculiar flavour of the meat is due to the fact that the sheep occasionally regale themselves upon seaweed. "let One ounce of Mutton flesh contains eighty-six grains of proteid; a thin Mutton chop contains forty-one grains. At the Red Queen's dinner (in Alice through the Looking Glass) her Majesty ordered, "Put on the joint!" and the waiters set a leg of Mutton before Alice, who looked at it rather anxiously, as she had never been made to carve a joint before. "You look a little shy," said the Red Queen; me introduce you to that leg of Mutton. Alice! Mutton!- Mutton! Alice!" The leg of Mutton got up in the dish, and made a little bow to Alice, and Alice returned the bow, not knowing whether to be frightened, or amused. “May I give you a slice?" she said, taking up the knife and fork, and looking from one Queen to the other. "Certainly not," said the Red Queen very decidedly; "it isn't etiquette to cut anyone you've been introduced to!" "Remove the joint!" And the waiters carried it off, and brought a large plum-pudding in its place. Among Secrets in Physic and Chirurgery (1653) it is ordered as specially restorative "to take a young leg of Mutton; cut off the skin, and the fat; take the flesh, being cut into small pieces, and put it into a stone bottle; then put to it two ounces of raisins of the sun (stoned), a large mace, an ounce and a half of sugar-candy, and stop the bottle very close, and let it boil in a chafer three houres; and so put the juice from the meat, and keep it in a clean glasse; it will serve for three breakfastes, or, if he will, he may take some at three a'clock in the afternoon, being made warm (Right Honourable the Countesse of Kent, late deceased). دو At the "Boiled leg of Mutton Swarry" held by the fashionable footmen in Bath (Pickwick), Mr. Whiffers, the gentleman in orange, (who was giving up his situation in service) "could have wished to spare the company then before him the painful and disgusting details on which he was about to enter, but he had no alternative other than to state that he had been required to eat cold meat." - "Try a subtraction sum," says the Red Queen to Alice (Through the Looking Glass); "take a bone from a dog: what remains?" Charles Lamb has told (in Grace before Meat), "A man may feel thankful, heartily thankful, over a dish of plain Mutton with turnips, and have leisure to reflect upon the ordinance, and institution of eating, when he shall confess a perturbation of mind, inconsistent with the purposes of a Grace before Meat, at the presence of venison, or turtle. I have always admired the silent Grace of the Quakers, who go about their business of every description with more calmness than we, with applications to meat and drink less passionate and sensual than ours. They are neither gluttons, nor wine-bibbers as a people; they eat as a horse bolts his chopped hay, with indifference, calmness, and cleanly circumstances; they neither grease, nor slop themselves." Mutton fat has a strong characteristic odour, and turns rancid more readily than beef fat. In South Africa the tail of the native Cape sheep, (which tail is composed entirely of fat, and often weighs five or six pounds), when minced, and melted out, supplies the Cape housewife with a very good substitute for lard; this is excellent for frying fish, or fritters in, is more delicate than lard, and when eaten on hot toast, with pepper and salt, is a good imitation of beef marrow. Our forefathers thought the person served to begin with from a leg of Mutton badly off. "The cut that is worst of a leg is the first," said they. George A. Sala, telling in his Thorough Good Cook (1895) about Mutton-chops, commends one "so judiciously broiled as to be thoroughly done through, but not to exhaust its gravy, as an incomparably good lunch for a busy person up to the age of fifty; with the addition of a mite of minced shallot, for gentlemen only, Worcester sauce being too potent an accompaniment, and interfering with the hot chop's balminess of flavour; whilst a large, well-boiled, mealy potato goes well together with a chop having a curly tail." Sydney Smith, in a letter from Green Street, London, W. (1839), says: "I will give you very good Mutton chops for luncheon, seasoned with affectionate regard, and respect." In the Art of Cookery long before, we read that a certain "Old Cross condemns all persons to be Fops That can't regale themselves on Mutton Chops :

Sometimes 'Poor Jack' and onions are his dish, And then he saints all those that smell of fish."

George Eliot, writing to Charles Bray from Broadstairs (July, 1852), told him: "I am profiting, body and mind, from quiet walks, and talks with nature, picking up shells (not in the Newtonian sense, but literally), reading Aristotle, to find out what is the chief good, and eating Mutton-chops that I may have the strength to pursue it."

A Lamb, or young sheep, when sold as "Easter grass lamb," is, as says Dr. Kitchener, "young, tough, stringy Mutton, which had better be called 'hay Mutton.' House lamb might be in season from Christmas to Ladyday, grass lamb from Easter to Michaelmas, but sham lamb is independent of the season. quarter of a porkling is sometimes skinned, cut, and dressed, lamb-fashion, and being thus lambified is sold as a substitute. "Lamb, like all other young meat, ought to be thoroughly done; therefore do not take either lamb, or veal, from the spit or jack, till you see it drop white gravy; this rule is of great importance for the preservation of health." Crabbe, in The Borough, has written with apt alliteration about thyme-fed Mutton grazing among "The sandy sheep-walk's slender grass, Where fragrant flowers among the gorse are spread, And the lamb browses by the linnet's bed."

The sweetbread of the lamb, smaller than that of the calf, is often substituted for the latter. Charles Lamb has told in Rosamund Gray, that ""green peas, and a sweetbread' were a favourite dish with him in his childhood, he was allowed to have it on his birth-days." Compared with other foods as to its digestibility by the gastric juice, lambs' flesh ranks below mutton, and veal, or salmon, but higher than poultry, whilst containing double as much fat as that of the calf. Horace, the Roman poet, invited Phyllis, the last of his loves, to banquet of lamb, flanked by old wine, parsley from the garden for the weaving of festive chaplets, and ivy to bind her hair." "Lamb-tail pie" is "a dainty dish to set before a king." 66 a Pork, the flesh of the hog, has already received some particular consideration here as Bacon, which is this flesh when cured for keeping. "Corned" Pork was an abbreviation of acorned Pork, the animal having been fed upon acorns, such as were the chief support of the large herds of swine on which our first British forefathers subsisted. Acorns, when roasted, and ground, can be employed as a fair substitute for coffee. By distillation they will yield an ardent spirit. The Acorn contains chemically starch, a fixed oil, citric acid, uncrystallizable sugar, and a special sugar known as quercit. It is worth serious notice medically, that in years remarkable for abundance of acorns, very disastrous losses have occurred among young cattle in oak forests, or if fed on the oak produce, through outbreaks of acorn poisoning, or the acorn disease; the symptoms were wasting, loss of appetite, diarrhea, discharge from nose, and eyes, and sores within the mouth. As regards cookery, the primitive ages were those of innocence, and acorns." " Thef weren wont lyghtly to slaken hir hunger at euene with acornes of Okes" (Chaucer). In Jane Austen's capital domestic novel, Emma, the fidgety malade imaginaire, old Mr. Woodhouse, when a home-fed little porker had just been slaughtered for his household, instructed his daughter to the effect that certainly the pork was small, and delicate; but unless they could "make sure of the loin being made into steaks, nicely fried, without the smallest grease, and not roasted (for no stomach can bear roast Pork), we had better," said he to his daughter, "send the leg away to our neighbour, Mrs. Bates; don't you think so, my dear ? Galen, of old, prescribed Pork as a good food for persons who worked hard; and not a few modern physicians maintain that it is the most easily digested of all meats. Certainly it is more readily digested," says the Epicure (January, 1904), "than that respectable impostor, the boiled chicken, which so cruelly defies the feeble powers of an invalid." 66 دو Veal is the flesh of a young calf (Vitellus), of which the skin is made into vellum. It contains much less iron, and alkali salts, than beef, but is, on the other hand, richer in connective tissue. This flesh affords 19 per cent of proteids, that of the ox 20 per cent, and that of the sheep 17 per cent. "Weal pie," said Sam Weller, soliloquizing (at the shooting party in Pickwick), " is a wery good thing when you know the lady as made it, and is quite sure it ain't kittens." "I lodged in the same house 6 with a pieman once, Sir, and a wery nice man he were: regular clever chap, too! make pies out of anything, he could ! 'What a number of cats you keep, Mr. Brooks,' says I, when I got intimate with him. 'Ah,' says he, 'I do, a good many,' says he. 'You must be wery fond of cats,' says I. 'Other people is,' says he, winking at me. They aint in season, though, till the winter,' says he. 'Not in season?' says I. 'No,' says he; fruits is in, cats is out.' 'Why, what do you mean?' says I. 'Mean?' says he. 'Mr. Weller,' says he, a squeezing my hand very hard, and vispering in my ear, 'don't mention this 'ere again, but it's the seasonin' as does it; they're all made of them noble animals,' says he, a pointin' to a wery nice little tabby kitten; 'and I seasons 'em for beefsteak, weal, or kidney, 'cording to the demand; and, more than that,' says he, 'I can make a weal a beefsteak, or a beefsteak a kidney, or any one on 'em a mutton, at a minute's notice, just as the market changes, and appetites vary." Veal, though not of an exciting nature, is nevertheless difficult to be digested by most persons, and should not be permitted in complaints of the stomach. At the same time it is the most delicate in flavour of all meats, though sometimes provoking nettlerash, or other outbreaks on the skin. In The Newcomes (Thackeray) we read of "the famous Veal cutlets which Miss Martha Honeyman used to prepare with her own hands, to be offered on the shrine of Colonel Newcome when he posted down from London to pay her a flying visit." Again, Lear relates in his Book of Nonsense :- "There was an old man of Three Bridges, Whose mind was distracted by midges; He sat on a wheel, eating underdone veal, Which relieved that old man of Three Bridges."

On January 1st, 1661, Pepys "supped with Mr. Pierce, the purser, and his wife, and mine, where we had a calf's head carboned, but it was raw: we could not eat it; and a good hen. But she is such a slut that I do not love her victuals." Lemonjuice, and a stuffing of herbs, aid the digestion of Veal. "Good Veal stuffing!-reflect! - is in itself a triumph of culinary instinct; so bland is it, and yet so powerful upon the gastric juices! Did I call Veal insipid? But it is only so in comparison with English beef, and mutton. When I think of the 'brown' on the edge of a cut of really fine Veal!" (Henry Ryecroft). Ignotus, the physician, has commended Veal broth maigre for persons who habitually indulge in rich soups, and highlyspiced dishes, so as to give their digestive organs an occasional rest. "Stew a knuckle of Veal in about a gallon of water, to which put two ounces of rice, or vermicelli, with a little salt, and a blade of mace; when the meat has become thoroughly boiled, and the liquid reduced to one half, it may be sent to table, with, or without the meat." Voltaire advised his friend Lambert to St. Cirey, where Veal gravy broth was to the fore in everything. "We are going," said he, "to live a hundred years." The recipe for this "Blond de veau" had been given by the famous Tronchin, whose system of hygiene was to "keep your head cool, your feet warm, and your bowels open." Sydney Smith, writing from London to Mrs. Maynell (1841), told her "he had been living for three days on waiters, and Veal cutlets." Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer (in Pickwick) sat together in the little surgery behind the shop "discussing minced Veal, and future prospects." A delicious, and very nourishing Veal cream is to be made, of which a small quantity may be eaten occasionally by delicate invalids, in alternation with other light foods. Bruise half a pound of lean fillet of Veal in a mortar, and when it is reduced to a pulp, pass it through a fine sieve, together with an ounce and a half of pearl barley which has been previously soaked in cold water for several hours; dissolve half an ounce of Russian isinglass in two gills of thick cream, and bring the whole to the boil, adding salt to the taste, and flavouring with an infusion of mixed herbs; pour into a wetted mould to set, and turn out into a glass dish, or plate, and garnish with sprays of parsley.

The true Sweetbread of a calf, from its throat-front, renews defective growth in children by reason of its constituent earthsalts, as described elsewhere; whilst the stomach-bread, or pancreas (often substituted by butchers in lieu of the sweetbread), serves to augment the supply of natural fats, for warmth, and for growth of the adipose structures. The true (throat) sweetbread contributes organic phosphorus, which goes to repair and recruit the nervous system when feeble, and impoverished. A lamb's sweetbread, or throat-gland, is likewise beneficial as a general restorative in suitable cases. Similarly, even in its uncooked state the calf's stomach-bread (pancreas) exercises by its juices powerful digestive effects on flesh, milk, starch, and kindred substances. But this property becomes destroyed by boiling; so that the so-called sweetbread, when cooked, is to be eaten by the invalid, not as producing any digestive effect, but rather on account of its delicate flavour, and its invariable tenderness. In France each sweetbread, whether from calf, cow, or ox, is called "Ris dè veau," the word "ris" signifying laughter. "Betr than olde Boef is the tendre Veal" (Chaucer, Merchant's Tale).

Pepys, in his famous Diary, records it that on October 24th, 1662, he "dined with my wife upon a most excellent dish of Tripes of my own directing, covered with mustard, as I have heretofore seen them done at my Lord Crewe's, of which I made a very great meal, and sent for a glass of wine for myself." Tripe is the paunch of the stomach of cud-chewing animals, the ox, cow, etc.; its principal constituents are albumin, and fibrin, with fat; it is the most easily digested of all viands, possessing a large amount of connective tissue, which is readily changed into gelatine on boiling, so that the fibres are easily acted on by the gastric juice of the stomach. It also contains fat in a considerable amount, but not diffused through the muscular part. Unfortunately, the lack of extractives causes Tripe to be somewhat deficient in flavour, but otherwise it is to be regarded as a valuable, easily-assimilated food. About forty grains of proteid are present in each ounce of Tripe. Dr. Kitchener thought that Tripe holds the same rank amongst solids that water-gruel does among soups. It is without doubt tasteless of itself; and if the non-striped muscular fibres comprising its substance (such being the rumen, or first stomach of the ox) did own any little savoury material, this must be lost in the difficult process of its preparation, and boiling. The Tripe remains, therefore, chiefly a body of connective tissue, and has to be boiled until it is almost ready to dissolve into gelatine. It should be bought at the Tripe-shop in the boiled state, and next re-boiled at home in milk for at least an hour; and must then be made tasty by sauces, or garnishes, being therefore most frequently flavoured with an abundance of onions. According to Homer, Tripe was one of the dishes presented to the guests at the feast of Achilles as a food fit for heroes. A French name for Tripe is Gras double. Our English word is derived from "Trippa," entrails, belly, strippen. There is the plain Tripe, and the reticulum, or honeycomb Tripe, including the whole of the cardiac division of the stomach; this latter is the best part. The Art of Cookery (1709) suggests keeping the culinary preparation of Tripe out of observation by those who are to partake of it when dressed, and sent to table :- "In private draw your poultry, clean your tripe, (And from your eels the slimy substance wipe.) Let noisome offices be done by night, For they who like the meat abhor the sight." 'Mr. Lawson Tait, the late eminent surgeon, constantly recommended Tripe to his convalescent patients, with the remark that if it cost a guinea a pound, everyone would be wanting to eat it. Great care must be taken to always thoroughly clean it, and then to boil it steadily until quite tender; if fried it is not so digestible. Other ways of cooking it are as minced, stewed, curried, grilled, or fricasseed; but for invalids it is best boiled, and served with onion sauce, simply and smoothly made. Further particulars about Tripe, its cooking, and its literary associations, are given in Kitchen Physic. Five days before Charles Lamb was overtaken by erysipelas ensuing after a slight accident, and soon becoming unexpectedly fatal, he enquired anxiously from Mrs. Dyer about a book left at her house, which he had gone out to fetch "while the Tripe was frying." "It was Mr. Cary's book, and I would not lose it for the world," said Lamb; "if it be lost I shall never like Tripe again." The book was afterwards found, with a leaf folded down at the account of Sir Philip Sydney's end.

As regards animal foods in general, raw meat juice is deemed by some doctors to be the most highly restorative, and the most readily digested of all such foods, being particularly valuable for supplying proteid to children. When mixed with milk, it is usefully antiscorbutic, though needing to be prepared fresh every day, as it does not keep well. This contains 5 per cent of albuminates, and 3 per cent of nitrogenous extractives, together with mineral salts. Add to finely-minced rump steak, cold water in the proportion of one pint of water to four parts of the meat; stir well together, and allow to stand for half an hour; then forcibly express the juice by squeezing it out through muslin. But Dr. Hutchison is of a different opinion as regards raw beef-juice, which "cannot be considered an important aid to nutrition; this being evident from the fact that even of a preparation which contains 5 per cent of proteid, about three pints would be needed to supply the proteid required by an invalid; so that these raw meat juices can only be of some slight service in tiding over a crisis in which the administration of milk is for some reason out of the question. But a solution of egg-white flavoured with meat-extract makes an efficient substitute for beef-juices. The nutritive value of Beef-tea, which of itself never contains more than 2 per cent of nutritive matters, can be materially increased by adding to it the finelypowdered fibre of the meat; and the only means for getting the full nutritive value of meat in a small bulk is by the use of meat powders, thereby making 'whole beef-tea." Extract of meat is prepared by simply mincing lean fresh meat, and action of cold water, afterwards evaporating down the solution to the consistence of a thick extract. But without its flavouring constituents (which are likewise to be secured, as in Liebig's Extract), and the other nutritive attributes of the flesh, animal food is tasteless, and almost worthless. "It is upon the extractives," writes Dr. Hutchison, "that the value, and uses of Liebig's meat-extract must chiefly depend; these have unquestionably a marked effect on the digestive organs; they are the most powerful exciters of gastric digestion that we possess, and are thus eminently calculated to rouse the appetite, and aid the digestion of any food with which they may be taken.

This, indeed, is their true rôle, both in health, and in disease: they are flavouring agents, and their proper place is in the kitchen, not by the bedside. But as regards nourishing an invalid, these substances represent only the fragments, as it were, of broken-down proteid, and are of no use as tissue-builders."

An admirable combination of animal proteids with some useful carbohydrates is meal-bread, or wheaten bread, together with which a quantity of freshly-cooked, and minced, lean meat has been incorporated, after such a manner that it cannot be seen in the loaf, being completely dissolved in the crumb. Fresh dough will thus assimilate an amount of the meat corresponding to one pound within two pounds of the flour. It will really dissolve considerably more, up to one pound of meat to the dough of one pound of flour, but then the bread would not be so good. This bread is darker in colour than a white wheaten loaf, though having a white crust, an excellent taste, and being highly nutritious. It constitutes, indeed, with a certain amount of fat, a perfect food, and can be assimilated with ready ease by persons labouring under difficulties of the digestive organs.

It is to be leavened by under half an ounce of compressed yeast to the pound of flour. Ordinary bread contains proteid, and carbohydrate matters, also fat, in a very small quantity so that meat and bread in combination afford the essentials of a healthy diet.

The best way of preparing raw meat (a form of food which patients with very weak stomachs can digest more easily than most other sorts of nourishment) is to scrape a piece of tender, juicy steak with a blunt instrument, in a direction parallel to the course of the fibres, which are thereby separated out from the connective tissue including them, the same being left behind. The fibres form a pulp, which may be seasoned with celery-salt, and a little pepper, being then served either in a sandwich between thin slices of bread, or stirred into broth. Certain acids become developed in meat by hanging, which improve its flavour, rendering it less insipid of taste than when fresh. Thus the flesh of hunted animals (wherein the same acids become immediately created by reason of the extreme muscular exertion undergone straightway before death) is of superior flavour. Another method for producing the same effect artificially is by soaking the meat in vinegar and water for a short time before cooking it, thereby giving to fresh meat a better taste, and making it more tender. Nevertheless, the flesh of an animal which has been slaughtered for food dies only by degrees as to its tissues and cells, which continue for a while to consume the food elements with which they are still remaining in contact; and various toxic substances are resultant, which now accumulate, since no longer do the skin, lungs, and kidneys, or bowels operate to carry off these poisonous excretions, whilst the dead animal contains no aerated, or purified blood, only the venous fluid with its retained urea, and other such effete matters of broken-down structures. To a varying extent this must be the condition of all the meat which comes into the market for animal food. We can imagine how aggravated is the evil when the carcase has been kept for several days, or weeks. Certain savage tribes poison their arrows by sticking the points into the flesh of such decomposing animals. "It must be admitted," says Dr. Haig, as by no means improbable that the existence within a person's body, accustomed to the consumption of animal food, of semiorganized material in excess of what is required for maintenance, , and repair of tissue, might tend to the development of a morbid structure taking the form of malignant cancerous growth." But, per contra Dr. Sykes, having practised medicine for several years in China, tells (March, 1902): "That because of poverty the consumption of meat there is limited among the people in general; but, nevertheless, cancer prevails of various forms, though chiefly as scirrhus of the breast-gland."

As to the alleged increase of cancer during recent years, because of the large amount of animal food consumed in this country, especially by the working classes, the reply may be made that it is just among these very working classes that cancer has not increased. According to the medical statistics of the eighteenth, and early part of the nineteenth centuries it is found that these were times of great meat eating, and excesses in drinking, by the upper and middle classes, whose gluttony then lay particularly in the consumption of solid meat. Dr. Oldfield protests that flesh eating per se is not a cause of cancer; but that evidence goes to prove it is over-feeding the animals from which the meat is obtained, which makes such meat injurious in the direction at issue. And this comes about by retention of the products of decomposition remaining within the animal tissues, which produce in the eaters thereof an "unstable cell equilibrium." He found that in India cancer was practically non-existent in all those areas where the vegetation was sparse, and where the animals killed for food had been constrained to live hardly; whilst the disease was more prevalent where the vegetation was ranker, and where the animals used for food were more highly foddered.

Again, with respect to pulmonary consumption, the Jews in this country are known to have a remarkable freedom therefrom, their percentage of deaths in London from this disease being less than half that found among the general population. Probably the rigid inspection exercised over the meat supplied to the Jews has (together with other hygienic observances) much to do with this immunity. Moreover, the animal organ within the carcase of beasts slaughtered for their market, which is most diligently overhauled, and most severely tested, is the lung. "Warts" in the lung create a suspicion of tuberculosis; and any induration, or any presence of purulent matter in, or about such "warts" (or "grapes"), or the smallest amount of pleuritic adhesion, is sufficient to cause rejection of the meat. With regard to the Kosher meat of the Jews, to make sure of the knife used for slaughtering these animals being without flaw as to its edge (so as to minimize the pain felt by the beast) it is examined four or five times a week, sometimes even daily; and one of the most curious spectacles of the slaughter-house is that of the grave and reverend Signors (who are named Dayanim, or Judges) passing a searching eye over the knives, and over the general arrangements, to see that they are perfect. If everything is not religiously correct, the butcher officials may expect to be suspended. The beast is cast to the ground, and its throat being then cut it bleeds to death. Finally the leaden seal, with the word "Kosher" imprinted on it, is affixed to the carcase, signifying that the meat may be eaten by orthodox Jewry. The whole process takes about four and a half minutes to execute.

Englishmen from the time of the middle ages, have always held the reputation of being the fiercest fighters, because of eating so much meat. But a penalty is paid by thus brutalizing the man at the expense of his higher intellectual faculties. Robert Louis Stevenson has exemplified this danger in his wonderful story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, twin characters strangely opposite, but combined in the same individual, with adverse displays at different times; as already told about in detail (see page 45). Respecting Bones, "their utility for alimentation was discovered by the dog," said Cadet Devaux (1803), who imitated that animal by breaking up, comminuting, and moistening the bones of edible animals. He proved to his satisfaction that bones are nutritive, by allowing to dogs the choice between soup, and bones, when the animals chose the bones, and left the soup. M. Devaux pulverized bones, and called his method the "Solution of the Gordian knot," and the "Egg of Columbus." "But," said Chevreul (1870), “ no person of sound sense and taste would consent to drink the bouillon d'os." 66 With respect to the much extolled forms of highly compressed meals in lozenge, or tabloid form, now offered to the public, so that they who run may eat without the delay of sitting down to a time-wasting meal, or so that extra supplies may be carried in the pocket, "there are distinct limits" (says Dr. Hutchison) "beyond which the concentration of food cannot be carried; and the idea that food tablets may be prepared one or two of which would be the equivalent of an ordinary meal, is found to be an impossible dream; at the most all that can be done is to drive off the water which the food contains in excess, and even then most of it must be returned to the food before it can be eaten." (See LOZENGES, p. 437).

MEDLAR, (See FRUITS).