Royal Academy of Sciences of Paris. 169 



meril, and Vauquelin, after having given gelatine soup to forty 

 patients and others, during a period of three months, came to the 

 conclusions: 1. That the use of gelatine was both an amelioration 

 and a source of economy in the alimentary system. 2. That gelatine 

 soup is at least as palatable as the ordinary hospital soup ; and, 

 3. That gelatine is nourishing, easy of digestion, and wholesome, 

 and cannot, in any manner, be productive of injurious effects on the 

 animal economy. The apparatus in the hospital of St. Louis is ca- 

 pable of preparing nine hundred soups per day; it has been in use 

 twenty months, and has supplied 550,800 portions of gelatinous 

 food. Numerous reports have been made on the subject to the ge- 

 neral administration of the hospitals, all of which agree in stating 

 that the change in the mode of nourishment is a decided improve- 

 ment; that the convalescent patients acquire strength much more 

 rapidly than before ; that it is a source of economy highly important 

 to the poor ; that part of the meat formerly employed in making soup 

 may now be given to the patients, either roasted or in other forms, 

 and, finally, they all recommend the adoption of the system of gela- 

 tinous nourishment in all similar establishments. At the Hotel 

 Dieu, 443,650 rations of gelatine have been furnished in fifteen 

 months and a half; and six reports have been marie, all of which are 

 equally favourable with those above referred to. They state particu- 

 larly that since gelatine has been employed, thirty kilogrammes of 

 roast meat may be given to the patients daily, without reducing the 

 quality of the soup at all below its former standard. 



When M. D' A reel had concluded his remarks, M. Gay Lussac 

 animadverted in strong terms on the injustice and insufficiency of the 

 mode of experiments adopted by M. Donne, which he characterised 

 as wholly inconclusive, although calculated to produce a most injuri- 

 ous effect on the public mind, which is always easily impressed with 

 the idea that the poor are neglected, particularly in hospitals. He 

 reminded the Academy that it was well known that no single sub- 

 stance was alone sufficient to support animal nature ; that animals 

 fed on sugar alone had died from inanition ; yet it would not be 

 pretended that sugar is destitute of nutritive qualities ; and though 

 the nutritive qualities of potatoes, taken with other food, are univer- 

 sally known, a dog fed wholly on that vegetable dies in six weeks ; 

 whereas M. Donne wishes it to be supposed that because two dogs 

 refused to live upon gelatine, administered alone, v\e know not 

 how, and because M. Donne' himself grew thin on a sudden 

 adoption of simple gelatine diet, the adjunction of gelatine, as an ad- 

 dition to, and taken in conjunction with animal feed, is wholly uith- 

 out advantage. On the 20th of June, M. Donne replied to M. Gay 

 Lussac, by haying that his sole object in proposing the question was 

 to have it fully and iairly investigated ; since if it can be established 

 that gelatine does possess the nutritive qualities ascribed to it, the 

 advantage to the poorer classes will be immense; whereas, on the 

 other hand, should they be induced to employ the bones as a means 



