704 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the flavors and pleasing odors of food have the same effect. Hence 

 we see their importance as means of promoting digestion. 



The extract of meat belongs to the class of condiments. It first 

 gratifies the palate, and then produces important results in the stomach. 

 This is not due to the nutritive salts it contains, nor to any special 

 effect it produces on absorption or nutrition. If an animal gets for 

 food only extract of meat, it 'will succumb more quickly than if no 

 food at all were given, as was demonstrated by Kemmerich in the 

 case of a dog. "We may account for this either on the supposition 

 that the salts accelerate the transformation of albumen, or that the 

 potash of the extract acts injuriously on the heart. Therefore, when 

 vessels, fortresses, armies, and hospitals, are supplied with this meat- 

 extract, they obtain what we must regard as an excellent condiment ; 

 but that will -not supply the place of a single grain of the nutritive 

 elements ; and in this regard it is analogous to table-salt, coffee, to- 

 bacco, etc. Nevertheless, we cannot question the beneficial effect of a 

 good meat-broth upon the stomach, whether in health or in sickness. 

 Especially does it produce a good effect in the case of convalescents 

 whose stomach is in a chronic state of debility. They cannot retain 

 common food, except it is given to them in the shape of broth. Just 

 as the excitation of the mucous membrane of the mouth has an effect 

 upon the stomach, so, probably, the stomach acts upon the intestine. 

 Thus, for instance, soon after the stomach is filled, we find the pan- 

 creas addressing itself to its function. 



There are some condiments the effects of which are not at first 

 local. They act only after having been absorbed, and their action is 

 then perceptible in the central nervous system. This is the case, for 

 instance, with coffee, tea, tobacco, alcoholic drinks, etc., the general 

 action of which is well known. It has been supposed that we have 

 here an arrest of decomposition, an economy of nutritive material. In 

 fact, we have only another mode of arrangement or of change in the 

 inward phenomena. The amount of work of which a man is capable 

 depends very much upon his momentary disposition. With equal 

 nutritive transformations, and with equal production of living force, 

 the man who undertakes a work under favorable moral conditions will 

 perform it more easily than another who happens to be oppressed 

 and weighed down by some affliction. A stroke of the whip causes a 

 horse to surmount an obstacle, before which he would have stood still 

 without that stimulus ; and yet the latter does not communicate to 

 him any force ; it only induces him to exert the force he already pos- 

 sessed. It is thus that condiments act upon certain determinate parts 

 of our nervous centre, and so enable us to attain our ends. We 

 may regard as of similar nature to this the action of opium or of 

 musk, under the influence of which a man, who before was perfectly 

 powerless, appears to get new life, without- any demonstrable elemen- 

 tary change having taken place in his body. The same is to be said 



