Arizona silver belt., 1895-08-24
STARVING ON BEEF TEA.
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 It is generally believed that beef tea and animal broths of all kinds are nourishing. The most uecent medical authorities assure us that this is mis- take. In order to combat what it calls "The Beef-Tea Delusion, Modern Med icine publishes an article consisting largely of quotations from a high mod ern authority We reproduce several paragraphs below:
 "The late Dr. Austin Flint remarked on one occasion that thousands of pa- tients have been starved to death while being fed on animal broths, beef tea, etc. No error could be greater than the notion very commonly held by the laity, and still quite too largely enter tained by the members of the medical profession, that beef extracts, beef tea, bouillon, animal broths, etc, are pecul- iarly nourishing in character. We can adduce no better evidence to the con trary than is afforded by the following paragraphs from Bunges Physiological and Pathological Chemistry, one of the latest and most reliable authorities:
 We must guard against supposing that meat bouillon possesses strength ening and nourishing influence. In re- gard to this, the most delusiye notions are entertained not only by the general public, but also by medical men,
 Until quite recently the opinion was held that bouillou contained the most nutritiye part of meat. There was confused idea that minute duan- tity of material-a plateful of bouillon can be made from . teaspoonfulof meat extract-could yield an effectual source of nourishment, that the extractives of meat were synonymous with concen- trated food
 Let us inquire what substances could render bouillon nutritious. The only article of food which meat yields tO boiling water is gelatine. It is well known that albumen is coagulated in boiling the giycogen ot meat is rapidly converted into sugar, and this again into tactic acid. The quantity 9t gela- tine is, moreover, very small; for q SaterY solution which contains only one per cent, uf gelatine coagulates on cooling. Such coagulation may occur iH very strong soups and gravies, but never in bouillon. Bouillon, therefore. contains much less than one per cent. of gelatine. In preparing extract of meat, the quantity of gelatine is re- duced as much as possible, because it is in high degree liable to putrefactive changes, and therefore likely to inter fere with the preservation of the prep sration. The other constituents Of bouillon are decomposition prod ucts of fOodstuffs products of the oxidations and decompositions which take place in the animal organism. They cannot be regarded as nutri- tious, because they are no longer capa- blc Of yielding any ltinetic energy, or at most such small amount that 1t is of no importance whatever.
 Nevertheless, until the most re- cent times, creatin and creatinin,which are among the chief constituents of meat extract, were regarded as the source of energy in muscle. This asser. ton was shown to be untrue by the re. searches of Meissner and of Noit. who proved conclusiyely that creatin and crcatinin arc excreted in the urine twenty-four hours after their absorp- tion, without loss. A material which is neither oxidizcd nor decomposed can not form source of energy, apart from the fact that the quantity of creatin and crcatinin which is absorbed in bouillon is so small that it could not possibly be seriously regarded as the source of muscular energy"