80 Production of Isinglass on the Coasts of India. 



quently substituted for the latter. Hence we have different kinds 

 of British gelatine and French gelatine, as well as a Patent gelatine, 

 selling at retail prices of from 85. to 12s., when the best Isinglass is 

 selling for 18s. a pound. 



Gelatine is one of the principal constituents of most of the animal 

 substances employed as food, and it is arranged by Dr. Prout among 

 the albuminous group, all of which, he says, " differ from the olea- 

 ginous and the saccharine principles in this respect : that they con- 

 tain a fourth elementary principle namely azote." It forms one of 

 the constituents of bone, from which it may be separated even ages 

 after the animal has ceased to exist, as in the case of the bones of 

 the Mammoth, from which gelatine was separated and tasted at the 

 table of the Prefet of Strasbourg. As it is found in other refuse 

 animal matter, it has been proposed and employed especially in 

 hospitals and prisons, and some public institutions in France as an 

 article of diet in the form of soups, &c, which has by some been 

 disparagingly called " soup of gaiter buttons." 



In some recent experiments, it has been attempted to prove 

 that gelatine or animal jelly affords no nutriment, or not sufficient 

 to support the life of the more highly developed animals. Similar 

 experiments have formerly been made with other articles of diet 

 such as sugar and gum, and now with Gelatine, Albumen, Fibrine, 

 and Fecula, and all with the same results, so as to prove that none of 

 them singly are calculated to afford nourishment and support life. 

 For, in fact, man was not intended to live upon any one of these sub- 

 stances alone, but upon a mixed diet. So Flesh, Bones, and Gluten, 

 being compound bodies, supported life perfectly. Dr. Prout arranges 

 all nourishing substances, capable as they are of assuming an infinite 

 variety of forms, under the three heads, or staminal principles, 

 of the Saccharine, the Oleaginous, and the Albuminous group.* 

 And says as all the more perfect organized beings feed on others that 

 are organised beings, their food must necessarily consist of one 

 or more of the above three staminal principles. Hence, the diet 

 of the higher classes of animals and of man, to be complete, must 



* Gelatine he considers as the least, perfect kind of albuminous matter existing 

 in animal bodies. 



