On the Nutritions Portion of Bones, 8fc. 57 



instance, and then to extract the gelatine from them by the 

 action of boiling water. The Society for the Encouragement 

 of Industry in France considered this idea sufficiently import- 

 ant to offer a premium for the invention of the best instrument 

 for the purpose, and it was adjudged to Mons. Guerin, of 

 Strasbourg, in 1804. This machine has been employed in 

 several hospitals, as a means of providing the poor with an 

 economical nourishment ; but never made use of in for- 

 tresses distressed by famine. It is true that experience has 

 not answered the expectations which were formed of this 

 mechanical mode ; for the trituration of the bones in consider- 

 able quantities heats them, and excites a degree of fermenta- 

 tion, which gives a rank taste to broths prepared with gela- 

 tine obtained by this process. All such inconveniences are 

 avoided by the chemical process, Avhich consists in sepa- 

 rating the earthy part of the bones by means of muriatic acid, 

 an operation by which they are reduced to a state of a 

 cellular, flexible, and transparent albumino-gelatinous sub- 

 stance, almost perfectly soluble in boiling water. This method 

 has the advantage of affording more nutritive matter, and is 

 preferable from its simplicity, since it requires no extraor- 

 dinary or expensive apparatus, as where the digester and 

 the crushing-machine are employed. It may be practised 

 without difficulty wherever muriatic acid cai^ be obtained. 

 There is no doubt that this process offers great advantages to 

 the alimentary economy of charitable institutions, and to 

 those arts in which gelatine of a superior quality is required ; 

 but, in my opinion, its principal utility consists in offering to 

 military administrations an immense resource, in victualling gar- 

 risons when threatened with dearth or famine. With this view 

 I proposed and practised it at Strasbourg in December, 1813. 

 At that period, so critical for the safety of France, Stras- 

 bourg was very insufficiently provisioned, the sudden reverses 

 of the French being totally unexpected : on the invasion of the 

 French territory, Mons. de Lezay-Marnesia, Prefet of the 

 Lower Rhine, anxious to put the chief place of his depart- 

 ment in a condition to withstand a long siege, and not hav- 

 ing the means of obtaining provisions in sufficient quantity, 

 consulted several persons on the best mode of employing 



