Fibrine (as beef-steak, &c.) is readily soluble in an artificial digestive liquid.* It is also speedily dissolved in the living stomach, and is generally considered, even by dyspeptics, as being easy of digestion. It is an important element of nutrition, and yields fibrine, albumen, and caseine, as well as the tissues composed of those substances. Alone, however, it is incapable of supporting life, except for a very limited period. Magendie mentions, as a most singular circumstance, that animals who took regularly for two months from 500 grammes (11b. 4oz. 37 grains troy,) to double that quantity of fibrine daily, died of inanition; and, on a postmortem examination, it was found that the blood had almost entirely disappeared. "Notwithstanding," says Magendie," the care we took to collect it (the blood) a few minutes after death, scarcely 15 grains troy of fibrine could be obtained."

b. Albumen; Animal Albumen.-This substance constitutes the most important part of animal foods. The albumen, both of the egg (ovalbumen,) and of the serum of the blood (seralbumen,) is liquid. But the albumen of flesh, glands, and viscera of animals, is solid.

Albumen is highly nutritious, and when either raw or lightly boiled, is easy of digestion; but when boiled hard, or especially when fried, its digestibility is considerably impaired. Albumen, says Liebig, must be considered as the true starting point of all the animal tissues. Still, animals cannot subsist solely on albumen. After a few days use of it they refuse to take it, preferring to suffer the most violent pangs of hunger rather than eat it, and ultimately they die of inanition.

c. Animal Caseine; Caseum; Lactalbumen; Curd.-This is the coagulable matter of milk, and is closely allied to albumen, of which it may be regarded as a modification.

The quantity of caseine contained in different kinds of milk varies considerably. Caseine, like albumen and fibrine, is a proteinaceous substance, differing from the two latter in containing no phosphorus. Coagulated caseine, deprived of whey by pressure, and usually mixed with more or less of butter, constitutes cheese; the richness of which is in proportion to the quantity of butter present. Rich cheese, when toasted, undergoes a kind of semifusion, and becomes soft and viscid. Stilton cheese is prepared from milk to which cream is added. Cheshire and the best Gloucester cheeses are made from unskimmed milk. Suffolk and Parmesan cheeses are prepared from skim-milk. Annotta is often employed, as a colouring agent, in the preparation of cheese. Salt is used to preserve it as well as to improve the flavour and add to the weight.

Cheese is subject to the attacks of both animals and vegetables. The Fly called Musca (Tephritis) putris deposits its leaping larvæ or maggots (called hoppers or jumpers) on cheese. The cheese-mite (Acarus domesticus

* Prepared by macerating the lining membrane of the 4th stomach of the calf in water, to which a few drops of hydrochloric acid are to be added.

is another animal of frequent occurrence. The Mould of cheese is composed of minute fungi. Blue Mould is the Aspergillus glaucus of Berkeley; while Red Cheese-mould is the Sporendonema Casei of the same authority. Caseine is highly nutritious, constituting a plastic element of nutrition, by which, in the young mammal, the development of the tissues is effected.

"The young animal," says Liebig, "receives in the form of caseine the chief constituent of the mother's blood. To convert caseine into blood no foreign substance is required, and in the conversion of the mother's blood into caseine, no elements of the constituents of the blood have been separated. When chemically examined, caseine is found to contain a much larger proportion of the earth of bones than blood does, and that in a very soluble form, capable of reaching every part of the body. Thus, even in the earliest period of its life, the development of the organs, in which vitality resides, is, in the carnivorous animal, dependent on the supply of a substance, identical in organic composition with the chief constituents of its blood."

2. Vegetable Proteinaceous Substances.-According to Liebig, vegetables contain proximate principles, which are not only similar to, but absolutely identical with, the fibrine, albumen, and caseine, of animals; and he, therefore, denominates them respectively, vegetable fibrine, vegetable albumen, and vegetable caseine. There is also a fourth proteinaceous vegetable principle called glutine, or pure gluten.

a. Vegetable Fibrine.-This principle is most abundant in the seeds of the cereal grasses, as wheat, rye, barley, oats, maize and rice. It exists, also, in buckwheat, and in the juice of grapes. It is also found in the newly-expressed juices of most vegetables, as of carrots, turnips, &c. It differs from vegetable albumen, and vegetable caseine, in being insoluble in water.

b. Vegetable Albumen.-This, like vegetable fibrine, is a constituent of the seeds of the cereal grasses, as of wheat. In the preparation of raw gluten from wheaten dough, it is washed away along with the starch. It is found in great abundance in the oily seeds, as almonds &c.

Most vegetable juices contain a considerable quantity of it. This principle differs from the vegetable fibrine in being soluble in water, and from vegetable caseine in coagulating when heated.

c. Vegetable Caseine.-This is chiefly found in leguminous seeds, as beans, peas, lentils; and has, in consequence, been termed Legumine. The oily seeds, such as almonds, also contain it along with albumen. It differs from vegetable fibrine in being soluble in water; and from vegetable albumen in not coagulating when its aqueous solution is heated.

d. Pure Gluten.-By washing wheaten dough with a stream of water, the gum, sugar, starch, and vegetable albumen are removed; while a ductile, tenacious, elastic, gray mass is left, usually called gluten.

Gluten is easy of digestion, is highly nutritious, and alone it is capable of the prolonged nutrition of animals.

The Gelatinous Alimentary Principle.

Dr. Prout comprehends gelatine among albuminous aliments. He con

siders it to be a modification of albumen, or as the least perfect kind of albuminous matter existing in animal bodies.

But, according to our author, gelatine and albumen, and the proteinaceous and albuminous tissues respectively differ in their chemical properties and composition. Though it is probable that in the animal system gelatinous tissues are formed out of proteine compounds, chemists have hitherto totally failed to convert albumen into gelatine, or vice versa. Again, as the composition of proteine compounds is identical with the flesh and blood of animals, while that of the gelatinous tissues is not, it follows that the nutritive qualities of the proteinaceous and gelatinous tissues cannot be identical. Hence the propriety of separating gelatinous from albuminous aliments.

Albuminous or proteinaceous tissues are insoluble in water, and by boiling become hard. Gelatinous tissues, on the other hand, yield, by boiling, a substance called gelatine, which is soluble, and forms with water a tremulous mass, termed jelly (animal jelly).

The digestibility of the different varieties and forms of gelatinous matter is not uniform. Calf's-foot jelly, when fresh prepared, is found to be readily digested even by invalids and dyspeptics. Isinglass jelly, when fresh prepared from isinglass of good quality, and also Hartshorn jelly, are probably equally easy of digestion. Other forms, however, of gelatinous matter, are more difficult of digestion. Thus very hard gelatinous tissues, as tendons, require a larger quantity of gastric juice, and a longer time for their complete digestion. Gelatinous liquids, when very weak, or which are obtained by means of a high temperature, or which are obtained from tissues containing fat or other matters apt to become rancid, readily disturb the functions of the stomach or intestines. Soups, hashes, and stews, all of which contain gelatine, are obnoxious to the digestive organs of dyspeptics and invalids, principally from the presence of fatty and other substances difficult of digestion.

The times required for the digestion of various substances, as ascertained by Dr. Beaumont, are as follows;—

A gelatinous substance, though possessing some degree of nutritive power, cannot alone sustain animal life; but when taken in conjunction with other alimentary substances, takes part in the nutrition of the body. Different gelatinous substances, however, are unequally nutritive. Thus gelatine is less nutritive than the bone which yields it. It has been found that dogs fed solely on raw bones and water for three months, continued in perfect health, and lost none of their weight by the use of this kind of food. Now, as by boiling in water, the cartilaginous tissue of bone is resolved into gelatine principally, it follows that a gelatinous tissue, (that is, a tissue which by boiling is resolved into gelatine,) contributes to the nutrition of the body; though it cannot be said to be the exclusive agent in this process, since bones contain other alimentary principles (such as fatty and albuminous matters) besides the earthy salts and the substance which is resolvable into gelatine.

An exclusive diet of beef tendon and water is incapable of effecting perfect nutrition,-this has been proved by experiment.

Gelatine extracted from bones was refused by dogs,-by some from the first, by others after once or twice using it. They preferred enduring the pangs of hunger to eating it. Seasoned gelatine, prepared for the use of man, was eaten for a few days, and then refused; the animals dying of starvation on the twentieth day. Hence it follows, that animals cannot be nourished on gelatine exclusively. We are not justified, however, in saying, that gelatine, conjoined with other elementary substances, does not assist in nutrition. Liebig has suggested, that the nourishing powers of gelatine are confined to the gelatinous tissues; for as proteine cannot be obtained from gelatine, the latter can serve neither for the formation of blood, nor for the reproduction and growth of albuminous and fibrinous tissues. It is therefore probable, he thinks, that gelatine when taken in the dissolved state, is again converted in the body into cellular tissue, membrane and cartilage. And when the powers of nutrition in the whole body are affected by a change of the health, then, even should the power of forming blood remain the same, the organic force by which the constituents of the blood are transformed into cellular tissue and membranes, must necessarily be enfeebled by sickness. In the sick man, the intensity of the vital force, its powers to produce metamorphoses, must be diminished, as well in the stomach as in all other parts of the body. In this condition, the uniform experience of practical physicians shows that gelatinous matters, in a dissolved state, exercise a most decided influence on the state of the health. Given in a form adapted for assimilation, they serve to husband the vital force, just as may be done, in the case of the stomach, by due preparation of the food in general. Such are the ingenious views of Liebig, with which our author, by the way, does not seem fully to coincide.

We find our analysis of this interesting work, has transgressed the bounds originally designed by us. With respect to its merits, we find ourselves called on to state, that we consider it a careful compilation of the opinions of the best writers on the various subjects of which it treats. The ingenious and philosopical views of Liebig have been brought into ample requisition. We fear, however, that the book will never become a popular work. The symbolical language in which the most interesting

parts of it are presented, is totally unintelligible, not only to the general reader, but we fear, also, to many, very many, of our professional brethren.

THE TRANSACTIONS OF THE PROVINCIAL MEDICAL AND SURGICAL ASSOCIATION. Vol. XI. Churchill, 1843.

THIS Volume will keep up the reputation acquired by its predecessors. Its contents are-1. The Retrospective Address, delivered at the Tenth Anniversary Meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, held at Exeter, August 3rd and 4th, 1842. By James Black, M.D. II. On the Medical Topography of Sidmouth, being a Sketch of the Medico-Topography, Geology, Natural Productions, and Statistics of that District. By J. D. Jeffery, Esq.-III. Experimental and Practical Researches on the Structure and Function of Blood Corpuscles; on Inflammation; and on the Origin and Nature of Tubercles in the Lungs. By William Addison, F.LS.-IV. Some Cases showing the Advantage of Powerful Counter-irritation, especially the Long Issue on the Calvarium. By George Wallis, M.D.-V. On the Employment of Extension in the Treatment of Fractures of the Spine; with a case. By William Henchman Crowfoot, Esq.-VI. A Case of Paralysis of the Serratus Magnus, which caused the Lower Angles of the Right and Left Scapula to become disengaged from the Latissimus Dorsi, &c. By John M. Banner, Esq. VII. Remarks on Matico, a Styptic much used in South America, for the Suppression of Hæmorrhage. By Thomas Jeffreys, M.D.VIII. Anatomico-Chirurgical Observations on Dislocations of the Astragalus. By Thomas Turner, Esq.

I. The Retrospective Address by Dr. Black is able and complete. Its nature precludes any notice, at present, from us.

II. MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY OF SIDMOUTH. By J. D. Jeffery, Esq.

From very extended observations on the climate of Sidmouth, Mr. Jeffery arrives at the following conclusions with regard to its applicability to different affections and diseases.

"In all cases where disease or disorder is accompanied with a relaxed habit of body, with softness of muscular fibre and paleness of skin; in chronic affections of the liver, in chlorosis, anæmia, atonic dyspepsia, in uterine disorders, arising from debility-to these this coast cannot be said to be adapted in the summer months; in the autumn and winter they may be benefitted. This observation does not apply to convalescents from any protracted acute disease, such as fever, or from accidents, who, coming from inland, will be very likely to recruit their health in the summer; neither does it apply to weakly children, for whom sea bathing may be considered desirable. I have known persons suffering from