152 MEAT. 



surface in as short a time as possible, thus retaining the juices of 

 the meat in the interior. The temperature is then reduced to 

 93 C. or 88 C., and maintained at that point, the general rule 

 being to allow fifteen minutes for every pound of meat, otherwise 

 the coagulating process will extend to the interior and make 

 the muscular fibers tough. This temperature is high enough to 

 cook thoroughly the whole piece, but not so high as to dry up the 

 juices. Broiling is allied to the process of roasting. In boiling 

 meat the same object is accomplished by plunging it into boiling 

 water, which coagulates the exterior as in the roasting process. 



If, however, the object to be attained is to make soup or broth, 

 then the meat, having been cut into small pieces, is placed for some 

 time in cold water and the temperature gradually raised to 71 C. 

 By this treatment the juices of the meat are extracted and the 

 soluble parts are dissolved out from the meat, before the heat has 

 time to coagulate the proteid. It should be remembered, however, 

 that such soups are not very nutritious, but are stimulating. They 

 contain very little proteid or fat, but do contain salts and the ex- 

 tractives of muscles, such as creatin, creatinin, etc. It is for the 

 reasons thus given that beef-tea is of little value as food. Prof. 

 Halliburton, in a recent address before the American Chemical 

 Society, called attention to the valueless character of beef tea in the 

 following language : 



" Beef tea, or ' beef extract/ as it is generally termed in the 

 United States, is in no sense a food, but merely a palatable and 

 stimulating drink, ordinarily harmless, though possibly harmful in 

 gouty conditions. 



" I have looked in vain among your advertisements for one 

 which is familiar to us in England, representing an ox in a teacup. 

 Another advertisement on a similar line shows an ox looking at a 

 bottle of meat extract and saying, < Alas ! my poor brother/ the 

 inference being that all that is of nutritive value in the ox was con- 

 tained in the little bottle he is contemplating. The absurdity of 

 these advertisements must be apparent to all who have any know- 

 ledge of the chemistry of foods, and it is the province of the 

 physiologist and the chemist to teach the public and the medical 

 profession how erroneous such views are. Instead of an ox in a 

 teacup, the ox's urine in a teacup would be much nearer the fact, 

 for the meat extract consists largely of products on the way to urea, 

 which much more nearly resemble in constitution the urine than 

 they do the flesh of the ox. The manner in which meat extracts 

 have been pushed in the market will, I fear, stand for a long time 

 in the way of the recognition of the simple truth, that the best 

 way of getting all the available benefit from a mutton chop is just 

 to eat it. 



"Some of the manufacturers of meat extracts have lately 

 awakened to the fact that the general public is learning something 



