Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1896-07-02
ARTIFICIAL FOOD.
Timo Is Coming When We Shall Dine on
Pink Tablets.

Pink Tablets.
1t is now prophesied that the time is
coming when bread and beef and milk
or their equivalents will be produced
artificially in the laboratory Of the
chemist.
Prof, Berthelot, the distinguished
French chemist, is the authority for
this statement, and he declares that the
first steps hive already been taken and
he is sure that the coming generation
will have such artificial food. 1t will be
The same food chemically, digestively
and nutritively speaking, but will differ
in form.
just what the form of the food will be
is not limited at, except that it will prob
ably be served cold in the shape of tab
let's, and of any color or shape that may
be desired. Prof. Berthelot says gour-
NETS and epicures may mourn, but he
feels assured when they have grown ac-
customed to the change they will eat
nothing prepared in any other way.
In the future burned beefsteak, chop
or outlet will be thing unknown, and
a steak we'll done may be ordered In
dim brown colored tablet ora steak rare
may be ordered in tnblet of light rose
hue. The colors alone, the chemical
prophet declares, will delight the epi-
cureah senses and do much to overcome
the prejudices that are bound to exist
when the change is finally introduced.
1t has been demonstrated that even at
present tea and coffee could be made ar
tificially in the chemists laboratory il
the necessity or the commercial oppor-
tunity should arise.
Sugar is another commodity univers-
ally used that can now be made in the
laboratory, and an invention has beeD
patented by which, it is claimed, sugar
can be made on commercial scale from
two gases Mt n price of little more than
one cent pound. In a long and inter-
esting report on the possibilities of OBJ
tanning food products by artificial
means Prof. Berthelot says: "The es-
sential principle of both tea and coffee
is the same. The difference of name
between them and caffeih has arisen
from the sources from which they were
obtained. They are chemically identi-
cal in constitution, and their essence
has often been made synthetically.
The penultimate stage in the synthess
is theo-bromine, the essential principle
of cocoa. Thus it may be seen that
synthetic chemistry is ready to furnish
from its laboratories the three great
non-alcoholic beverages in general use.
And what is true of food substances is
equally applicable to all other organic
substances"
There is little or no limit TO the pro-
fessor's predictions concerning the
changes in the present existing condi-
ton of affairs on this mundane sphere.
He says: IF one chooses to base
dreams, prophetic fancies and so forth
upon the parts of the present one may
dream of alterations in the present con-
ditions OF the human life so great as to
be beyond our contemporary concep-
tion. One can forsee the disappearance
of the beasts from the fields, because
horses will no longer be used for trac-
tion or cattle for food. The countless
acres now given over to the growing of
grain and producing vines will be agri-
cultural antiquities which will have
passed out of the memory of men. The
equal distributions of natural food ma
terials will have done away with pro-
tectionism, with custom houses, with
national frontiers, kept wetw with human
blood. Men will have grown too wise
for war, and wars necessity will have
ceased to be. The air will be filed with
aerial motors, flying by forces borrowed
from chemistry. Distances will dimin-
ish and the distinction between fertile
and non-fertile regions, from the causes
named, will largely have passed away.
1t may even transpire that deserts now
uninhabited may be made to blossom
and be sought after as great seats Of
population in preference to the aluval
| plains and rich Valleys
The new food that it is predicted the
coming generation will live upon--in
fact, the great proportion of our staple
foods which are now obtained by nat.
ural growth-will be manufactured
direct through the advance of synthetic
chemistry, from their constituent ele.
ments, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and
nitrogen. AS an evidence of the posi-,
bility of the eventual disappearance oi
agriculture, Prof. Berthelot cited as m
instance of laboratory products the dye
stuff alizarine, the coloring principle OF
madder, which was formerly great
agricultural industry, but which Is now
almost wholly supplanted by the arti'
ficial product from coal tar. lie also
declares that chemists can now mako
indigo direct from its elements, and ar.
tificial indigo will soon become great
commercial product.
A century hence, If all that is pre-.
dicted is true, people will be eating thef
soup, meat, fish and vegetables in tab.
let's that will come in tin boxes labeled
keep in a cool place." and they may bc
eating full course dinner while run.
ming for a train, or they can MUNICH q
comfortable breakfast unnoticed in M
elevated train or cable car while on
their way to business, if such means oi
locomotion are not out of date in that
progressive age.-N. Y. journal.
Developing Cathodograph.
In developing cathodograph picturr
it is noticeable that the development
goes on all through the film, back az