On fluid meat : a new preparation of meat, especially adapted to weak stomachs, and for invalids generally, with remarks on food / by Stephen Darby.

  • Darby, Stephen.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On fluid meat : a new preparation of meat, especially adapted to weak stomachs, and for invalids generally, with remarks on food / by Stephen Darby. 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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    extensive use of substances containing little or no nourishment, under the mistaken idea that they are very nutritive and restorative. Thus almost pure starches bearing various names are recommended as food for children and delicate persons, or as restoratives for convalescents; and yet the profession are well aware of the necessity for the nitrogenous constituents of food, whether animal or vegetable, for the sustenance of health or the restoration of strength and vigour when impaired by disease. Indeed it would not be easy to find any natural fact more generally admitted than the superiority of animal flesh over every other form of food for repairing the waste arising daily and hourly from the exercise of every bodily and mental function. Animal flesh, however, is a very complex sub- stance. Denuded of the fats attached to it, and the large proportion of water making up its bulk,* it is composed of fibrine, albumen, gelatine, * 1,000 parts lean beef contain— Insoluble in cold water 170 „ (fibrine, Membrane, &c 164 0 Matters soluble in cold water 60 parts j Gelatine 6-0 Fat ... Water . 20 750 1,000