BUTTER. 127 
hot, Butter develops butyric acid, which provokes indigestion 
with many persons. Butter, after separation from the milk 
by churning, and leaving the butter-milk behind, yet retains 
a small percentage of the casein, or curd, with some water, and 
a certain amount of mineral matters ; whilst this water includes 
a little lactic acid (derived from the milk-sugar), and traces of 
other constituents. By reason of the residual casein, and the 
water, Butter soon turns rancid, unless melted, and boiled 
down until the water is driven off; if then strained through 
muslin, so as to remove the flakes of casein, it will, when cool, 
in a corked bottle, keep almost indefinitely. 
The most striking chemical characteristic of Butter-fat is its 
richness in those fatty acids (butyric, caproic, capric, and 
caprylic) which are soluble in water, so that the Butter-fat 
approximates, by its olein, closely to the fat of the human body. 
As a matter of fact, Butter is the most easily digested of fatty 
foods, and has a magnificent record on this score, no less than 
98 per cent of it being assimilated by the body; thus going to 
prove that a meal of bread, fresh Butter, and sound new cheese, 
with lettuce, young watercress, or some such light vegetable 
addition, is about the most wholesome, and nutritious fare which 
a man can choose. Freshly-made dairy Butter can be taken 
freely, whilst uncooked, against chronic constipation with 
marked success, especially by elderly persons, or by thin persons 
of fairly active habits. Also against obstructive appendicitis, 
which has of late become so seriously common, fresh Butter 
(if otherwise suiting the digestion) will assist capitally to lubricate 
the affected portion of intestine, and to pass on crude, offending 
impediments, such as hardened excrement, or tough portions 
of meat, vegetable fibre, seeds, and the like. The human 
intestine (larger bowels) contains an enormous quantity of 
bacteria (most numerous herein), this bacterial flora constituting 
a third part of the human excrement. Now, so long as the 
microbes remain within the intestine very few of them get into 
the general circulation of the blood, or humours, whilst with 
these few the organism is able to cope. But stagnation of the 
intestinal excrement within its walls increases the amount of 
harmful phenol and indol, which are products of this intestinal 
flora of bacterial microbes, and which then become mischievously 
absorbed by the intestinal walls; they pass on into the general 
circulation, and give rise to symptoms of a more or less serious 
