232 
PHARMACEUTICAL  GLEANINGS. 
of  boiling  water,  and  duly  seasoned  with  salt  and  pepper,  it  makes  a  more 
palateable  beef-tea  than  any  which  can  be  made  in  the  usual  way.  Some- 
times, indeed,  a  patient  will  be  found  to  prefer  the  ordinary  sort,  either  be- 
cause the  preserved  juice  has  unluckily  been  resinous,  or  on  the  same  prin- 
ciple that  leads  some  people  from  the  plains  of  England  to  prefer  hard  water 
to  the  pure  mountain  springs  of  the  primitive  districts  of  Scotland,  viz  :  be- 
cause they  are  not  accustomed  to  the  finer  sort.  But  this  is  not  the  gene- 
ral fact ;  and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  the  preserved  meat  juice  makes  a 
most  palateable  beef  tea,  and  an  equally  eligible  basis  for  many  soups/' 
Attention  has  lately  been  recalled  to  the  value  of  the  matters 
soluble  in  water  to  be  extracted  from  flesh — ozmazome  and  saline 
matters — -as  a  nutriment  for  invalids,  when  ordinary  food  dis- 
gusts, or  will  not  be  borne.  In  many  of  these  cases,  beef-tea, 
properly  prepared,  stimulates  the  appetite,  and  greatly  helps  the 
physician  in  the  difficulties  often  met  with  in  the  dietetical  treat- 
ment of  patients.  Liebig  also  has  published  a  recipe  for  meat 
broth.  In  relation  to  its  modus  operandi  Dr.  Christison  re- 
marks : — 
"  What  is  its  mode  of  action?  Not  simply  nutrient.  A  quarter  of  an 
ounce  of  the  most  nutritive  material  cannot  nearly  replace  the  daily  wear 
and  tear  of  the  tissues  in  any  circumstances.  Possibly  it  belongs  to  a  new 
denomination  of  remedies,  whose  action  never  was  even  suspected  to  exist 
until  recently — those  which,  by  some  peculiar  influence,  diminish  the 
waste  of  the  tissues  under  the  exercise  of  their  functions.  Professor  Leh- 
mann  has  proved  (Annalen  der  Chemie,  1853)  that  coffee  possesses  this 
singular  property  in  so  remarkable  a  degree,  that,  in  persons  following  an 
active  occupation,  an  infusion  of  an  ounce  of  roasted  coffee  daily  will  re- 
duce the  daily  waste  by  a  fourth  part ;  and  the  same  property  seemslikewise 
to  belong  to  tea,  and  other  restorative  beverages.  It  is  not  improbable 
that  the  sapid  and  saline  principles  of  meat,  united  to  what  is  called  ozma- 
zome, and  constituting  the  ingredients  of  beef-tea  and  meat-juice,  possess 
some  such  property.  It  is  difficult  otherwise  to  account  for  the  interesting 
results  obtained  by  the  late  Dr.  Edwards,  in  1833,  who,  in  his  researches 
on  nutrition, — strangely  overlooked  by  the  celebrated  Gelatin  Commission 
of  the  French  Institute,  in  their  condemnatory  report  on  gelatin  in  1841, 
— found  that  dogs  die  slowly  if  fed  on  bread  and  gelatin  alone,  but,  when 
thus  greatly  reduced,  quickly  regain  flesh  and  strength  by  the  addition 
of  two  ounces  of  meat-tea,  which  cannot  appreciably  increase  their  texture 
by  its  own  insignificant  amount  of  solids.  Either  it  acts  as  a  digestive  fer- 
ment, so  to  speak, — promoting  the  assimilation  of  other  nutriment — or,  like 
coffee,  it  must  lessen  the  waste  of  the  tissues  in  the  exercise  of  their  func- 
tions.     ,  • 
Mr.  Gillon's  meat-juice  contains  only  6  J  per  cent,  of  solids.    As  a  mere 
