Commune QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Juxy, 1898. 
quarters of the solid residue. If the watery infusion be heated, the albumen 
of the flesh separates as a flocculent precipitate when the temperature of 133 
degrees Fahr. is reached, and the red colouring matter of the blood, likewise 
albuminous, coagulates at 158 degrecs. The infusion, after being freed by 
boiling from albumen and the colouring matter of blood, has the aromatic 
taste and all the properties of soup made by boiling the flesh. This is 
important to remember in our manufacture of extract. There is no idea 
harder to eradicate from the mind of the old-fashioned cook or housewife than 
_ that the longer she boils meat the more good she is getting out of it. She is 
a loose observer of facts. She is condensing the extract she has made, but 
she is only making the fibrinous albuminous part of the meat more recalcitrant 
than ever. Anyone who has boiled an egg is familiar with the coagulation of 
albumen, but the cook will not listen to anyone who points out a similarity 
between eggs and meat. Perhaps, the same spirit that rises superior to a 
little elementary chemistry inspires the vegetarian and the fasting ascetic with 
the self-comforting idea that in eating eggs they are loyal to their creed, whilst 
beef would be “anathema!” We return to the infusion of extract of flesh 
from which we have strained the coagulated albumen. his infusion when 
evaporated at a gentle heat becomes darker-coloured, finally yellowish-brown 
and acquires the flavour of roast meat. When it is dried up, there is obtained 
a brown, somewhat soft, mass amounting to 12 or 73 per cent. of the original 
flesh (suppose it had been dried). This is in the rough the outline of the 
process of extract-making. 
We have rather overrun our ground, and must just hark back to a word 
or two about food. From the air and soil and the rain plants with the sun’s 
aid build up their structures, and these contain, roughly speaking, two great 
classes of organic compounds, both necessary to the food of animals. These 
are (1) the carbohydrates, or non-nitrogenous, such as sugar, starch, cellulose, 
_and the fats; (2) the nitrogenous (albuminoids), such as the gluten of flour, 
which is vegetable albumen, and the vegetable vasein that is found in beans 
and peas. The plant is eaten by the graminivorous animal, and that animal is 
eaten by man. There are, of course, mineral matters in the plants which have 
important functions. You all know that nitrogenous food-stuffs are absolutely 
essential for the well-being of animals, and that without them the animal frame 
cannot be built up. Liebig illustrated this by calling attention to the fact 
that from the albuminoids of an egg develop all the parts of the animal body— 
feathers, claws, membranes, fibrin, blood-vessels, and so on. In the process 
the albumen disappears. Albumen then, he points out, is “the foundation of 
the whole series of peculiar tissues which constitute those organs which are the 
seat of vital actions. The elements of these organs which now possess form 
and vitality were originally elements of albumen.” Albuminoids, then, must 
be present in every food which by itself suffices to support life. The meat or 
muscle of herbivora consists largely of solid albuminoids, and hence its 
importance as food, and it is this difficulty of albumen coagulation that 
stands in the way of the manufacture of an extract of meat that would be 
life-sustaining by itself. Methods have been adopted to overcome some of this 
difficulty by the restoration to the extract of the coagulated albuminoids, but 
in the ordinary “extractum carnis”. of commerce the great bulk of the 
nitrogenous constituents of the meat is absent. If special claims are made 
for eny preparation of it, these claims must be based upon constituents added 
to it by the manufacturers and psatentees of the many preparations, excellent 
in their way, that are on the market. —_ 
The great principle to remember in the manufacture of meat extract is 
that, if flesh employed for food is to become again flesh in the animal body, as 
few as possible of the constituents of raw flesh ought to be withdrawn from it 
in its preparation for the table. It is not claimed for “ extractum carnis ” 
that itis a food. Itis plain that if flesh be simply boiled in water and the meat 
eaten, much of its constituents have been lost, especially if it be putin cold 
water at first. It is possible, as I haye shown above, to extract from finely 
