Extract of meat / by Baron Liebig.

  • Liebig, Justus, Freiherr von, 1803-1873.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extract of meat / by Baron Liebig. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    »' n war to construct the railway at Balaclava, 10, according to the report of Dr. Baudiu, . the greatest astonishment among the English c.'ench soldiers by the extraordinary amount kk they performed, consumed daily in their om 150 to 159 grin, albuminate. ..agricultural labourer in Upper Bavaria con- in his farinaceous food, according to the ex- e and calculations of Professor Dr. H. Kanke, n., therefore almost the same quantity of nates as the English navvy; but how ex- different are the working capabilities of the u and Bavarian labourer in reference to the t.of work,i.e.,the amountof work accomplished a a given time ? and this difference is attained English navvy consuming more than one ::he albuminates in the shape of meat, whilst rrarian eats meat only on six days of the A few slices of bread and butter with milk iifast give nutriment enough for a child ; an nowever, has very different work to perform, [therefore increases the effect of his food by >f tea or coffee. It is stated in Frankfort- r.ie as a well-known fact that old Mayer An- 1 othschild, the founder of the eminent firm, lespatched any important business at night having previously taken a cup of strong )ffee ; and it may be supposed that the cele- : financier derived some advantage from the : the coffee on his decisions, for he was not m to spend a farthing for anything which 1 ot have given him a return, n the meat by boiling has been freed from its iparts, the remainder, or more correctly the : ates in such residue, have no greater nu- .alue than the gluten of wheaten flour, which after the manufacture of starch. Both it albuminates and the gluten are chemically iheir physiological effect identical things. meat exhausted in this way, the extracted • e again added in the shape of beef-tea or ex- : meat, it is eagerly eaten by dogs who despise |ut such addition; in fact, all the component meat which are contained in roast meat >eby reunited. as vegetable albuminates are identical with ates contained in the flesh of animals, it will U perceived that if we add to our vegetable m in vegetable albuminates—for instance ’ Peas> beans, or even potatoes and rice,— uble parts of meat such as are combined zt of meat, we thereby impart to it the pe- utritive value which distinguishes meat in nation from other food, erhard Itohlfs, well known by his travels in >>, says, in reference to the effect of extract in a letter addressed to me “ As regards of meat it has proved, particularly to us vs in Africa, one of the greatest blessings, travels through the great desert from Tri- tne Ischad Lake, it was my daily food, ithout any meat I took it in the morning pon biscuits, and this was not only very pa- out it proved a complete substitute for meat i the evening I made beef-tea, adding a i •tion to rice, lentils, or kuskuss, or whatever j ned to possess in the shape of vegetables, ccomc so accustomed to the extract of meat im still obliged to keep it constantly in my It will be well understood, therefore, that by til addition of extract of meat to our food, we neithe economise carbon for the maintenance of the tern perature nor nitrogen for the sustenance of tin organs of our body, and that therefore it cannot b< called “ food in the ordinary sense,” but we therebj increase the working capabilities of the body and it; capacity to resist exterior injurious disturbances i.e., to maintain health under unfavourable cir- cumstances. Thus an addition of extract of meat I to vegetable food forms the only means to make up for a want of meat. All this taken together gives to these substances, to which also belong tea and coffee, a very high value in the alimentation of onr populations, the last and true object of which is the production of working power for mental and bodily work ; and it becomes perfectly intelligible why the great historian Macaulay, in his celebrated work, Very properly devoted an entire chapter to the introduction of coffee into England as being to some extent con- nected with modern life. For our object it is tolerably indifferent with what name, the effect of the so-called “Nervous stimu- lants” is designated. A few years since agriculturists still considered gypsum, lime, and bone meal to be stimulants for the growth of plants; now we know perfectly well that they are nutritive substances for plants. In modern life men on the whole perform more muscu- lar and brain work than formerly; still the average duration of life of individuals has not decreased but increased, and nobody who takes a comprehensive survey of life can doubt that coffee and tea contri- bute largely to this end, and that extract of meat properly used is a really good and most useful thing. In conclusion, it may be mentioned that I have given my ideas on this subject in two treatises, both of which appeared in English scientific journals; the one’ “On the Nutritive Value of Different Sorts of Food,” in thq Lancet (January, February, and March, 1869), the other in the London Pharmaceutical Journal (“The Source of Muscular Power”—Sep- tember and October, 1870), and I think that no English physician wishing to criticise my opinions should be allowed to ignore these two treatises of mine. One word more about Dr. Edward Smith. It is a pity that he thinks himself competent to give his opinion on questions of which he cannot be said to have a perfect knowledge. This becomes evident as soon as he touches on chemical subjects. For in- stance, in a letter to the Standard (October 24th, 1872) Dr. Edward Smith declares that beef-tea made of fresh soup meat would certainly contain albumen, etc., and he charges me with “hardihood” for com- paring extract of meat with such beef-tea. Dr. E. Smith apparently forgets that the soluble albumen of meat is coagulated by boiling it with water, ex- actly in the same way as the albumen of eggs, and that, therefore, beef-tea cannot contain albumen amr more than extract of meat. Both extract of meat and beef-tea are prepared from the same material exactly in the same manner, and the difference of the former from beef-tea consists simply in extract of meat being beef-tea condensed to the consistency of honey. J