16 OX THE SUPPOSED INFLUENCE OF THE PAPAW ON MEAT. 



one it had been evaporated to dryness, and was in the state of an extract ; 

 in the other, the juice was preserved by being mixed with an equal bidk of 

 rum. Both were subjected to analysis by Vauquelin. The first was of 

 a yellowish-white colour, and semi-transparent. Its taste was sweetish ; 

 it had no smell, and was pretty solid, but attracted moisture when kept 

 in a damp place. The second was reddish-brown, and had the smell 

 and taste of boiled beef. When the first specimen was macerated in cold 

 water, the greatest part of it dissolved : the solution frothed with soap. 

 The addition of nitric acid coagulated it, and rendered it white ; and when 

 boiled, it threw down abundance of white flakes. When the juice of the 

 papaw is treated with water, the greatest part dissolves ; but there remains 

 a substance insoluble, which has a greasy appearance. It softens in the 

 air, and becomes viscid, brown, and semi-transparent. When thrown on 

 burning coals, it melted ; let drops of grease exude, it emitted the noise of 

 meat roasting, and produced a smoke which had the odour of fat volati- 

 lised. It left behind no residue. The substance was fibrine. The 

 resemblance between the juice of the papaw and animal meat is so close 

 that one would be tempted to suspect some imposition, were not the 

 evidence that it is really the juice of a tree quite unquestionable. This 

 fibrine had betn supposed previously to belong exclusively to the animal 

 kingdom ; but it has since been found in other vegetables, especially in 

 fungi. 



The trials I have made of the property of the papaw afforded negative 

 results, tending to prove that the effect on the meat was owing to other 

 and incidental circumstances, rather than to any special power possessed by 

 the plant. I shall mention one in illustration. Of two fowls killed at 

 the same time, one was wrapped in the leaves of the papaw by my cook 

 in the most approved manner, not neglecting the introduction of a piece 

 of the young fruit ; the other was similarly treated, substituting the leaves 

 and fruit of the squash (Cucurbita Melopepo, Linn.) Both roasted, were 

 found equally tender. Other trials, using the leaves of other plants, gave 

 like results. The juice of the leaf, to which by some the supposed effect on 

 the meat is attributed, appeared, as well as I could judge, to possess very 

 little activity. It is milky, almost insipid, or only in the slightest degree 

 acrid, and only after many hours promotes fermentation, and that in a very 

 slight degree, when added to a solution of sugar in water. The incidental 

 circumstances alluded to — whether the suspending of the meat under the 

 leaves of a succulent plant exhaling moisture, or the wrapping it in the 

 same — may be sufficient to account for the softening effect on the meat at a 

 temperature such as that of Ceylon or the West Indies, so favourable to 

 rapid change — that change on which tenderness in meat depends — without 

 reference to any occult virtue in the plant. 



