The physiology of digestion, considered with relation to the principles of dietetics / By Andrew Combe.

  • Andrew Combe
Date:
1845
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The physiology of digestion, considered with relation to the principles of dietetics / By Andrew Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    nourishing to a person in robust health than fish or chicken; and surprise is often expressed that, notwithstanding this excellent diet, debility makes pro- gress, and flesh is lost rather than gained. Whereas, if the excitability of such invalids, and the invariable tendency of strong fibrinous food to increase that excitability, were kept in view, it would speedily be discover- ed that a gross error had been com- mitted, and that the milder white meats would give more real support, simply from being better fitted to the existing state of the constitution. The mistaken practice here noticed often arises from confounding together two very different things—digestibi- lity, and fitness as an article of food. The stomach may have no difficulty whatever in digesting a slice of roast- meat, and yet the latter be very ill suited to the state of the system at the time ; while, on the other hand, a meal of fish or of vegetables may be very slowly digested, and yet be in every way the best adapted to the bodily condition. So that, in selecting a pro- per diet, we must not only be guided by the abstract properties of the ar- ticles chosen, but constantly have in view their relation to the individual constitution and circumstances of the person who is to use them. Gelatinous meats are so called from containing a large proportion of jelly or gelatine. Gelatine is found in the muscles, skin, ligaments, tendons, mem- branes, and bones; but it abounds most in the flesh of young animals, as in veal or lamb, of which we have a familiar example in the jelly found in cold veal-pies. It is also procured in large quantity from the skin, liga- ments, and tendons, especially of young animals, The very name cal/’s-foot jelly indicates this origin; and glue, which is an impure gelatine, is well known to be procured chiefly by boil- ing scraps of skin till the whole of their gelatine is extracted. Veal, lamb, fowl, and the young of most animals in which the colourless predominate over the red particles of the blood, constitute the principal va- 121 rieties of gelatinous meats. In their effects on the system, they are slower of digestion, less exciting, and less heating, than fibrinous aliments. In weakened constitutions, consequently, they often require to be combined with stimulants, such as spices, to rouse the stomach to their digestion. With- out this precaution, they sometimes pass quickly through the intestines almost unchanged, and thus seem +o have a laxative effect, when it is their want of stimulus that is alone in fault. Gelatinous aliments are not in them- selves nutritious, but become so when combined with other nutritive prin- ciples. They fill up the system ra- pidly, but without communicating to it the same enduring vigour as fibrin- ous meats. From the above proper- ties, gelatinous food ought to be pre- ferred where a tendency to excitement exists and requires to be moderated. It is well adapted, for example, to per- sons of a dry, irritable constitution, to excitable children, and to those whose muscular labour is not so great as to require more stimulating or nutritious food. For the same reason it is well adapted to persons recovering from ill- ness, and to whom the red or fibrinous meats would prove too stimulating. Accordingly, chicken-tea, chicken, calf’s-foot jelly,* lamb, veal, and other gejatinous aliments, are in common use among invalids; because they are less stimulating, and therefore safer, and less apt to excite a relapse, than beef-tea, roast-beef, or mutton-chop. Indeed, from this very want of stimu- lus, they are apt to disagree with weak stomachs, unless seasoned with a good deal of spice or vinegar; and hence the practice of sending slices of lemon to table along with them, and also that of adding vinegar to their sauces. Gelatinous meats are peculiarly ill adapted to persons of a sluggish lymphatic constitution, or living ina low damp situation; because, in both instances, they afford an inadequate stimulus to the circulation. They suit * This substance, being now manufactured ina dry and pure state under the name of « patent gelatine,” may be prepared in ashort time, and with very little trouble, either at sea or on land,
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