*^ I have ascertained that this brine contains the chief consti- 

 tuents of a coricentrated soup or infusion of meat j and that, there- 

 fore, in the process of salting, the composition of the flesh is 

 changed, and this, too, in a much greater degree than occurs m 

 boiling. In boiling, the highly nutritious albumen remains in 

 the coagulated state in the mass of flesh, but in salting, the albu- 

 men is separated from the flesh ; for when the brine from salted 

 meat is lieated to boiling, a large quantity of albumen separates 

 as a coagulum. This brine has an acid reaction, and gives with 

 ammonia a copious precipitate of the double phosphate of ammo- 

 nia and magnesia. It contains also lactic add, a large quantity 

 of potash, and kreatine, v\^hich although I could not separate that 

 body from the large excess of salt, may be safely concluded to be 

 present, from the presence of kreatinine. The brine, when neu- 

 tralized by lime, gives, after the salt has been crystallized out, a 

 mother liquid, from which, after some time, wiien alcohol and 

 chloride of zinc are added to it, the double chloride of zinc and 

 kreatinine, so often mentioned in the former part of this work; is 

 deposited." 



*'It is now easy to understand that in the salting of meat, 

 when tliis is pushed so far as to produce the brine above men- 

 tioned, a number of substances are withdrawn from the flesh, 

 which are essential to its constitution, and that it therefore loses 

 in nutritive quality in proportion to this abstraction. If these 

 substances b% not supplied from other quarters, it is obvious 

 thdt a part of the flesh is converted into an element of respiration 

 certainly not conducive to good health. It is certain, moreover, 

 that the health of a man cannot be permanently sustained by 

 means of salted meat, if the quantity be not greatly increased, 

 inasmuch as it cannot perfectly replace, by the substances it con- 

 tains, those parts of the body wiaich have been expelled in conse- 

 quence of the change of matter, nor can it preserve in its normal 

 state the fluid distributed in every part of the body, namely, the- 

 juices of the flesh. A change in the quality of the gastric juice,, 

 and consequently in that of the products of the digestive process, 

 must be regarded as an inevitable result of the long continued 

 use of salted meat; and if during digestion the substances neces- 

 sary to the transforination of that species of food be taken from 



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