NTTEOGENIZED ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 53 



proportion in other grains is insignificant. It may be easily 

 extracted from ordinary wheaten flour, by kneading under a 

 stream of water, when the starch, a little sugar, vegetable 

 albumen, mucilage, and some soluble matters are removed, 

 and the gluten remains in the form of an adhesive, elastic, 

 grayish-white mass. Gluten is capable of acting as a ferment, 

 transforming starch first into dextrine, and then into sugar. 

 It is the substance which gives the peculiar consistence and 

 porous character to bread. 



The nutritive power of gluten is so great, and it con- 

 tains such a variety of alimentary principles, that dogs are 

 well nourished and can live indefinitely on it when taken as 

 the sole article of food. This experiment was actually made 

 by the gelatine committee ; * and the fact will be easily under- 

 stood when we consider that it is a compound of no less than 

 three distinct nitrogenized principles, together with fatty and 

 inorganic matters. In one of the methods of treatment of dia- 

 betes mellitus, in which all saccharine and amylaceous mat- 

 ters are excluded from the food, it has been found difficult to 

 nourish the body sufficiently and give proper variety to the 

 diet without bread ; and, under these circumstances, the use 

 of bread composed almost exclusively of gluten has been 

 highly successful. "With proper care, a bread can be made in 

 this way which is eminently nutritive and not unpalatable. 2 



portions of gluten in different kinds of grain, p. 9v. These analyses probably 

 give the proportion of moist gluten. 



1 Comptes Rendus, op. fc, Paris, 1841, tome xiii., -p. 280. 



2 It is easy to extract the gluten from wheaten flour, but a difficulty in the 

 making bread from it is in the excessive " rising " which takes place in the pro- 

 cess of baking, rendering it light, friable, and disagreeable to the taste. This 

 difficulty may be overcome by the following process, suggested by Martin de 

 Crenelle : 



The moist gluten is desiccated at a temperature of 212 Fahr. " Thus dried 

 and reduced to powder, it has lost in great part its tendency to expand. It may 

 then be used like ordinary flour, kneading it with 66 parts of water to 100 ; a 

 half a hundredth of yeast is added, and at the end of about a half-hour, the dough 

 is put in, in the form of a large twist." (PATEN, Precis Theorique et Pratique 

 des Substances Alimentaires, Paris, 1865, p. 356.) 



