The physiology of digestion, considered with relation to the principles of dietetics / by Andrew Combe.
- Andrew Combe
- Date:
- 1860
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The physiology of digestion, considered with relation to the principles of dietetics / by Andrew Combe. Source: Wellcome Collection.
164/224 page 140
![as to require more stimulating or nutri- tious food. For the same reason, it is well adapted to persons recovering from illness, and to whom the red or fibrinous meats would prove too sti- mulating. Accordingly, chioken-tea, chicken, calf's-foot jelly,* lamb, veal, and other gelatinous 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 stimulus, 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 of adding vinegar to their sauces. Gelatinous meats are peculiarly ill adapted to persons of a sluggish lymphatic constitution, or living in a low damp situation ; because in both instances they afford an inadequate stimulus to the circulation. They suit best individuals of a very excitable temperament, or living in a high and dry locality, where support is wanted, and the animal activity requires to be soothed rather than excited. And con- sequently, in determining their fitness in any individual case, we must be guided entirely by the effect we wish to produce. As a general rule, gela- tinous meats promote the action of the bowels more than fibrinous. The capability of gelatine to renew the muscular tissues, has been denied by many physiologists, principally upon chemical grounds. Their chief reason is, that as gelatine is formed in the sys- tem from protein, it is as impossible for protein to be again formed from gelatine, as it is for protein to bo formed from urea ; both being, accord- ing to their views, the product of waste, with this difference only, that urea is at a more advanced stage, having al- ready entirely served its purpose in the economy, while gelatine has to un- dergo further metiunorphoses. As, however, we arc not in a position to assert that gelatine is not a compound * Tills Bulistnncp, liclnfT now mnnufnctTirpd In .-; ,li y and purn stale vindcr llic tmnio of ■' p.-ilcnt pplatmo.; ma' lilt; ■y bn ni onarod for use in ft short II mc, and with very tlo trouble, cither at BOft or on laud. substance, and may not contain in its composition even protein itself, it would be unwarrantable, in the pre- sent state of our knowledge, to limit the nutritive powers of gelatine to the repair of the gelatinous tissues, or to maintain that it can serve only as ali- ment of respiration. ]\Iany experi- ments have accordingly been made, especially in France, to ascertain whe- ther, in the form of soup made from bones, and eaten along with bread, it is sufficient to constitute the sole or principal nourishment of man. The question is one of great importance in an economical point of view, especially in public institutions, where this kind of aliment has, from its cheapness and supposed wholesomencss, been long in extensive use. The following is an out- line of the results obtained by Messrs Edwards and Balzac, whose experi- ments may be regarded as perhaps the most trustworthy, although they can- not be said to have entirely settled the question. When dogs were fed upon bread and a soup or solution of gelatine, they gradually became thinner and weaker, till they at last perished when reduced to about one-sixth of their original weight. But if soup made from meat was substituted for that of gelatine, even when the weakness was extreme, recovery speedily followed, and in seven days tlie dogs regained the whole of their lost weight. This result is the more remarkable, because the only ap- preciable difference between the two kinds of soup consists in the almost evanescent principles which give fla- vour and smell to the one, and the ab- sence of wliich leaves the other com- jjarativcly vapid and tasteless. On fur- tlier examination, M. Edwards found that a very small addition of these apparently insignificant principles suf- ficed to render golatine-soup as nutri- tive as that inatio entirely from meat. This singular fact was demonstrated, by first feeding a young dog on meat and bread for twenty-tlircc days, and noti ng tlie regular increase of i ts weight during that time. The same dog was then fed for thirty days on gelatine and bread. During this time, it lost](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b20404542_0164.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
