Extract from a paper, by J. v. Liebig, on the constituents of the fluids of meat / translated from the original, by William Daniel Moore.

  • Liebig, Justus, Freiherr von, 1803-1873.
Date:
[between 1860 and 1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extract from a paper, by J. v. Liebig, on the constituents of the fluids of meat / translated from the original, by William Daniel Moore. 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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    of military surgeons agrees with that of Parmentier, according to which 4 the dry extract of meat in the train of a corps, supplies the severely wounded soldier with a restorative, which, with a little wine, immediately raises his strength exhausted by great loss of blood, and enables him to bear being transported to the nearest hospital,’* it seems to me to be a pure matter of conscience to recom- mend Parmentier’s and Proust’s proposal to the attention of governments. 44 Now, if the composition of this extract be somewhat more precisely known, any skilful apothecary can easily distinguish the genuine from the false preparation. Of the true extract of meat nearly 80 per cent, dissolve in spirit of wine of 85 per cent., while rarely more than from 4 to 5 per cent, of the ordinary soup tablets are dissolved by the same fluid. The amount of creatin and creatinin, which latter is immediately recognized in the spirituous solution by means of chloride of zinc, and the nature of the salts remaining after incineration, consisting princi- pally of soluble phosphates, furnish sufficient resting points for estimating the goodness of the genuine extract. 441 consider this extract to be not less important for provisioning ships and fortresses, to preserve the health of the men in those cases where there is a want of fresh meat and vegetables, and where the men are dependent on salt meat. 44 It is generally known that in salting meat the latter is rubbed and sprinkled with common salt, and that in the points where the meat and salt come in contact, a brine is formed, amounting to a third or to half of the fluid which formed a constituent of the fresh meat. 441 have found that this brine contains the principal constituents of a concentrated soup, that, therefore, in salting, the composition of the meat is altered, and in a still greater degree than occurs in cooking. In cooking, the highly nutritious albumen remains in a coagulated state in the meat, but in salting, albumen separates from * See Proust, Annales de Chitnie et Physique, 3rd scries, t. xviii., page 177.