| BEEF. 87 
animal food, is taken in excess of the digestive powers, so as to 
remain within the body unchanged by the gastric juices, it will 
soon undergo putrescence, whereby corrupt products will pass 
into the blood, entailing mischief. Raw Beef sandwiches may 
be given watchfully in cases of great debility, prostration, or 
bloodlessness. Likewise, sandwiches of ox tongue, gently boiled, 
are light, and nutritious. Animal tongues consist of soft meat- 
fibre permeated by fat. “Tongue?” said Mr. Weller at the 
shooting luncheon (in Pickwick); “Well: tongue’s a wery 
good thing when it aint a woman’s.” Reindeer’s tongues are 
largely imported into this country from Russia; they are snow- 
cured, no salt whatever being used, so that the mildness, and 
richness of flavour are preserved. 
With regard to Beef extracts, which are legion in name, and 
number, it is well said that no satisfactory evidence for any 
belief in their having nourishing, and really restorative properties, 
is forthcoming. Two ounces of Liebig’s Extract, for instance, 
can be taken at one time by a healthy man without producing 
any other effect than that of slight diarrhcea. And as respects 
the nervous system, equally unsatisfactory evidence must be 
confessed. There is no proof that meat extractives act as 
stimulants to the brain in the same way that tea, and coffee do, 
though it has to be allowed that they are capable of removing 
the effects of muscular fatigue after tiring bodily exertion. “ As 
a matter of fact,” says Dr. R. Hutchison, “the white of one 
egg will contain as much nutritive matter as three teaspoontuls 
of any of these advertised preparations, to wit, Liebig’s Extract, 
Bovril fluid Beef, Bovril for Invalids, Brand’s Essence, Brand’s 
Beef Bouillon, Armour’s Extract, ete., etc. It is solely on the 
‘extractives’ (which are cordials, but of no use as tissue 
constructors), that these several preparations have to depend. 
Such extractives represent only the fragments, as it were, of 
broken-down animal substance.” 
Again, in like manner concerning Beef-tea, unless this includes 
a solid sediment of the coagulated albuminous constituents, 
the nutrient value of the liquid will be ni. “A clear Beef-tea 
is a useless Beef-tea ; the only, and whole claim of Beef-tea as 
a food rests on the presence therein of flocculent animal particles 
which represent albumin, and fibrin; the rest of the liquid 
consists merely of a solution of the extractives.” Dr. Fothergill 
has protested that “all the bloodshed caused by the warlike 
