SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
269 
The Preparation of Flesh as Food. — It is now very generally believed 
that the present method of killing cattle, and of preparing their bodies for 
food, is one which requires alteration. For example, under our present 
system, when sheep, oxen, &c., are killed, a very large quantity of valu- 
able and nutritious material is wasted by the escape of blood. Hence it 
becomes necessary to inquire how a new process can be substituted, by 
which the circulating fluid may be utilised. With this object in view, Dr 
Mapother communicated a paper to the Royal Dublin Society, in which 
he thinks he has divided the Gordian knot. He certainly has not untied 
it. His only proposal is that the animal be killed in such a manner as 
to prevent the loss of blood, and he trustfully supposes that, having 
informed the public that flesh prepared in this fashion is wholesome, they 
will at once proceed to adopt his suggestions, regardless of long-existing 
prejudices. It is not many years since a distinguished experimenter on 
other people’s stomachs proposed that the starving Irish should be fed upon 
curry-powder and water mingled in proper proportions ; we are not, how- 
ever, acquainted with any record of the results of the trial. Now, it 
certainly seems to us that this gentleman’s proposal made for people who 
are not at all familiar with flesh meat of any kind, was just, a priori , as 
likely to be adopted as that of Dr. Mapother, which can, of course, only 
refer — in Ireland at least— to those who stand somewhat higher than the 
great unwashed . We hope that the Doctor will, on a future occasion, devise 
some method of employing abstracted blood as food, for we certainly do 
not approve of his present proposition. We presume he is able to support 
physiological assertions by logical proof. But we cannot see how the sun- 
dried strips of flesh which the American Indians use as food “ confer on 
them a degree of health and muscular vigour, scarcely ever attained by 
any European race.” In our innocence of the abstruse physiological 
reasoning which no doubt supports Dr. Mapother’s assertion, we prefer to 
suppose that the rare health and vigour to which he refers may be due to 
the essentially natural mode of life of these hardy tribes. 
Characters , Action , and Uses of the Calabar Bean is the subject for which 
the gold medal was awarded to Dr. T. R. Fraser on his graduating M.D. 
in the University of Edinburgh. His thesis has now appeared in pam- 
phlet form, and deserves the consideration and attention of members of his 
profession. He treats in an exhaustive manner of the history of this pecu- 
liar drug, and gives also the results of an immense number of experiments 
made upon the lower animals for the purpose of investigating its action. 
The bean was first noticed, scientifically, about the year 1840, by Dr. 
Daniell, and was alluded to in a paper which he read before the Ethno- 
logical Society in 1846. The bean, as its name implies, is brought from 
the west coast of Africa, where it is employed by the natives in the trial 
by ordeal. It is used by them as a test to distinguish between the inno- 
cent and guilty. Dr. Fraser writes : “ The priest, as administrator, offers 
up a prayer that the gods may continue to the bean its power to kill the 
guilty. The accused is then permitted to receive the ordeal bean, either in 
the form of infusion, or of the dry kernel. Sometimes a portion of one 
bean only is taken, at others as many as twenty-five, according to the dis- 
cretion of the priest, or until innocence is held to be declared by the pro- 
YOL. III. — NO. X. T 
