192 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [September 2,1871. 
IT72 theoretically, 1T536 experimentally, the tempera¬ 
ture in the latter case being- 72-4° instead of 60°, which 
.accounts, doubtless, for the comparatively large discre¬ 
pancy. A solution of specific gravity 1*72 would, at 
that temperature, contain 33-5 per cent, of salt. 
To determine the necessary proportions of salt, or 
other soluble substance, and water in order to produce a 
given specific gravity is not quite so simple. In order 
to avoid having two unknown quantities, we will assume 
the quantity of water to he known. Let it he 10. It is 
required to ascertain the quantity of sugar necessary 
to produce with that amount of water a syrup having 
the specific gravity 1-20. The specific gravity of the 
w r ater is, of course, LOO : the specific gravity in watery 
solution of sugar 1-608. The symbol x represents the 
u nkn own quantity we have to ascertain. Then 
10 # 
T + 1-608 
10 + x 
1-2 ' 
7-89 
i. e. to produce a syrup of specific gravity l - 20, 7'89 
parts of sugar must he added to every 10 parts of water. 
►Such a syrup ought theoretically to contain 44-1 per cent, 
at 60°. According to the table in Watts’ ‘ Dictionary,’ 
a syrup of specific gravity 1-2057 at the temperature 63*5 
should contain 45 per cent, of cane sugar. 
The theoretical considerations involved in the phe¬ 
nomena of solution are so numerous and interesting, that 
I propose some day to resume the subject I have now 
merely scratched on the surface, as it were; in which 
case I will ask again to be permitted to bring the subject 
before the notice of the Pharmaceutical Conference. 
The Chairman said that this was a very interesting- 
paper, and confirmed some of the views he held on the 
.same subject. _ 
Preservation of Meat. 
Dr. Paul, F.C.S., said he was surprised to find him- 
.self put down as announced to read a paper on the pre¬ 
servation of meat. He had no intention of doing so, and 
all he had to give was a merely verbal narrative as to a 
new method of dealing- with meat, which he had recently 
had an opportunity of studying. Every one present 
would be aware that in the only successful mode of 
■dealing with South American meat,—in the prepara¬ 
tion of Liebig’s extract,—the great mass of the feeding- 
portion of the meat was wasted; in fact, instead of pro¬ 
ducing food, they merely produced a material which 
was a kind of stimulant, the whole of the fibrine and 
albumen being lost. Some experiments had been 
made by the inventor of a process to which he would 
now refer, with the object of drying the meat by pres¬ 
sure ; and he had found, what a great many other people 
had found who had endeavoured to express from any 
organized structure the water or liquid it contained, that 
he could only succeed very imperfectly. However, Mr. 
Henley, the inventor of this method, had, by submitting 
meat to hydraulic pressure, succeeded in removing from 
it about one-half of the juice contained in the tissue. 
That juice was a liquid containing the constituents of 
the ordinary extract of meat made on Liebig’s plan of 
infusing the meat in water, and it also contained all the 
soluble albumen. Its specific gravity, as it ran from 
the hydraulic press, was about 1030, and it yielded on 
■evaporation about 8 per cent, of a perfectly" dry residue. 
Of that residue, five parts out of the eight were albumen; 
and if the juice were heated up to about 100°, to coagu¬ 
late the albumen, they got a pale liquid which might be 
boiled down, and then gave as residue the ordinary extract 
of meat. Another plan of dealing with this expressed 
juice was to evaporate it at such a heat as would not 
coagulate the albumen, and adding a small quantity of 
gelatine: it could then be converted into portable soup, 
put into bladders and preserved in that condition for a 
.great length of time. But the principal object of the pro- 
■cess was to deal with the residual pressed meat, from 
which half the juice and half the water had been expressed, 
and also about half the soluble albumen and other con¬ 
stituents contained in the ordinary extract of meat, so 
that the residual pressed meat was actually richer in 
nutritive constituents than the original meat. If this 
pressed meat were submitted to further drying by" heat, 
it might be reduced to a state in which it would contain 
about 10 per cent, of moisture, and meat in that state 
would keep for almost any length of time. He had 
hoped that he might have had some samples sent down in 
order to let the members see what could be done with 
these products. There were three products—the dry 
beef, the prepared beef-juice and the ordinary Liebig’s 
extract. 
The Chairman said he thought that the sy T stem of 
preserving meat explained by Dr. Paul, if it would really 
keep a long time, was likely to be a very valuable one. 
It was supposed that Liebig’s extract, of which so much 
was sold, was really a feeding commodity", whereas it 
was not so, but it acted as theine acted in tea,—it pre¬ 
vented waste of tissue, and consequently was rather sti¬ 
mulating than nutritious. But in the plan referred to 
by Dr. Paul, where you have still 50 per cent, of the 
extractum carnis , combined with all the nutritive ingre¬ 
dients of the meat, the product has more the character 
of a true animal food. 
Mr. Hanbury (London) said that this reminded him of 
a subject which was brought up at a meeting of the Roy"al 
Society" of London a few weeks ago, when Dr. Simp¬ 
son took occasion to remark that at a large London hos¬ 
pital with which he was connected the beef tea was 
prepared so as to contain almost the whole of the solid 
matter of the meat. The beef was first infused, and 
then the meat that had been used the previous day, and 
from which the infusion had been strained off, was re¬ 
duced to a sort of pulpy state, and mixed with the fresh 
infusion. It was stated that this plan produced most 
excellent results, and it had been in vogue for some ymars, 
to the general satisfaction of the medical officers and of 
the patients. 
Mr. Deane (London) said he had had some experience 
in regard to Liebig’s extract of meat. He found that after 
separating the matter which was soluble in water at a 
temperature which would coagulate the albumen, the re¬ 
sidue was left in a very insoluble and indigestible state. 
He had come to the conclusion that meat fibre that had 
been deprived of the phosphates and chlorides that were 
held in the juice of the meat among the fibres could be of 
no manner of use, and he should therefore infer that the 
meat prepared by pressure, from which half the soluble 
salts had been removed, would be a very" indigestible 
substance. Liebig’s extract was a restorative under cer¬ 
tain conditions, but it would be a mistake to suppose 
that it possessed all the nourishment of the meat from 
which it had been taken. When any of them found 
themselves exhausted, it was because the muscular 
system was deprived of some of its constituents, and it 
was a remarkable fact that when a person was so ex¬ 
hausted, if ho got a small quantity of Liebig’s extract, 
say" half a dram in hot water, in the course of ten minutes 
a wonderful restoration took place. He had a suspicion 
that if they had the pressed meat referred to, with half 
of the matter removed, it would be ill for weak stomachs 
like his own, which required a little more of the extract. 
These were the chief points which he had to mention. 
He had paid a great deal of attention to the process, and 
he had instructed a gentleman who went out to the 
Australian Meat Company as to the proper method of 
preparing the extract. That gentleman went and carried 
out his (Mr. Deane’s) instructions very generally", and 
the result had been very" successful. In regard to cook¬ 
ing, there was no necessity for boiling meat or fish ra¬ 
pidly ; for if a little time were allowed there would be 
better results. 
Mr. Savage (Brighton) said that this subject had been 
under consideration for the Sussex County" Hospital. The 
