126 THE HUNAN BODY. 



another proteid, called syntonin, which was formerly con- 

 sidered to be the original proteid yielded by the muscles. 

 Syntonin is insoluble in water but soluble in dilute acids 

 and alkalies and its solutions are not coagulated by 

 boiling. 



Beef Tea and Liebig's Extract. From the above stated 

 facts it is clear that when a muscle is boiled in water its 

 myosin is coagulated and left behind in the meat: even if 

 cooking be commenced by soaking in cold water, the myosin 

 still remains as it is insoluble in cold water. Beef tea as 

 ordinarily made, then, contains little but the flavoring 

 matters and salts of the meat and some gelatin, the former 

 making it deceptively taste as if it were a strong solution 

 of the whole meat, whereas it contains but little of the most 

 nutritious proteid portions, which in an insipid shrunken 

 form are left when the liquid is strained off. Various pro- 

 posals 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 myosin; or extracting it 

 with dilute acids which turn the myosin into syntonin and 

 dissolve it, at the same time rendering it non-coagulable by 

 heat when subsequently boiled. Such methods, however, 

 make unpalatable compounds which invalids, as a rule, will 

 not take. Beef tea is a slight stimulant but hardly a focd 

 and cannot be relied upon to keep up a patient's strength for 

 any length of time. Liebig^s extract of meat is essentially 

 a very strong beef tea; containing much of the flavoring 

 substances of the meat, nearly all- its salts and the crystal- 

 line nitrogenous bodies, such as kreatin, which exist in. 

 muscle, but hardly any of its really nutritive parts. 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 common belief that it is a highly nutritious food can- 

 not be too strongly insisted upon. Under the name of 

 liquid extracts of meat other substances have been prepared 



