| tious.” 
ALKALIKS. 
&c. Amylaceous matter is found in various parts | gelatine. Soups and broths owe their nutritive 
of plants. When cooked, amylaceous matter is 
a nutritious and easily digestible substance. 
Directly or indirectly, observes Dr. Prout, “ it 
forms a constituent of the food of most of the 
higher animals, as well as of man. It differs, 
therefore, from sugar, in being a necessary article 
of food, without which animals could not exist ; 
while sugar is not. Hence a much larger quan- 
tity of amylaceous matier than of sugar can be 
taken ; and what is a still more decisive fact, the 
use of this larger quantity of amylaceous matter 
may be persisted in for an unlimited period, 
| which, it appears, is not the case with a large 
proportion of sugar.” 
5. Lagnin or woody fibre. “It forms,” says Dr. 
Prout, “the appropriate food of numerous in- 
sects and of some of the lower animals, but of 
few of the higher classes of animals. ‘The reason 
of this is probably to be sought for in their not 
being furnished with organs proper for com- 
minuting and reducing it; for when lignin is 
comminuted and reduced by artificial processes, 
it is said to form a substance analogous to the 
amylaceous principle, and to be highly nutri- 
The Laplanders, according to Linnzeus, 
eat bark-bread during a great part of the winter, 
and sometimes even during the whole year. It 
is prepared from the inner bark of the Pinus syl- 
vestris. 
Cuass 2. Oreacinous ALIMENTARY PRINCIPLES. 
This class comprehends the substances denomi- 
nated fats, fixed oils, and butter. Oleaginous 
aliments are highly nutritious, but exceedingly 
difficult and slow of digestion. Sir John Ross 
is of opinion that the natives of cold countries 
seem to require a more fatty diet than the in- 
habitants of tropical regions, in order to promote 
the production of animal heat. See articles Bur- 
TER, Far, and O1t. 
Cuass 3. Nivrogenovus AnimentaARY Princt- 
PLES. The most important alimentary principles, 
containing nitrogen, are fibrine, albumen, caseum, 
gelatine, and gluten. The animal extract, called 
osmazome, is also a nitrogenous principle. With 
one exception—gluten—these principles are ob- 
tained from the animal kingdom, and they have, 
in consequence, been frequently denominated 
animal aliments. See articles ALpUMEN, CAsEuM, 
FIBRINE, GELATINE, GLUTEN, and OsMAZOME. 
Fibrine is eminently nutritious, and easy of 
digestion. Albumen is highly nutritious, and 
when either raw or lightly boiled, is easy of di- 
gestion ; but when boiled hard, or especially when 
fried, its capability of being digested is consider- 
ably impaired. Caseum is nutritious, and moder- 
ately easy of digestion. Gelatine, or animal jelly, 
is an exceedingly nutritive principle, though pro- 
bably somewhat less so than fibrine and albumen. 
Gelatine from bones is employed in Paris for the 
preparation of a nutritious soup for hospitals and 
other pauper habitations. Confectioner’s jelly 
is made from isinglass, calves’ feet, and patent 
properties principally to gelatine. Young meats 
yield more gelatine than old ones. ‘To osmazome 
broths and soups owe their flavour, smell, and 
part of their nutritive qualities. Gluten is be- 
lieved to be highly nutritious, and to confer on 
wheat flour its well-known superior alimentary 
qualities. “Its viscidity or tenacity,” says Brande, 
“confers upon that species of flour its peculiar ex- 
cellence for the manufacture of macaroni, vermi- 
celli, and similar pastes.” 
The subject of aliment will be further discussed 
under the heads of Anima Foop, Dierstron, Fop- 
per, Nurrition, &c. 
ALISMA,—popularly Water Plantain. A genus 
of aquatic herbs, giving name to the natural 
order Alismaceze. The most common species, 
Alisma plantago, the great water plantain, de- 
rives its specific name from the resemblance of 
its leaf to that of the common plantain, grows in 
wet ditches and by river sides in Great Britain, 
and has the reputation — we suppose an ill- 
founded one—of being a cure for hydrophobia. 
Four other well-known species have the popular 
names of spear-leaved, blunt-leaved, floating and 
lesser water plantainee. The order Alismaceze com- 
prise three genera; and, as a whole, are hand- 
some water plants, with white flowers,—natives 
of ditches in temperate countries, and within the 
tropics,—and eaten, in some instances, by the 
Chinese. 
ALKALIES. Substances of opposite chemical 
properties to those of acids. They have a hot, 
acrid, bitter taste; they counteract or neutralize 
the sourness of acids, and all the effects which 
that sourness produces; and, in general, they 
possess the well-known properties of the ley of | 
wood ashes. The name alkali is formed of the 
Arabic article a/, and the Arabic word kali ; the | 
former used intensitively like our prefix super, | 
and the latter meaning the bitter substance, and 
used to designate the herb which we call glass- 
wort, Salicornia Arabica. The Arabians burnt 
this herb to ashes, boiled the ashes in water, and 
procured, by evaporation, a white powder which 
they regarded as the concentration of the herb, 
and designated al-kali, the eminently bitter sub- 
stance. This alkali is potash ; and the name al- 
kali is, in consequence, used by all British chem- 
ists and scientific agriculturists as the generic 
appellation of all the substances which resemble 
potash in their properties and action. All the 
alkalies, like potash, turn vegetable blues into 
green, convert vegetable yellows into reddish- 
brown, and restore such vegetable blues as have 
been turned into red by acids; and they can 
easily be detected by means of an infusion of 
turmeric, or an infusion of red cabbage, or of 
pieces of paper stained with either of these infu- 
sions. Yet the alkalies do not result from the ac- 
tion of any specific or alkalizing principles, but 
are very variously constituted. 
The principal alkalies, or those which make the 
—— - “s * 
