INDIGESTION AND NERVOUS DEPRESSION. 375 



stance I have observed in the urine of a healthy man after he had 

 drunk a large quantity of strong beef -tea at a draught upon an empty 

 stomach. My attention was drawn to the urine by the froth remaining 

 upon it for a somewhat unusual time. On examination, this substance 

 was discovered in it. On examining the beef -tea which the person 

 had taken, a similar albuminous substance was found in it, so that there 

 can be little doubt that in this case the albumen was simply absorbed 

 so rapidly from the stomach or intestines that it passed without change 

 through the portal system into the general circulation, and thus reached 

 the kidneys, where it was excreted in much the same way as sugar 

 would have been under similar circumstances. We find only too fre- 

 quently that both doctors and patients think that the strength is sure 

 to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef -tea can only be got down ; 

 but this observation, I think, raises the question whether beef -tea may 

 not very frequently be actually injurious, and whether the products of 

 muscular waste which constitute the chief portion of beef -tea or beef- 

 essence may not under certain circumstances be actually poisonous. 

 For although there can be no doubt that beef -tea is in many cases a 

 most useful stimulant, one which we find it very hard indeed to do with- 

 out, and which could hardly be replaced by any other, yet sometimes 

 the administration of beef-tea, like that of alcoholic stimulants, may be 

 overdone, and the patient weakened instead of strengthened. In many 

 cases of nervous depression we find a feeling of weakness and prostra- 

 tion coming on during digestion, and becoming so very marked about 

 the second hour after a meal has been taken, and at the very time when 

 absorption is going on, that we can hardly do otherwise than ascribe it 

 to actual poisoning by digestive products absorbed into the circulation. 

 From the observation of a number of cases I came to the conclusion 

 that the languor and faintness of which many patients complained, 

 and which occurred about eleven and four o'clock, was due to actual 

 poisoning by the products of digestion of breakfast and lunch ; but at 

 the time when I arrived at this conclusion I had no experimental data 

 to show that the products of digestion were actually poisonous in them- 

 selves, and only within the last few months have I seen the conclusions 

 to which I had arrived by clinical observation confirmed by experi- 

 ments made in the laboratory. Such experiments have been made by 

 Professor Albertoni, of Genoa, and by Dr. Schmidt-Miihlheim, in Pro- 

 fessor Ludwig's laboratory at Leipsic. 



Professor Albertoni has found that peptones have a most remark- 

 able action upon the blood, completely destroying its coagulability in 

 dogs, while they have little power in this respect over the blood of 

 rabbits or sheep. The number of species upon which he experimented 

 is limited, so that he can not as yet draw the conclusion with certainty 

 that peptones prevent the coagulation of the blood in carnivora and 

 not in herbivora, although, so far as experiments go, this conclusion 

 seems probable. He and Dr. Schmidt-Miihlheim independently made 



