474 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
of observation by those who are to partake of it when dressed, 
and sent to table :-— 
“In private draw your poultry, clean your tripe, 
(And from your eels the slimy substance wipe.) 
Let noisome offices be done by night, 
For they who like the meat abhor the sight.” 
Mr. Lawson Tait, the late eminent surgeon, constantly recom- 
mended Tripe to his convalescent patients, with the remark 
that if it cost a guinea a pound, everyone would be wanting to 
eat it. Great care must be taken to always thoroughly clean 
it, and then to boil it steadily until quite tender; if fried it is 
not so digestible. Other ways of cooking it are as minced, 
stewed, curried, grilled, or fricasseed ; but for invalids it is best 
boiled, and served with onion sauce, simply and smoothly made. 
Further particulars about Tripe, its cooking, and its literary 
associations, are given in Kitchen Physic. Five days before 
Charles Lamb was overtaken by erysipelas ensuing after a slight 
accident, and soon becoming unexpectedly fatal, he enquired 
anxiously from Mrs. Dyer about a book left at her house, which 
he had gone out to fetch “ while the Tripe was frying.” “It 
was Mr. Cary’s book, and I would not lose it for the world,” 
said Lamb ; “if it be lost I shall never like Tripe again.”’ The 
book was afterwards found, with a leaf folded down at the account 
of Sir Philip Sydney’s end. 
As regards animal foods in general, raw meat juice is deemed 
by some doctors to be the most highly restorative, and the most 
readily digested of all such foods, being particularly valuable 
for supplying proteid to children. When mixed with milk, it 
is usefully antiscorbutic, though needing to be prepared fresh 
every day, as it does not keep well. This contains 5 per cent 
of albuminates, and 3 per cent of nitrogenous extractives, 
together with mineral salts. Add to finely-minced rump steak, 
cold water in the proportion of one pint of water to four parts 
of the meat; stir well together, and allow to stand for half an 
hour ; then forcibly express the juice by squeezing it out through 
muslin. But Dr. Hutchison is of a different opinion as regards 
raw beef-juice, which “cannot be considered an important aid 
to nutrition; this being evident from the fact that even of a - 
preparation which contains: 5 per cent of proteid, about three 
pmts would be needed to supply the proteid required by an 
invalid; so that these raw meat juices can only be of some 
