124       On  Meat  and  the  Methods  of  Preserving  it. 
Am.  Jour.  Phatik. 
March  1, 187a. 
Plants  with  fragrant  leaves,  aromatic  fruits,  and  wood  penetrated  with 
essential  oil,  are  scarcely  found  except  in  warm  or  tropical  countries. 
— Pharm.  Journ.  and  Trans.,  Jan.  6,  1872. 
ON  MEAT  AND  THE  METHODS  OF  PRESERVING  IT. 
By  H.  Endemann,  Ph.  D. 
Meat  is  composed  of  various  substances,  which,  up  to  the  present 
time,  are  not  yet  all  known.  Their  number  is  being  increased  every 
few  years  by  new  discoveries,  which  however  do  not  always  meet  the 
expectations  of  over-zealous  admirers  of  Liebig's  Extract.  Theories, 
which  attribute  to  newly-discovered  substances  the  life-giving  power 
which  has  made  the  extract  of  meat  a  valuable  medicine,  must  be  con- 
firmed by  physiological  experiments  ;  whereas,  thus  far,  they  have 
failed  entirely  to  assign  a  specific  function  to  any  of  the  products  of 
the  decomposition  of  albuminous  substances  formed  in  the  living  or- 
ganism. I  may  therefore  avoid  any  omission  in  the  enumeration  of 
the  component  parts  of  meat,  by  grouping  all  these  substances  under 
the  general  heading,  "  Products  of  the  Decomposition  of  Albumen.*^ 
Meat  consists  of  fibrin  and  albumen  (about  25  per  cent.)  and  the 
rest  of  its  solid  constituents  (about  2J  per  cent,  in  the  average)  is 
composed  of  the  products  of  decomposition  of  albumen  and  of  alka- 
line salts.  The  albuminous  substances,  fibrin  and  albumen  represent 
the  nourishing  properties  of  meat,  while  the  salts,  possessing  likewise 
nourishing  qualities,  are  important  for  the  promotion  of  digestion. 
About  twenty  years  have  elapsed  since  Liebig  made  his  first  investi- 
gations on  the  constituents  of  meat.  It  wTas  then  also  that  he  ad- 
vanced his  views  concerning  the  nourishing  properties  of  the  extract 
of  meat,  and  we  find  in  the  "  Chemische  Briefe,"  published  shortly 
afterwards,  his  ideas  set  forth  so  clearly  that  the  unprofessional  reader 
may  understand  and  duly  appreciate  them. 
I  feel  confident  that  the  value  of  this  extract  was  and  is,  even  now, 
over-estimated.  Liebig  himself  abandoned  the  idea  that  the  organic 
constituents  of  the  extract  were  the  agents  of  its  beneficial  effects,  and 
experiments,  made  some  years  ago  in  England,  show  plainly  that  the 
ashes  of  the  extract  are  capable  of  producing  the  same  effects  as  the 
extract  itself.  Even  now,  however,  after  the  explosion  of  the  theories 
that  albuminous  substances  might  be  built  up  again  from  the  products 
of  their  decomposition,  experiments  are  constantly  made  to  find  or- 
