PLANTAIN FRUIT AND MEAL. 73 
the fresh fruit, or only in the dried meal prepared from it, I have had no 
opportunity of determining. 
The addition of Alcohol to the same watery solution renders it more or 
less distinctly gelatinous, as it does similar solutions obtained from other 
fruits, and from the turnip, parsnip, &c. This shows the presence of pectin, 
or pectic acid, the substance which in fruits, in the turnip, and in many other 
bulbous roots, takes the place of the starch found in grain, and in the tubers 
of the potato. 
When boiling water is poured over the meal, it is changed into a trans- 
parent jelly, having an agreeable taste and smell. If it be boiled with water, 
its forms a thick gelatinous mass, very much like boiled sago in colour, but 
possessing a peculiar pleasant odour. 
Composition of the Plantain Meal.—By a careful analysis, the composition 
of the plantain meal was found to be nearly as follows: 
a. The water.—Mr. Law states that 59 parts of the fruit yielded only 
80°85 of eatable parts, which, on drying in the air, were reduced to 12°32 
parts. The fruit, therefore, consisted in 100 parts of— 
Per cent. 
Husks, &c. ‘ z a 47°71 
Water evaporated by the sun . : . . 20:88 
Meal dried in the sun. . ; » 8141 
100-00 
The meal thus dried in the open air, when dried again in the laboratory 
at 212° Fahr., lost 14-07 per cent. of water in addition ; or one hundred parts 
ofthe recent fruit contain 27 of dry nutritive matter. 
b. The albumen, §c.—By combustion the proportion of nitrogen in this 
meal, in its ordinary state, was found by Dr. Geonibers. in two experiments, 
to be 0°88 and 0°97 respectively, equal as a mean to 5'82 per cent. of protein 
compounds. These, as we have already seen, are most probably in the state 
.of soluble albumen taken up by cold water, and of coagulated albumen 
attached to, or mixed with, the starch, cellular fibre, &c. In the perfectly 
dry meal the proportion is 6°75 per cent. 
e. The ash—When burned in the air, the proportion of ash left behind 
amounts to 2°33 per cent., or in the dried meal to 2°71 per cent. 
The entire composition of the plantain meal is represented in the following 
table : 
Dried in the air. Dried at 212° Fah. 
14:07 
Water . : 
Starch - 7 F - 67°42 78°43 
Gum and Pectin . A - 4:47 5:21 
Cellular fibre > ‘ - 4:84 5°62 
i Sugar . , . . 2:03 2°40 
Oil 5 . j . 0-41 0-48 
Albumen (soluble) . j ~ 12) 141 
Albumen (coagulated gluten, &c.) » 38:23 3:74 
Ash . . . . - 2°32 271 
100-00 100-00 
On comparing the above composition with that of other kinds of food com- 
monly eaten by man, we find the plantain fruit to approach most nearly in 
composition and nutritive value to the potato, and the plantain meal to 
those of rice. Thus, the fruit of the plantain gives 27 per cent., and the raw 
potato 25 per cent. of dry matter. 
