500 
DR. PROUT ON ANIMAL CHEMISTRY. 
to a temperature of at least 600°, by the operation of frying, or 
some analogous process. They are then introduced into a ma¬ 
cerating vessel with a little water, and kept for several hours at a 
temperature far below the boiling pointy not perhaps higher than 
180°; and by these united processes, properly conducted, the 
most refractory articles, whether of animal or vegetable origin, are 
reduced more or less to the state of pulp, and admirably adapted 
for the further action of the stomach. In this country, on the 
contrary, articles are usually put at once into a large quantity of 
water, and submitted without care or attention to the boiling tem¬ 
perature ; the consequence is, that most animal substances, when 
taken out, are harder and more indigestible than in the natural 
state; for it is well known that albuminous matters, as for ex¬ 
ample the white of an egg, become the harder the longer they are 
boiled. These observations are often of the utmost importance in 
a dietetic and medical point of view. When the reducing powers 
of the stomach are weak, a hard and crude English diet, such, 
for example, as half-raw beef-steaks, &c., so frequently recom¬ 
mended, is sure to disagree and produce much discomfort, by pro¬ 
moting acidity and all its consequences; while the very same 
articles well cooked upon French principles, or rather the prin¬ 
ciples of common sense, can be taken with impunity, and easily 
assimilated, by the same individual. I need scarcely allude here 
to the curious fact now well established, and strictly explicable 
upon well-known principles of the animal economy, that when any 
indigestible substance is introduced into the stomach, this organ 
immediately throws out an extra quantity of acid. Of the truth 
of this I satified myself by experiments on animals many years 
ago; and the circumstance has since been confirmed by the ex¬ 
periments of Tiedeman and Gmelin, of Heidelburgh. This law 
explains many of the most troublesome circumstances connected 
with errors of diet and indigestion. 
I need scarcely observe, that I do not approve of all French 
cookery, but only of that rational portion of it by which articles 
of food are rendered more easy of digestion. 
In the above sketch of the nature of the digestive process, I 
have endeavoured to draw the line of distinction between the dif¬ 
ficult or impossible, and what is really within our power; and 
have only to remark in conclusion, that though these three great 
essential points in the digestive process are sufficiently distinct 
from each other, it is not to be understood that they take place in 
succession, or in the order in which they have been described. 
The fact is, that they all go on together at the same time; and 
no sooner does an alimentary substance begin to be dissolved, but 
its future destination seems to be determined; and if it be expe- 
