46 ALIMENTATION. 



matters (water, chloride of sodium, the phosphates, sulphates, 

 etc.), and frequently with non-nitrogenized principles (sugar, 

 starch, and fat). 



Musculine. Of the different nitrogenized principles used 

 as food, musculine, albumen, caseine, and fibrin are the most 

 important. Musculine, the organic principle which forms the 

 bulk of the muscular substance, excluding the- areolar tissue 

 which binds the fibres together, and the sarcolemma, is per- 

 haps the most important and abundant article of this class. 

 This substance is considered by some as identical with the 

 fibrin of the blood ; but it presents many points of difference 

 which warrant us in regarding it as a distinct principle. ' It 

 is always ^united with more or less inorganic matter, which 

 cannot be separated without incineration. The fiesh of dif- 

 ferent animals presents wide differences in general appear- 

 ance, in nutritive properties, and in flavor, which become 

 more marked after the formation of the odorous empyreu- 

 matic substances which are developed in cooking ; but the 

 organic principle of all of them is musculine. Muscular 

 tissue is rendered much more digestible by cooking a pro- 

 cess which serves to disintegrate, to a certain extent, the 

 inter-muscular areolar tissue, and facilitate the action of the 

 digestive fluids. The savors developed in this process have 

 a decidedly favorable influence on the secretion of the gastric 

 juice. It is doubtful whether pure musculine would be ca- 

 pable of supporting life for a long period ; 1 but the muscular 

 tissue has been shown by experiment to be sufficient for the 

 purposes of nutrition, in the carnivora, and it undoubtedly is 

 in man. 



1 In the report of the ^ Gelatine Committee " to the Institute of France, in 

 1841 (M. Magendie, reporter), it was shown that dogs fed on meat which had been 

 subjected to prolonged boiling and afterward freed from fat by being pressed 

 in paper, became emaciated, and would have died of inanition if the experiment 

 had been persisted in. But this experiment is not entirely conclusive, as much 

 of the nutritive principle of the musculine must have been extracted by boiling. 

 (Comptes Rendus, Paris, 1841, tome xiii., p. 275.) 



