The Chemistry of Cookery

bread, lost flesh and strength rapidly, they recovered their original weight when to this same food only a very small quantity of the sapid and odorous principles of meat were added. Thus, in the experiments of MM. Edwards and Balzac, a young dog that had ceased growing, and had lost one-fifth of its original weight when fed on bread and gelatin for thirty days, was next supplied with the same food, but to which was added, twice a day, only two tablespoonfuls of soup made from horseflesh. There was an increase of weight on the first day, and, ‘in twenty-three days the dog had gained considerably more than its original weight, and was in the enjoyment of vigorous health and strength.’ All this difference was due to the savoury constituents of the four tablespoonfuls of meat soup, which soup contained the juices of the flesh, to which, as already stated, its flavour is due. The inferences drawn by M. Edwards from the whole of the experiments are the following: ‘1. That gelatin alone is insufficient for alimentation. 2. That, although insufficient, it is not unwholesome. 3. That gelatin contributes to alimentation, and is sufficient to sustain it when it is mixed with a due proportion of other products which would themselves prove insufficient if given alone. 4. That gelatin extracted from bones, being identical with that extracted from other parts—and bones being richer in gelatin than other tissues, and able to afford two-thirds of their weight of it—there is an incontestable advantage in making them serve for nutrition in the form of soup, jellies, paste, &c., always, however, taking care to provide a proper admixture of the other principles in which the gelatin-soup is defective. 5. That to render gelatin-soup equal in nutritive and digestible qualities to that prepared from meat alone, it is sufficient _to mix one-fourth of meat-soup with three-fourths of gelatin-soup_; and that, in fact, no difference is perceptible between soup thus prepared and that made solely from meat. 6. That in preparing soup in this way, the great advantage remains, that while the soup itself is