MALT EXTRACTS 653 



Malt a sweet, mucilaginous substance, which is more 

 easily digested, but weight for weight is rather less nutritive 

 than barley forms a palatable and digestible article of 

 diet for sick or convalescent horses, and is used for making 

 poultices and demulcent laxative drinks. Barley-water, 

 infusions of malt, and soft mashes prove especially service- 

 able in febrile cases, both in horses and cattle. Malt 

 extracts are occasionally prescribed for dyspeptic calves 

 and foals, and for sick horses, and when well prepared are 

 rich in diastase, and hence useful in aiding digestion of 

 starch. 



When a solution of malt is fermented, as in the prepara- 

 tion of beer, ale, or porter, there rises to the surface of the 

 liquor a yellow-brown frothy scum, known as yeast or 

 barm, readily putrefying when moist, but when carefully 

 dried remaining for a long time unchanged, and owing 

 its reproductive properties, and its characteristic power of 

 converting cane into grape sugar, and thence into alcohol, 

 to the presence of ovoid, confervoid cells of Torula cere- 

 visise, the yeast plant. Yeast is occasionally used as a 

 purgative, especially for cattle, and is given in quantities 

 of about a pint. Fresh or dried yeast, dissolved in tepid 

 water and injected into the vagina, has been successfully 

 used as a remedy for sterility in cows. Antiseptic and 

 deodorising poultices are made by stirring together one 

 part each of boiling water and yeast with two parts of 

 bran or linseed meal, and allowing the mixture to stand 

 near a fire until it rises, when it is fit to use. 



Nuclein, an important constituent of animal and vegetable 

 cells, is obtained from yeast, and also from spleen pulp, blood, 

 yolk of egg, milk, etc. The germicidal power of the blood 

 serum is believed to be due to certain phosphorised proteids 

 which also exist in nuclein. It is a body of indefinite com- 

 position, containing nucleinic acid and proteid matter rich 

 in phosphorus. Administered, nuclein increases the number 

 of white corpuscles in the blood, and acts as a powerful 

 germicide. It has been employed, with excellent results, 

 in the treatment of pneumonia, pleurisy, strangles, influenza, 

 and purpura hsemorrhagica. Liquor Nucleinicus (Squire & 

 Sons), a solution of sodium nucleinate of a strength of about 



