Extract of meat / by Baron Liebig.

  • Liebig, Justus, Freiherr von, 1803-1873.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Extract of meat / by Baron Liebig. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    jf * . /v-'.l ; ! EXTRACT OF MEAT. BY BARON LIEBIG, President of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Munich. /8JT- rr by Dr. Edward Smith, which ap- : Times of October 16th, he reproaches ral quotations contained in my letter st, which require on my part some vin- says that the passages I have quoted 57 of nutrition,” “the small morsel of “tea,” are not extracts from any o:)rk of his, and he calls upon me to rre I had obtained my (most unac- • quotations.” Mv vindication is not a and I gladly take this opportunity to fully the real value of extract of meat emtation of the people; the only un- of the task is, that in doing so I am speak more of myself than I like, place it is quite correct that the above- otations have not appeared either in the Standard, or in that of the Times of They are taken word for word from itled “The Butcher’s Bill,” which ap- e Saturday Review of August 31st. is avowedly based on Dr. Edward •i, so that any one who took the trouble nust, like myself, have arrived at the it its sentences contained the authentic 'r. Edward Smith. ral Smith says, “ Let it be clearly un- it at length Baron Liebig is in accord cientific men, and that all may adopt Liebig—‘ Neither tea nor extract of rment in the ordinary sense,’ and all I s accomplished. This does not seem an that I have now been converted to •either I formerly had not, or which I ill, while the real truth is that all that rtained within the last thirty years on Us is in perfect accord with my teach- r years ago I taught in my ‘Animal hat for the preservation of life the food « io that of animals, must contain one in- lement for the formation of blood or of n the blood. I have further explained • earches on the Chemistry of Food,’ beef-tea ” or “ extract of meat ’’ contains mbstances called albuminates, as these t ite and Separate when the meat is boiled t my ‘ Familiar Letters on Chemistry.’ ' edition of 1851), I said, •* In the albu- I men of this fluid (juice of flesh) we have the sub- stance serving as transition product to the fibrine of flesh, and in the other substances (contained in beef- tea) the matters required for the production of cellu- lar tissue and nerves.” From this it will be seen that I never asserted that “beef-tea” or “extract of meat ” contained substances necessary for the formation of albumen in the blood or of muscular tissue. I have, on the contrary, designated them as “food for the nerves,” in the same sense as common salt is also designated as food, although one cannot always define in which manner it acts usefully. It cannot, therefore, be said that “I am at length in accord with other scientific men,” but that these scientific men, including Dr. Edward Smith, have simply adopted what I have always, and from the very beginning, taught. Based on my own defini- tions, Dr. Edward Smith informs me that extract of meat is not “ food,” but a “ nervous stimulant.” But what is a nervous stimulant? everybod}'- will ask who is not satisfied with a word, but wishes for a definition. We take the constituents of extract of meat in our daily food, just as we take tea and coffee in addition to our food, and nothing can be more undeniable than that these substances produce a certain beneficial effect on all the functions of the body, and also on the process of nutrition. It is clearly not the duty of a scientific man simply to deny these effects, but to find out how great is the share these substances have in the functions of the animal organisation. Some years ago two physiologists at Vienna at- tempted to prove, by experiments on themselves, respecting the effect and value of common salt in the process of nutrition, that salt is a luxury and of no value for nutrition and the preservation of health. In matters affecting the alimentation of the people no importance can be attached to such trifling experi- ments if they are in contradiction to confirmed ex- periences, and this contradiction will grow in the same proportion the less the experimentalist is capable of observing and rightly interpreting facts. In order to comprehend the difference between “common food” and “nervous food,” as I will call it in order to avoid circumlocution, it must be consi- dered that man has two kinds of work to perform, muscular or jncchanical work and brain or nervous work. The one.. Hie rnnsejjlar Mrork, is under -the dominion of the nerves and the brain.