676 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[February 17,1872. 
At the suggestion of Dr. Pavy, of Guy’s Hospital, 
Mr. Darby undertook some experimental investigations 
to determine the practicability of making a preparation 
•which should contain all the constituents of lean meat 
in a soluble form, and he claims to have succeeded in 
the production of his fluid meat now in the market. 
The process, which we quote in extenso , and which has 
been patented, is an extension of one first proposed by 
Dr. Wm. Marcet, P.R.S., in 1867. 
“ Lean meat, finely sliced, is digested with pepsin in 
water previously acidulated with hydrochloric acid at a 
temperature of from 96° to 100° F. until the whole of the 
fibrine of the meat has disappeared. 
“ The liquor is then filtered, separating small portions 
of fat, cartilage, or other insoluble matters, and neutral¬ 
ized by means of carbonate of soda, and finally, carefully 
evaporated to the consistence required, namely, that of a 
soft extract. 
“The resulting extract rejoresents in all its constituents 
the lean meat employed, but with the fibrine, albumen 
and gelatine changed into their respective peptones or 
soluble forms. This change is effected solely by the 
pepsin and hydrochloric acid, or artificial gastric juice, 
without the evolution or absorption of any gas or the 
formation of any secondary products. 
“ But this process, whatever care be taken, leaves the 
fluid meat with a strong bitter taste, which always at¬ 
taches to meat digested with pepsin. In order to remove 
this bitter taste, I have made very many experimental 
researches, and at length have discovered that the pur¬ 
pose is completely and satisfactorily effected by the ad¬ 
dition, in a certain part of the process, of a small propor¬ 
tion of fresh pancreas. 
“ The fluid meat so prepared is entirely free from any 
bitter flavour.” 
One ounce by weight, or a large tablespoonful, equals 
the quantity of extract, obtained by boiling, from twenty 
ounces of meat. 
As thus prepared, it possesses a full meaty flavour. 
Having tried it repeatedly dissolved in water as beef tea, 
and spread on bread-and-butter as a sandwich, we can 
bear wdtness to its agreeable flavour, and, so far as we 
could judge, it appeared to confer greater staying power 
on the stomach than equal weights of Extractum Garnis. 
Hitherto the manufacture of fluid meat has been con¬ 
fined to this country; but it is obvious that if the author’s 
process prove as generally satisfactory as it promises, the 
Hocks of South America and Australasia will be required 
to supply meat in sufficient abundance to admit of its 
being carried on at a cost low enough for general con¬ 
sumption. Meanwhile it seems very desirable that phar¬ 
macists, as well as medical men, should test the fluid 
meat whenever practicable. The former are, equally 
wdth the latter, the confidants of the public in things 
dietetical, and it behoves them to keep themselves abreast 
of every improvement in the preparation of food. More¬ 
over, when a member of the Society devotes time and 
skill of no common order to the solution of a problem of 
national importance, the assistance and advice of his 
con freres should not be wanting. 
If Mr. Darby’s process continue as successful on an 
extended scale as it appears to have been during the 
last few months, he will have earned the congratulations 
of every member of the trade and deserve the gratitude, 
not only of dyspeptics and other invalids, but of all 
mankind. 
©hitotnr. 
DR. DAY, F.R.S. 
A physician and medical writer of some eminence, Dr. 
George Edward Day, who has just died, was for a number 
of years professor of medicine, and one of the examiners 
for the M.D. degree in St. Andrew’s University. Dr. Dav 
was born in 1815 at Tenby, South Wales. He received his 
first education at Pembroke College, Cambridge, where 
he took a wrangler’s degree in 1837. From Cambridge 
he proceeded to Edinburgh, where he enrolled as a stu¬ 
dent of medicine, and soon rose to distinction in the 
several classes, gaining the gold medal in two successive 
years for the best thesis on anatomy and physiology. In 
1843, Dr. Day took up residence in London as physician 
to the Western General Dispensary, in the New Road, 
a post which he subsequently resigned for that of lec¬ 
turer on materia medica at the Middlesex Hospital. In » 
this capacity he laid pharmaceutical doctrine under con¬ 
siderable obligations by the lucidity of exposition and 
the neatness of experiment which he brought to bear on 
the subject. In 1844 he became a member, and in 1848- 
a Fellow, of the Royal College of Physicians, and from 
that time engaged to some extent in the periodical litera¬ 
ture of his profession, contributing, among other jour¬ 
nals, to the Medico-Chirurgical Review. He also trans¬ 
lated from the German and French authors on physiology, 
and was an active supporter of the Sydenham Society. 
He assisted in founding the Pathological and Cavendish. 
Societies; and in 1850 became a Fellow of the Royal 
Society. An accomplished and versatile rather than an 
acute or profound savant , Dr. Day leaves behind him 
many warm personal friends to regret his decease, which 
(as our readers may remember) was accelerated by an 
accident sustained some years ago in the course of a tour 
in Wales. 
MR. JOSEPH KERNOT, NAPLES. 
We are sorry to have to record the death of Mr. 
Joseph Ivernot, proprietor and founder of the British 
Pharmacy in Naples, which took place on Tuesday, the 
26th of December last, after a severe attack of compli¬ 
cated nervous fever. 
Mr. Kernot established himself in Naples in the year 
1826, and died at the ripe age of seventy-one. Dis¬ 
tinguished alike for honesty, probity and enterprise, lie- 
met with the greatest success in his business, and. was, as 
a contemporary there expressed it, the Nestor of Neapo¬ 
litan pharmacists. He was a member of the Pharma¬ 
ceutical Society of Great Britain and of the University 
of Naples ; received a prize medal in the Dublin Exhi¬ 
bition in 1865 for pharmaceutical products; and was. 
lately appointed farmacista to the royal household of 
Italy. 
MEETINGS FOR THE ENSUING WEEK. 
Monday . London Institution, at 4p.m. —“Elementary 
Feb. 19. Chemistry.” By Professor Odling. 
Medical Society, at 8 P.M. 
Tuesday . Roval Institution, at 3 p.m. —“On the Ner- 
Feb. 20. vous and Circulating Systems.” By Hr. 
Rutherford. 
Wednesday. ..Society of Arts, at 8 p.m. 
Feb. 21. Royal Microscopical Society, at 8 P.M.— An¬ 
nual Meeting. 
Thuksday . Royal Society, at 8.30 p.m. 
Feb. 22. Royal Institution, at 3 p.m. —“ The Chemistry 
of Alkalies and Alkali Manufacture.” By 
Professor Odling. 
Fkiday . Royal Institution, at 9 p.m.— “ Social Infiu- 
Eeb. 23. ence of Music.” By Mr. H. Leslie. 
Quekett Club, 8 P.M. 
Satukday . Royal Institution, at 3 p.m. —“The Theatre 
Feb. 24. in Shakspeare’s Time.” By W. B. Donne, 
Royal Botanic Society, at 3.45 p.m. 
The following journals have been received:—The ‘British 
Medical Journal,’ Feb. 10; the ‘Medical Times and Gazette,’ 
Feb. 10 ; the ‘Lancet,’ Feb. 10; the ‘ Medical Press and Cir¬ 
cular,’ Feb. 14; ‘ Nature,’ Feb. 10 ; the ‘ Chemical News,’ Feb, 
10; ‘ English Mechanic,’ Feb. 9 ; ‘ Gardeners’ Chronicle,’ 
Feb. 10; the ‘Grocer,’ Feb. 10; the ‘Journal of the Society 
of Arts,’ Feb. 10; the Madras ‘Monthly Journal of Medical 
Science’ for January ; ‘ Medical and Surgical Reporter,’ Dec. 
30; ‘ Pharmaceutische Zeitung,’ Jan. 31 and Feb. 7; the 
‘Practitioner’ for February. 
