114 PROCEEDINGS OP SECTION B. 



It must clearly be classed just the same as butter, as one of 

 the animal fats, highly important to the animal economy as a 

 fuel food or heat producer, and the chief points are its digestibility, 

 and as a matter of secondary importance, its flavour. 



There can be little doubt that butter is more easily assimilated 

 than any other fat, though this point has been largely disputed 

 by some of the first physicians in England ; one of the most 

 eminent strongly upholding dripping as superior, and using it in 

 his own family to the almost entire exclusion of butter ; then 

 again difierent varieties of dripping have had their advocates, 

 such as bacon dripping, and goose grease, each of which has been 

 vaunted by their advocates as the most digestible. In Butterine 

 we have carefully prepared dripping, churned with milk, and 

 coloured to imitate butter, so that its value as a fuel food may 

 fairly be compared with these articles, and asserted to be of equal 

 value. Secondly as to its flavour and appearance, — when freshly 

 prepared in a factory where the niceties of manufacture are 

 carefully carried out, it is difiicult to distinguish it from butter, 

 which may be pure, but being carelessly made is extremely nasty. 

 Butter unless highly salted will not keep any length of time. 

 Buttei'ine will keep longer, but instead of becoming rancid takes 

 on a tallowy flavour, probably owing to some change in the fatty 

 acids. The price at which it can be sold has a large influence on 

 its consumption, for if the poorer classes can get a substitute 

 resembling butter at one shilling per pound, it is extremely 

 unlikely they will pay two shillings for the genuine article, and 

 then often get a rank tallowy substance, closely resembling cart 

 grease. Again it is well known to ladies what good pastry is 

 made with dripping, and Butterine is but carefully prepared 

 dripping. The biscuit manufactories used formerly to use large 

 quantities of low grade butters, but Butterine supplies them 

 with a better article and is largely used, and would be more so, 

 but it pays them better to use a low class butter, that finds no 

 other sale, at six pence, or seven pence, than the purified manu- 

 factured fat at ten pence a pound. Butterine when closely 

 examined never has that peculiar bright transparency of genuine 

 fresh butter, neither is it as soft, but it cannot be said to be 

 unwholesome or injurious to the animal economy. But unless the 

 very greatest care is taken in the examination of the fat before it 

 is used, it is quite possible that fat from diseased animals may be 

 used in the manufacture of Butterine. Now one point strongly 

 urged by the manufacturers of this article is that even if the fat 

 were diseased, it is treated to a temperature that effectually kills 

 all germs. It is perhaps hardly satisfactory, but it especially 

 points to the care which is necessary in selecting the raw material 

 to be operated on. 



As to its general composition, I find several samples agree, 

 the various constituents being constant, and thanks to Mr. 



