Use of the Gelatin of Bones, 389 



ten or twelve establishments of the kind I recommend might be 

 conducted at little expense, and would furnish provisions to the 

 whole of Greece. 



Fresh meat will not keep in hot or close weather, and salted 

 meat is apt, after some time, to engender scorbutic disorders. 

 For this reason, Parmentier proposed that cakes of gelatin 

 should be given to armies on the march, so that sick and 

 wounded might not be left to starve. Mons. Proust highly 

 approves this recommendation. What beverage, says he, can 

 be more invigorating than a couple of cakes of gelatin soaked 

 in wine ? The most exquisite combinations of cookery are in- 

 vented for the spoiled children of fortune ; and shall nothing be 

 done in the commissariat for the poor soldier who bleeds in the 

 service of his country, and is exposed to the greatest sufferings ? 

 Grovernments ought, at once, to adopt the suggestion, for they 

 buy articles of the best quality, at the lowest price, and would 

 lose nothing by its adoption. However, it was found that the 

 article, as then prepared, was too costly to be introduced into 

 armies ; gelatin made of meat, with bones, cost from 10s. to 

 13s. 4d per pound ; of meat, without the bones, from I6s. Sd. 

 to 20*. per pound. 



Gelatin made, by the chemical process, of bones only, costs 

 at Paris, at present, two shillings per pound, but ought not to 

 cost more than fifteen-pence or twenty-pence at the utmost. 



The substance extracted from bones contains in an equal 

 bulk more nourishment than any kind of provisions, which is 

 of the highest importance when it is requisite to victual be- 

 sieged places. A small vessel laden with gelatin would carry 

 more food than a large vessel laden with other kinds of pro- 

 visions, and it would not only better elude the observance of 

 an enemy's fleet, but also disembark on shores which great 

 vessels drawing much water could not approach. For the 

 same reason, gelatin cakes are better for fortresses than gelatin 

 alone ; they contain more nourishment in the same compass. 

 The cakes should be packed in chests or casks well closed, so 

 as to protect them from moisture, rats, and insects. 



The catastrophe of Missolonghi would, perhaps, have been 

 avoided, had the food which the brave Miaulis carried with 

 him in January consisted of gelatin and biscuit. Gelatin 



