316 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
the top to let the steam escape. Like all other meat puddings it is 
much better if served in the dish in which it has been cooked. 
A few fresh mushrooms will (as some think) improve the pudding. 
Game, when “high” (also fish), will emit if in a dark cellar 
luminous phosphorescence, acting on which fact an Austrian 
scientist has constructed a lamp consisting of luminous bacilli, 
or microbes, in gelatine. 
““ When, they tell me, food decays, 
It emits quite dazzling rays, 
And a lobster in your room 
If it’s ripe, dispels the gloom. 
“ Legs of mutton somewhat high, 
Shine like diamonds in the sky. 
Further than a lamp, it seems, 
Gorgonzola sheds its beams. 
“ Gas has had its little day, 
Microbe light has come to stay. 
Shortly we shall see each street 
Lit by tins of potted meat.” 
The Exquimaux bury the flesh of animals killed for food until 
it is putrid (so it is said, but would not the earth deodorise, and 
keep it sweet ?); and the Zulus, whose synonym for heaven is, 
according to Dr. Colenso, ‘‘ Maggot’s meat,” follow suit. “ Of 
course,” adds Dr. K. Chambers, “ rather than die of starvation, 
or be reduced to the straits suffered by King Hezekiah’s army, 
one would acquire such a habit, and invent a sauce to make it 
tolerable : but it is not worth while to do this in civilised society.” 
A few words may well be said here with regard to the food 
preservatives of the present day, which are used (in some cases 
much to the detriment of the consumer’s health), for preventing 
game, fish, meat, milk, and other perishable foods from betraying 
staleness, or putridity, when kept too long on hand, because still 
unsold whilst yet wholesome, and proper for eating. It should 
be generally known that most of these preservatives are poisonous 
if employed on provisions for the kitchen to any extent. And 
certainly it is high time that some supervision of our meats, and 
drinks, in this respect should be adequately entrusted to the 
competent cook, or the doctor, for the public safety and pro- 
tection; because of a fully enlightened knowledge on their parts of 
the risks incurred, and the injuries inflicted by such mischievous 
mal-practices, concerning the dangerous results of which the 
legislature is at length becoming actively cognisant. In former 
