SKETCH OF BR. ALFRED E. BREHM. _ 263 



food material with various acids for the same purpose, and make the 

 same claim in reference to this. 



When by these or other means we convert vegetable tissue into 

 dextrine and sugar, as it is naturally converted in the ripening of a 

 pear, and as it has been artificially converted in our laboratories, we 

 shall extend our food-supplies in an incalculable degree. Swedes, 

 turnips, mangel-wurzels, etc., will become delicate diet for invalids, 

 horse-beans better than beef ; delicate biscuits and fancy pastry, as 

 well as ordinary bread, will be produced from sawdust and wood-shav- 

 ings, plus a little leguminous flour. 



This may be done now. Long ago I converted an old pocket- 

 handkerchief and part of an old shirt into sugar. Other chemists 

 have done the like in their laboratories. It has yet to be done in the 

 kitchen. 



I should add that the sugar referred to in all the above is not cane- 

 sugar, but the sugar corresponding to that in the grape and in honey. 

 It is less sweet than cane or beet sugar, and a better food. 



I now conclude this series, with the expression of my firm convic- 

 tion that the application of chemical science to cookery is capable of 

 vastly extending and improving our food-supplies, and thereby of 

 greatly increasing the numbers of prosperous human beings capable of 

 living on the earth. This, however, demands a great deal of further 

 experimental research. 



I have done so little of this in proportion to my suggestions for 

 further research that I fear my readers will liken these papers to those 

 others found by Prince Hal in the pockets of Jack Falstaff : " Oh, mon- 

 strous ! but one half -pennyworth of experimental bread to this intol- 

 erable deal of speculative sack ! " 



-+++- 



SKETCH OF DR. ALFEED E. BREHM* 



ON the 11th of November last there died a man who is entitled by 

 every consideration to a distinguished place in the pages of a sci- 

 entific journal. For, whatever Alfred Brehm may have lacked in the 

 systematic formalism of technical zoologists, it can not be denied that 

 he was really great and even unique in the sympathetic comprehension 

 of animals as living beings. Other works similar to the " Thierleben " 

 (" Animal-Life ") exist, and have great merit, but in this sympathetic 

 aspect they are far behind this ten-volumed work. It in no way de- 

 tracts from his merit that he had to call in specialists to assist him in 

 describing the insects and the lower animals ; for these departments 

 are a world in themselves, requiring a whole lifetime for their study, 



* We are indebted for the materials of this sketch to an affectionate memoir of Dr. 

 Brehm, published by Dr. Karl Muller in "Die Natur" of December 21, 1884. 



