58 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



vats was renewed once a day, or ofleaer if required, and he found 

 that actually at the end of the third or fourth day, according to the 

 size of the bladders employed, almost all the common salt and nitre of 

 the brine had been removed, and that the liquid contained in the 

 bladders was pure juice of flesh in a fresh and wholesome condition. 

 The juice, as obtained from the "dialysers," might now be employed 

 in making rich soups without any further preparation, or it might be 

 concentrated by evaporation to the state of solid extract of meat. 

 Mr. Whitelaw, at this stage, requested a friend present to heat a 

 portion of the juice of flesh so as to produce a soup, and he asked the 

 members to taste it and experience the result. He also had prepared 

 more carefully a soup from the brine, to which he directed attention. 

 (Both were found to be very palatable.) The brine used, he contin- 

 ued, was from one of the most respectable curing-houses in Glasgow, 

 and was perfectly pure and wholesome. The liquid, from the dialysers 

 might be treated in several ways. It might be evaporated in an 

 enamelled vessel to a more or less concentrated state, or to dryness, 

 and in these various conditions packed in tins or jars for sale. It 

 might be concentrated at a temperature of 120, by means of a 

 vacuum pan or form. Again, the more or less concentrated liquid 

 might be used along with Hour used in the manufacture of meat bis- 

 cuits. The products he had named were all highly nutritive, portable, 

 and admirably adapted for the use of hospitals, for an army in the 

 field, and for ships 1 stores. The dialysis of brine might be conducted 

 in salt water, so as to remove the greater portion of its salt, and 

 the process completed in a small quantity of fresh rain, or other 

 water. Li this way ships at sea might economize their brine, and so 

 restore to the meat in a great measure the nutritive power that it had 

 lost i;i the process of salting. Thus, then, Mr. Whitelaw said, he 

 obtained an extract of flesh at a cheap rate, from a hitherto waste 

 material. Two gallons of brine yielded one pound of solid extract, 

 containing the coagulated albumen and coloring matter. For the 

 production of the same directly from meat something like 20 pounds 

 of lean beef would be required. The quantity of brine annu- 

 ally wasted was very great. He believed he was considerably under 

 the truth when he said that in Glasgow alone 60,000 gallons were 

 thrown away yearly. If they estimated one gallon as equal to seven 

 pounds of meat in soup-producing power, then this, was equal to a 

 yearly waste of 187 tons of meat without bone. Estimating the meat 

 as worth sixpence per pound, this amounted to a loss of 10,472. In 

 this way the waste over the country must, he said, be very great. 



As an appendix to this notice Mr. Whitelaw also detailed a method, 

 applicable to ships at sea, by which the quality of the meat supplied 

 to the men may be much improved and their food varied. 



The salt meat is placed in a dialytic bag made of untanned skin, or 

 other suitable material, and the bag filled nearly, but not quite, full 

 of brine from the beef barrel. The dialyser is then placed in sea 

 water, and the process allowed to go on for several days, till the meat 

 and brine are sufficiently fresh for u;-e, or till the brine in the dialytic 

 bag is witliin one or two degrees of Twadde's hydrometer of the same 

 strength of sea water. In this way, as the brine becomes freed from 

 salt, the beef, which, by the action of salt, has been contracted, gives 



