NUTRITIVE VALUES. 53 



ineffectual, and concluded that the specific substance causing the 

 stimulation was not known. 



Brunton makes the following statement in regard to the effect of 

 beef tea or beef essence : 



We find only too frequently that both doctors and patients think that the strength is 

 sure to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef tea can only be got down: but this 

 observation, I think, raises the question whether beef tea may not very frequently be 

 actually injurious, and whether the products of muscular waste which constitute the 

 chief portion of beef tea or beef essence may not under certain circumstances be actu- 

 ally poisonous. For although there can be no doubt that beef tea is in many cases a 

 most useful stimulant, one which we find it very hard, indeed, to do without, and 

 which could hardly be replaced by any other, yet sometimes the administration of 

 beef tea, like that of alcoholic stimulants, may be overdone, and the patient weak- 

 ened instead of strengthened. 



Mays 6 asserts that beef tea is entitled to be called a nutrient 

 because its action is the same as that of milk, or a 2 per cent solution 

 of ox blood. In a later paper c he ascribes this nutritive value to the 

 kreatin and kreatinin present. 



Dr. Lehman d discusses the action and the toxicity of meat extracts 

 and concludes that Liebig's extract is not a heart poison, but is rather 

 an aid to the heart. Both in health and in sicknesss as much of the 

 extract can be used by the body as the stomach can stand. Home- 

 made meat extracts contain more potash than equivalent amounts of 

 Liebig's extract. 



Dr. Carl Voit e gives a very able discussion of meat preparations 

 and considers them of great value as a condiment, but not as a food. 



Dr. N. G. Vis^ conducted a set of experiments on men, using a 

 mixed diet, including beefsteak in the first period. For the beefsteak 

 he substituted in the second period an equivalent amount of nitrogen 

 in the form of sanatogen, a sodium-casein-glycerol-phosphoric-acid 

 compound. There was an increased excretion of nitrogen in both 

 urine and feces in the second period. 



Frentzel and Toriyama^ in opposition to Rubner find that of the 

 proteid-free extractive material of meat about two-thirds takes part 

 in metabolism in that it furnishes energy to the body. 



Dr. Emil Burgi ft has studied the question of the heat and energy 

 value of meat and meat extractives in the case of dogs. His results 

 show that meat itself is a much more valuable source of energy than 

 are the meat extractives. 



a The Practitioner, 1880, £5:325. 



b The Lancet, 1886, i:510. 



clbid., 1887, 1:257. 



<* Aerztliches Intelligenz, 1885, «?2:318. 



«Miinchener medic. Wochenschr., 1897, 44:221. 



/Ibid., 1898,45:257. 



9 Arch. Anat. Physiol., Physiol. Abt., 1901, p. 499. 



ft Arch. Hyg., 1904, 51: 1. 



