On the digestive ferments and the preparation and use of artificially digested food : being the Lumleian Lectures for the year 1880. Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians / by Wm. Roberts.

  • William Roberts
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the digestive ferments and the preparation and use of artificially digested food : being the Lumleian Lectures for the year 1880. Delivered before the Royal College of Physicians / by Wm. Roberts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University Libraries/Information Services, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the the Augustus C. Long Health Sciences Library at Columbia University and Columbia University.

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    it is slower, and requires a longer time for completion. The cold method has, however, a convenience and simplicity which recommend it for general use in the sick-room. I have accord- ingly di-awn up the following directions for the preparation of peptouised milk at a temperature of 60° to 65° Fahr., which may be regarded as the ordinary degree of warmth maintained in rooms occupied by invalids. In the winter season it will be necessary to slightly warm the ingredients beforehand in order to bring them to the due temperature, but in the warmer seasons the operations can be carried on without any preliminary heating. A pint of milk is diluted with half a pint of lime-water^—or with half a pint of water containing twenty grains of bicar- bonate of soda in solution. To this are added three tea-spoon- fuls of liquor pancreaticus. The mixture is then set aside in a jug or other convenient vessel, in the sick-room, for a period of three or four hours. At the expiration of this time the milk is far advanced in the process of digestion, and has developed a slightly bitter taste. It is now ready for use. It may be used cold, either alone, or with soda-water, which covers the bitterish taste remarkably weU—or it may be warmed and sweetened for administration to infants. If milk, thus prepared, is consumed at the period indicated— that is to say at the end of three or four hours, it need not undergo any final boiling—it is better indeed to use it without boiling, because the half finished process of digestion will still go on for a time in the stomach. But if milk thus prepared has to be kept much longer, it is advisable to raise it for a moment to the boiling point, so as to bring the action of the ferment to a termination and thus to prevent those ulterior changes which render the product disagree- able to the palate. The process can be regulated with the utmost nicety by occasionally tasting the mixture, and watching the development of the bitter flavour—and it can be permanently arrested at any moment by heating the product to the boiling point.] Feptonised Gruel.—Gruel may be prepared from any of the numerous farinaceous articles which are in common use— wheaten flour, oatmeal, arrowroot, sago, pearl barley, pea or lentil flour. The gruel should be very well boiled, and made * I owe the suggestion to use lime-water to Dr. Watkins, of Newton-le- Willows.
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