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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    into considerable use among their patients. I find, however, that some persons fail to peptonise milk-gi'uel so as to make it acceptable to the palate and stomach of the invalid. This is entirely due to allowing the peptonizing process to go on too far. Ai'tificial digestion, like cooking, must be regulated as to its degree; and it is easy to regulate the degi^ee of artificial digestion by the length of time during which the process is allowed to go on. It must be remembered that liquor pancre- aticus (and every other form of pancreatic extract) is more or less variable in its activity, just as the fires nsed in cooking vary in their intensity, and that allowance must be made for this variability. If the liquor pancreaticus is very active the slight bitterness, whereby it is known that the process has been carried far enough, is developed in an houi', or less ; but if the preparation is not so active two or three hours may be required to reach the same point. It must further be borne in mind that the warmer the temperature at which the pro- cess is carried on the quicker is the action of the feiment. The practical rule for guidance is to allow the process to go on un- til a perceptible bitterness is developed, and not longer. As soon as this point is reached the milk-gruel should be raised to the boiling point, so as to put a stop to further changes.] Peptonised Soiqos, Jellies, and Blanc-manges.—I have sought to give variety to peptonised dishes by preparing soups, jellies, and blanc-manges containing peptonised aliments. In this endeavour I have been assisted by a member of my family, who has succeeded beyond my expectations. She has been able to place on my table soups, jellies, and blanc-manges con- taining a large amount of digested starch and digested pro- teids, possessing excellent flavour, and which the most delicate palate could not accuse of having been tampered with. Soups were prepared in two ways. The first way was to add what cooks call stock to an equal quantity of peptonised gruel, or peptonised milk-gruel. A second and better way was to use peptonised gruel, which is quite thin and watery, instead of simple water, for the purpose of extracting shins of beef and other materials employed for the preparation of soup. Jellies were prepared simply by adding the due quantity of gelatin or isinglass to hot peptonised gTuel, and flavouring the mixture according to taste. Blanc-manges were made by treating peptonised milk in the same way, and then adding cream. In
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