Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/389

Rh I have observed in the urine of a healthy man after he had drunk a large quantity of strong beef-tea at a draught upon an empty stomach. My attention was drawn to the urine by the froth remaining upon it for a somewhat unusual time. On examination, this substance was discovered in it. On examining the beef-tea which the person had taken, a similar albuminous substance was found in it, so that there can be little doubt that in this case the albumen was simply absorbed so rapidly from the stomach or intestines that it passed without change through the portal system into the general circulation, and thus reached the kidneys, where it was excreted in much the same way as sugar would have been under similar circumstances. We find only too frequently that both doctors and patients think that the strength is sure to be kept up if a sufficient quantity of beef-tea can only be got down; but this observation, I think, raises the question whether beef-tea may not very frequently be actually injurious, and whether the products of muscular waste which constitute the chief portion of beef-tea or beef essence may not under certain circumstances be actually poisonous. For although there can be no doubt that beef-tea is in many cases a most useful stimulant, one which we find it very hard indeed to do without, and which could hardly be replaced by any other, yet sometimes the administration of beef-tea, like that of alcoholic stimulants, may be overdone, and the patient weakened instead of strengthened. In many cases of nervous depression we find a feeling of weakness and prostration coming on during digestion, and becoming so very marked about the second hour after a meal has been taken, and at the very time when absorption is going on, that we can hardly do otherwise than ascribe it to actual poisoning by digestive products absorbed into the circulation. From the observation of a number of cases I came to the conclusion that the languor and faintness of which many patients complained, and which occurred about eleven and four o'clock, was due to actual poisoning by the products of digestion of breakfast and lunch; but at the time when I arrived at this conclusion I had no experimental data to show that the products of digestion were actually poisonous in themselves, and only within the last few months have I seen the conclusions to which I had arrived by clinical observation confirmed by experiments made in the laboratory. Such experiments have been made by Professor Albertoni, of Genoa, and by Dr. Schmidt-Mühlheim, in Professor Ludwig's laboratory at Leipsic.

Professor Albertoni has found that peptones have a most remarkable action upon the blood, completely destroying its coagulability in dogs, while they have little power in this respect over the blood of rabbits or sheep. The number of species upon which he experimented is limited, so that he can not as yet draw the conclusion with certainty that peptones prevent the coagulation of the blood in carnivora and not in herbivora, although, so far as experiments go, this conclusion seems probable. He and Dr. Schmidt-Mühlheim independently made