210 
BRITISH PHARMACEUTICAL CONFERENCE. 
the extraction of soluble matters from the meat. He could not accept the experiment 
of starving dogs by this substance, as proving it to be worthless as a nutrient. Our 
requirements, as to food, included many substances, and if the whole of the soluble 
salts were removed, it was not therefore logical to say that the residue had no value. 
These soluble salts were wanted for our invalids, but might not mineral matters be 
added to the residual fibrine, which would give it a certain food-value, or might it not 
be used jointly with other foods ? 
Mr. Brough could speak from personal experience respecting the remarkable resto¬ 
rative power of beef gravy prepared in such a way that the whole of the soluble consti¬ 
tuents of the beef were present. 
Mr. Atkins (Salisbury) had formed a very favourable opinion of the Extract. Carnis 
made by Liebig’s process, more especially from having seen cases in which it suited 
patients admirably where Gillon’s Essence of Beef could not be taken. He thought 
that its entire freedom from gelatine was the cause of this superiority. Mr. A. would 
like to know if it was probable that charqui, or jerked beef, could be used for the pre¬ 
paration of an extract. 
Mr. T. B. Groves had made the extract of beef twelve years since. He then used 
beefsteaks, and obtained 5 per cent, of extractive, which gave 50 per cent, of mineral 
matter, consisting of phosphates of lime and magnesia, chlorides, etc. 
Dr. Edwards remarked that whatever value we might be disposed to place in this 
extract, we. should do wrong if not bearing in mind the absolute necessity for a mixed 
diet for invalids. Such experiments as starving dogs upon gelatine proved nothing as 
regards the nutrient qualities of the substance, but they might teach us the impropriety 
of refusing that mixture of foods which was a sine qua non. Looking at the inex¬ 
haustible stores of fish with which the ocean teemed, the arrangements for obtaining 
which were most imperfectly developed, he thought that this class of food deserved 
the application of similar processes for its utilization. 
Mr. Schacht said that some critics of Liebig’s Extract. Carnis appeared to have over¬ 
looked the fact that it was devised for invalids, and not for those in health, and was 
intended to furnish, in an available form, principles which the invalid could not take 
in their normal state as elements of solid food. 
THE- EFFECTS OF SOIL AND CULTIVATION ON THE DEVE¬ 
LOPMENT OF THE ACTIVE PRINCIPLES OF PLANTS. 
BY THOMAS P. BRUCE WARREN, PREPAEATEUR IN THE LABORATORY OP 
ME. WILLIAM HOOPER, 
7, Fall Mall Fast, 55, G-rosvenor Street, and Mitcham. 
To the most casual observer, it is evident that plants which grow on one 
soil will not grow on another. It does not require an extensive knowledge 
of botany, to detect that the primary functions of plant life, though similar 
in all classes, vary in energy in different plants, and even in parts of the 
same plant; it is the adaptability of the organs for the performance of these 
functions, which establish the locale of plant existence. 
We are able by certain means, to modify the habits of a plant, as to 
cause it to grow under conditions which are not normally demanded by its 
nature, or the energy of its functions ; from this remark, a plant may be said 
to be cultivated when grown under constrained conditions. 
It would be difficult to define precisely the limits of cultivation, for the 
removal of a plant from a soil naturally selected by it, or on which it grows, as 
it were, sud sponte, to a soil equally fitted for its peculiar l^abits, can hardly 
be considered as cultivation. 
It is, however, more difficult to imitate nature on such a point, than to supply 
the exact pabulum for a plant, or to sustain those conditions under which a 
plant grows in a wild or natural state. 
