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M. DE RoBlLLARD lit I'extrait suivant clu journal 

 " Colonies and India, " publie a Londres, sur les pro- 

 prietes du papayer, et intitule : 



A VALUABLE TEOPICAL FEUIT. 



No more tough meat. 



A German naturalist, Herr Wittmach, has recent- 

 ly been making experiments with the tropical fruit 

 known as the papaw {cerica 'papaya), the juice of 

 which is found to possess the curious property when 

 boiled with tough meat of rendering it tender. If the 

 unripe fruit be placed in the water in which the 

 toughest meat is to be cooked, it is found to effectual- 

 ly soften it and render it perfectly digestible ; and the 

 same results are observed if the meat be merely wash- 

 ed with the juice of the fruit. The thick white milky, 

 or rather creamy, juice, when extracted from the un- 

 ripe papaw, in fact, contains properties similar to 

 those of pepsine, and it is possible that it may be sus- 

 ceptible of chemical preparation and become a valua- 

 ble medicine. Hard-boiled albumen, or white of eg^, 

 to which a few di'ops of dilute juice have been 

 added, has been found, after 24 hours, to be per- 

 fectly soft and easily broken up, having under- 

 gone, in fact, the same process as food digested in 

 the natural way. If taken in too large doses, the 

 substance is dangerous, having the effect of permeat- 

 ing and actually destroying the thin mucous membrane 

 of the stomacli and intestines. In Barbadoes, for ins- 



