Influence of the brown colour of soup on the judgment we form as to its strength ing for hours, from a piece of flesh. When mixed with salt and the other usual additions, by which soup is usually seasoned, and tinged somewhat darker by means of roasted onions or burnt sugar, it forms the very best soup which can in any way be prepared from 1 lb. of flesh. The influence which the brown colour of this soup, or colour in general, exercises on the taste, in consequence of the ideas associated with colour in the mind (ideas of strength, concentration, &c.), and flavour. may be rendered quite evident by the following experiment. The soup, coloured brown by means of caramel, is declared by all persons to have a much stronger taste than the same soup, when not coloured; and yet the caramel, in point of fact, does not in any way actually heighten the taste. Extract of meat, or true porta ble soup. Portable soup of If we allow the flesh to boil for a long time with the water, or if we boil down the soup, it acquires, spontaneously, when concentrated to a certain point, a brownish colour and a delicate flavour of roast meat. If we evaporate it to dryness in the waterbath, or if possible at a still lower temperature, we obtain a dark brown, soft mass, of which half an ounce suffices to convert 1 lb. of water, with the addition of a little salt, into a strong, wellflavoured soup. The tablets of so-called portable soup prepared in commerce England and France are not to be compared with the extract of flesh just mentioned; for these are not made from flesh, but consist of gelatine, more is nearly pure gelatine. or less pure, only distinguished from bone gelatine by its higher price.* From 32 lbs. of lean beef, free from bones and fat (8 lbs. dry meat and 24 lbs. water), there is obtained 1 lb. of true extract of flesh, which, from its necessarily high price, can hardly become an article of commerce; but if the experience of military surgeons agrees with that of Parmentier, according to whom "The dried extract of flesh, as an article of provision in the train of a body of troops, supplies "to severely wounded soldiers a restorative, or roborant, which, with a little wine, immediately "revives their strength, exhausted by great loss of 66 66 66 blood, and enables them to bear the transport to "the nearest hospital," † it appears to me to be a matter of conscience to recommend to the attention of governments the proposal of Parmentier and of Proust. Now that the composition of the extract of flesh is somewhat more accurately known, it ought to be easy for every well-informed apothecary to distinguish the genuine from the false. Of the true extract, nearly 80 per cent. is soluble in alcohol of 85 per cent., while the ordinary tablets of portable *Note by the Editor.-I have seen some specimens of portable soup, which, although consisting chiefly of gelatine, yet had a strong flavour of soup, and probably, therefore, contained a certain proportion of extract of flesh.-W. G. † See Proust, Annales de Chimie et de Physique. Third Series, vol. xviii. p. 177. Extract of meat re soup rarely yield to that menstruum more than 4 or 5 per cent. The presence of kreatine and kreatinine, the latter of which is instantly detected by the addition of chloride of zinc to the alcoholic solution, as well as the nature of the salts left on incineration, which chiefly consist of soluble phosphates, furnish sufficient data for judging of the quality of the true extract of flesh. I consider this extract of flesh as not less valuable commend- for the provisioning of ships and fortresses, in order ed for ships to preserve the health of the crew or garrison, in those cases where fresh meat and vegetables are wanting, and the people are supported by salt meat. and for tresses, as Salting of meat. The brine of salt meat contains the of the ex tract; It is universally known that in the salting of meat, the flesh is rubbed and sprinkled with dry salt, and that where the salt and meat are in contact, a brine is formed, amounting in bulk to 1-3rd of the fluid contained in the raw flesh. I have ascertained that this brine contains the chief constituents of a concentrated soup or infusion ingredients of meat, and that, therefore, in the process of salting, the composition of the flesh is changed, and this, too, in a much greater degree than occurs in boiling. In boiling, the highly nutritious albumen remains in the coagulated state in the mass of flesh, but, in salting, the albumen is separated from the flesh; for when the brine from salted meat is heated to boiling, a large quantity of albumen separates as a coagulum. This brine has an acid reaction, and gives with ammonia a copious precipi kreatine, and Salted meat is deficient in nutritive quality. tate of the double phosphate of ammonia and mag- phosphates, lacnesia. It contains also lactic acid, a large quantity tic acid, of potash, and kreatine, which, although I could not separate that body from the large excess of salt, may be safely concluded to be present, from the presence of kreatinine. The brine, when neutralised by lime, gives, after the salt has been crystallised out, a mother liquid, from which, after some time, when alcohol and chloride of zinc are added to it, the double chloride of zinc and kreatinine, so often men- kreatinine. tioned in the former part of this work, is deposited. It is now easy to understand that in the salting of meat, when this is pushed so far as to produce the brine above mentioned, a number of substances are withdrawn from the flesh, which are essential to its constitution, and that it therefore loses in nutritive quality in proportion to this abstraction. If these substances be not supplied from other quarters, it is obvious that a part of the flesh is converted into an element of respiration certainly not conducive to good health. It is certain, moreover, that the health of a man cannot be permanently sustained by means of salted meat, if the quantity be not greatly in- Causes of creased, inasmuch as it cannot perfectly replace, by the substances it contains, those parts of the body which have been expelled in consequence of the change of matter, nor can it preserve in its normal state the fluid distributed in every part of the body, namely, the juices of the flesh. A change in the quality of the gastric juice, and consequently in that this. Effects pro of the products of the digestive process, must be regarded as an inevitable result of the long-continued use of salted meat; and if during digestion the substances necessary to the transformation of that species of food be taken from other parts of the organism, these parts must lose their normal condition. In my experiments on the salting of meat, I duced on by salt used at first a species of salt which subsequently containing proved on examination to contain a considerable calcium and proportion of chloride of calcium and chloride of sium. magnesium. I was induced to examine the salt by chlorides of magne Meat thus salted may wholesome. observing that the brine obtained from meat salted with it contained only traces of phosphoric acid. The external aspect of the salted flesh sufficiently explained this unexpected fact; for it was covered as if with a white froth, consisting chiefly of phosphate of lime and phosphate of magnesia. The earthy salts of the sea salt had entered into mutual decomposition with the alkaline phosphates of the juice, producing phosphates of lime and magnesia, of which only very small quantities could be dissolved in the acid brine. In the use of a salt, rich in lime and magnesia, be less un- there may thus be a cause which renders the meat salted with it less injurious to the system. For it is plain that when, along with such meat, vegetables are eaten which are rich in potash (and this is the case with all esculent vegetables), the conditions are present which determine the reproduction, during |