162 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
Carbonate of Potash . — The usual bicarbonate of potash and 
salt of tartar of the apothecaries is sufficiently pure. To 
obtain the above-mentioned solution, two ounces of carbonate 
of potash are dissolved in one pound (16 ounces) of water. If 
well-water be taken, a deposit of carbonate of lime is usually 
formed; but in an hour the liquid will grow perfectly clear. 
If common pearlash be used, two ounces and a half are taken 
for one pound of water, and the liquid must be allowed to 
stand till it is quite bright. 
Remark . — In order to obviate the troublesome process of 
weighing the flour, &c., it may be remarked that a table- 
spoonful (heaped up) of wheaten flour weighs pretty nearly 
half an ounce, a heaped dessert-spoonful of malt flour weighs 
also half an ounce. For measuring the solution of carbonate 
of potash, a common thimble may be used, which, if fllled with 
it, will contain about 3 grammes, or 45 grains. For the milk 
and the water, one may get an apothecary to weigh two and 
then five Ounces of water, and pouring each into a common 
tumbler, the several quantities can be marked by gumming two 
strips of paper on the outside of the glass. 
When the soup is properly prepared, it is as sweet as milk, 
and any further sweetening is unnecessary. It contains the 
double concentration of loomom’s milk. After boiling, the soup 
will keep 24 hours without undergoing any change. 
The immediate inducement to my making such soup was 
the circumstance that one of my grandchildren could not be 
suckled by its mother, and that another required, besides his 
mother^s milk, a more concentrated food. In both cases, as 
well as in other families where it had been introduced, the 
soup proved an excellent food ; the children thrived perfectly 
well, and many a petty suffering disappeared after some weeks^ 
use of the soup. I often take it (prepared with 10 parts of milk 
and two parts of malt flour) with tea for my breakfast. It has 
a slight flavour of malt, to which children soon get accustomed ; 
after some time they like it better than any other food. A 
Munich physician. Dr. Vogel, who has a very extensive practice 
among children, endeavoured to introduce this soup in the 
families of the poor, but without success, because the thick 
pap, as soon as the malt flour was added, became suddenly 
converted into a thin fluid. The nurses objected to it, for 
they thought that the nutritious powers of the preparation were 
connected with the thickness of the pap, and that these, by the 
admixture of the malt, suffered a diminution.* 
For the use of more wealthy families, Doctor Von Pfeufer, the most 
renowned physician in Munich, has induced the apothecaries of the town to 
keep for sale a mixture of half an ounce of malt flour and grains of bicar- 
bonate of potash, milk and wheat flour being supposed to be in eyery 
house. The malt flour ought to be always freshly made from the malt. 
