THE STRUCTURE OF THE MOTOR ORGANS 85 



Beef Tea. From the above-stated facts it is clear that when a 

 muscle is boiled in water its myogen and myosin are coagulated 

 and left behind in the meat: even if cooking be commenced by 

 soaking in cold water the myogen still remains, as it is as insoluble 

 in cold water as in hot. Beef tea as ordinarily made, then, con- 

 tains little but the flavoring matters and salts of the meat, traces 

 of some albumins and some gelatin, the latter derived from the 

 connective tissues of the muscle. The flavoring matters and salts 

 make it deceptively taste as if it were a strong solution of the whole 

 meat, and the gelatin causes it to "set" on cooling, so the cook 

 feels quite sure she has got out "all the strength of the meat," 

 whereas the beef tea so prepared contains but little of the most 

 nutritious protein portions, which in an insipid shrunken form are 

 left when the liquid is strained off. Various proposals have been 

 made with the object of avoiding this and getting a really nutritive 

 beef tea ; as for example chopping the raw meat fine and soaking it 

 in strong brine for some hours to dissolve out the myogen; or ex- 

 tracting it with dilute acids which dissolves the myogen and 

 myosin and at the same time render it non-coagulable by heat 

 when subsequently boiled. Such methods, however, make un- 

 palatable compounds which invalids will not take. Beef tea is a 

 slight stimulant, and often extremely useful in temporarily main- 

 taining the strength and in preparing the stomach for other food, 

 but its direct value as a food is slight, and it cannot be relied upon, 

 to keep up a patient's strength for any length of time. There can 

 be no doubt that thousands of sick persons have in the past and 

 are being to-day starved to death on it. Liebig's extract of meat is 

 essentially a very strong beef tea; containing much of the flavor- 

 ing substances of the meat, nearly all its salts and the crystalline 

 nitrogenous bodies, such as creatine, which exist in muscle, but 

 hardly any of its really nutritive parts, as was pointed out by 

 Liebig himself. From its stimulating effects it is often useful to 

 persons in feeble health, but other food should be given with it. It 

 may also be used on account of its flavor to add to the " stock " of 

 soup and for similar purposes; but the erroneousness of the com- 

 mon belief that it is a highly nutritious food cannot be too strongly 

 insisted upon. Under the name of liquid extracts of meat other 

 substances have been prepared by subjecting meat to chemical 

 processes in which it undergoes changes similar to those experienced 



