COMPOUND ALIMENTARY SUBSTANCES. Yl 



Beef, as well as all kinds of meat, is composed of mus- 

 cular tissue, a small quantity of blood, and interstitial fat. 

 "We have already seen that all nitrogenized principles contain 

 a considerable proportion and a large variety of inorganic 

 matters. In proximate composition, the different kinds of 

 meat are quite similar, and the following analysis by Berze- 

 lius of the flesh of the ox may be taken as the type of the 

 composition of most of them : 



Immediate Composition of the Flesh of the Ox. 



Water 7T'1T 



Muscular fibre, vessels, and nerves 15'80 



Tendonous tissue, reducible to gelatine by boiling. T90 



Albumen (analogous to the white of egg and the serum of the blood). . . . 2'20 



Substances soluble in water and ilot coagulable by boiling. 1-05 



Matters soluble in alcohol 1-80 



Phosphate of lime . 0-08 



100-00 



According to Payen, among these soluble and insoluble 

 substances are found lactic and inosic acids, creatine, creati- 

 nine, and organic nitrogenized matters, with alkaline salts, 

 magnesian and calcareous. Meat contains, indeed, in 100 

 parts about 1*5 of soluble and insoluble salts, alkaline chlo- 

 rides, and phosphates of potassa, of soda and magnesia. Meat 

 contains beside, a small quantity of sulphur, which is in 

 part a constituent of albumen of different origin, animal and 

 vegetable ; sulphur is likewise an integral part of fibre, of the 

 horny substance of the nails, of hair, etc. It is found neither 

 in cellular tissue, tendons, fibrous tissue of bones, nor in the 

 gelatine produced, by a solution at 212 of all these tissues. 



" To all these substances indicated by this analysis and 



t/ / 



which constitute meats, must be added a saccharine sub- 

 stance, inosite, analogous to lactose (sugar of milk) and the 

 fatty substances contained in a special tissue (adipose tissue). 

 These last substances exert on the quality of the meat a 

 favorable influence in proportion as, without being in excess^ 



