The Florida agriculturist. [volume] (DeLand, Fla.) 1878-1911, 1879-06-25
4t(5j
The Papaya-(Papaw.)

dent. We understand that some OF
the effects here described have been
known to many of our people, but
we have never heard so much claimed
for this, so little valued fruit here, as
the German savants now discover;
Garcia PAPAYA-(MELON TREE.)
Some time ago there appeared in
one of the German periodicals an
article on the peculiar properties Of
the milky juice of the Papaya, the
Ipu I of the Hawaiians, which came
so opportune at the time that took
pleasure in confirming the statements
made there by repeated experiments.
Since that I have learned more on
the same subject from an article of
several pages published in the G0rte'a'
lou6e, a periodical edited in. Leipzig,
the centre of, at least, the German
scientific world, and which follows
the educated German wherever he
goes.
Judge it unnecessary to translate
in full the articles in question, as they
were intended for readers not ac-
auainted with the papaYa. | shall
merely extract from both what | think
will be useful or interesting to your
readers, and give some hints as to the
benefits we may derive from these
Investigations. The writer of the
first mentioned article states:
First. That the milky juice of the
papaya will render meat of any kind,
even the toughest hen or the most
unmanageable steak, as tender and
palatabe as may be desired, by either
wrapping the meat in the fresh leaves
of the plant and leave it so over
night, or by applying the juice to the
meat just before being cooked.
Second. That this juice added in
minute proportions to fresh milk,
will cause 1t to curdle without sour
ing it, becoming thus good substi-
tute for rennet.
The second, larger article, after a
lengthy description Of the tree and
its fruit, goes on as follows:
''Former travellers in tie tropics
have already stated with great aston
ishment that this tree has, in almost
all it's parts. the unheard-of quality
OF renewing the youth Of old animals,
4. e, rendering their flesh as delicate
and tender as that of young animals.
Generally the meat Of recently-killed
animals is wrapped in some papaya
leaves and left there for some time,
but not too long, for this process
would hasten its decay; or the meat
is put into the pot and little OF the
milky juice Of the plant, or better
still of the unripe fruit, is added.
According to some travellers, it is
even sufficient to suspend the meat
in the top OF young tree and leave
it there over night
"These statements, received by
men at first with an incredulous smile,
have lately induced several material
lists and physicians, T. e., Drs. Roy
and Holden,to make experiments, and
their results entirely corroborate
them. Quite recently such an inves-
tigation was repeated by Dr. Witt
mack, of Berlin the details are as
follows:
From dollhouse he had procured
some leaves and unripe fruit with
which ne made the following expert
ments:
A piece OF fresh meat that had
been wrapped in papaya leaves for
"a hours at a surrounding tempera-
ture of GO +. was boiled with a
piece of the same size and from the
same animal which had been wrapped
merely in paper. The first was soon
quite tender, while the other was yet
tough and hard. So far the state
ments of the travellers were confirmed.
For the second experiment DR..
Wittmack diluted a portion of the
milk juice with more than twenty
parts of water, and in that fluid he
boiled a small piece of fresh can meat
for five minutes, it separated into
mere shreds, while another piece OF
the same meat, boiled in pure water,
became harder and harder.
The white of hard-boiled egg,
placed in the dilution, became trans
parent after "a hours and was almost
entirely dissolved on the fourth day.
Wheat starch, treated in a similar
manner remained unchanged.
From these experiments DR.. Witt.
mack drew the conclusion that the
milk juice of the papaya contains a
ferment which, similar to the pepsin
in the animal stomach, has an ener-
geticaly dissolving influence on nj
frogenic matter. Ii differs from the