A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont.

Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of practical hygiene / by Edmund A. Parkes ; edited by F.S.B. Francois de Chaumont. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    The fat often, improperly, becomes the perquisite of the cook, and may he lost to the soldier. The loss in baking is nearly the same, or a little less. Steioing.—This is virtually the same as roasting, only the meat is cut up, is continually moistened with its own juices, and is often mixed with vegetables. Like boiling and roasting, it should be done slowly at a low heat; the loss then is about 20 per cent., and chiefly water. In all cases, there is one grand rule, viz., to cook the meat slowly, and with little heat, and, as far as possible, to let the loss be water only. The fault in military kitchens has been, that excessive heat is used. I have frequently seen the water boiling, and the men have told me that, in order to boil the vegetables, and yet not overdo the meat, they are obbged to remove the meat for a time from the water. The meat is then often a sodden, tasteless mass, with hard, shrunken, and indigestible fibres. The thermometer will be found very useful, especially in showing cooks that the temperature is often much higher than they think. In the cooking of salt meat, the heat should be very slowly applied, and long continued ; it is said that the addition of a little vinegar softens the hard sarcolemma, and it is certain that vinegar is an agree- able condiment to take with salt meat, and is probably very usefuL It may be of importance to remember this in time of war. In cutting up meat, there is a loss of about 5 per cent., and there is also a loss from bone, so that, all deductions being made, the soldier does not get more than 5 or 6 ounces of cooked meat out of 12 ounces. The large quantity of flesh extract contained in the brine can be obtained by dialysis. Place the filtered brine in a bladder or vessel of the prepared dialysis parchment, and place it in a large vessel with water; the salt diffuses out, leaving, in three or four days, the extract behind ; from two gallons of brine a fluid was obtained, which, on evaporation, yielded 1 lb of extract. (Whitelaw, Chemical News, March 1864.) The liquid left in the dialyser may be mixed with flour, and then forms a nutritious meat-biscmt (Whitelaw). Instead of pure water in the outer vessel, salt water may be at first used. An air-bladder will do as a dialyser if the parchment cannot be obtained. Sub-Section V.—Preservation of Meat. Meat may be kept for some time by simply heating the outside yery strongly, so as to coagulate the albumen j or by placing it m a close vessel, m which, sulphur is burnt, or by covering the surface with charcoal, or strong acetic acid, or calcium bisulphite, or weak carbolic acid. Injections ol alum and aluminium chloride through the vessels will preserve it for a long time , water shoidd be injected first, and then the solution. Even common salt m- jected in the same way wiU keep it for some time. So also will free exposure to pure air ; charcoal thrown over it, and suspended also m the air ; or tne meat being cut into smaller portions, and placed hi a large vessel, heat sliouia be applied, and, while hot, the mouth of the vessel should be closed tightn, with weU washed and dried cotton-wool; the ah- is filtered, and partially Ireea from germs. The application of sugar to the surface is also a good plan. Plans of this kind may be useful to medical officers under two circum- stances, viz., on board ship, and in sieges, when it is of »P01™ to preserve every portion of food as long as possible. The covering the v noie surface with powdered charcoal is perhaps as convenient as any plan. A coa ing of paraffin, and many other plans of excluding air, are also used. * Cold is n great preservative of meat; in ice it can be preserved for an *'«d]^fit)m appears to decompose very rapidly in thawing. The fresh meat now imported so Uttg* K .. Amorioa la kept at a temperature above the freezing point; about J3 B.