Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1911 — In Defense of Beef Tea [ARTICLE]

In Defense of Beef Tea

Science After Despising Broths for Long Time Finds Out Why They Are Good. i 4 From time Itnmemorial beef tea. or a broth made tn a similar manner from mutton or chicken, has been a feature/pf the sickroom, the pride of the housekeeper nurse, a source of comfort to the Invalid, the invariable staple of the menu permitted by the physician. When it was Indisputably proved that the home-made broth was in no sense a food, humanity refused credence and invalids went ahead with their consumption of miUloos of gallons. persisting "in the exhibition of sure signs of convalescence and de mending with insistence further supplies ot the fragrant potion. Dr. Thomas Darlington, in a recent issue of the New York Medical Jour- . nal. shows at last the reason of this unshakable faith. Broth is one of the few genuine stimulants in the armamentarium now that alcohol is known to bo a narcotic. The experiments of Pawlow on dogs demonstrate that the savory liquid is powerfully stimulant to the gastric secretion and other di-

gestlve fluids, with the result that real food, given with or after the broth, is speedily and gratefully assimilated. Milk, which disagrees with so many people, will cause no distress if administered after a cup of hot brqth. The mere flavor of meat is thus shown to be necessary and valuable to digestion. What caused disgust among the troops In the Spanish war was that the preserved foeat, while retaining

all of its nutritive principles, had lost its aromatic constituents, gone to make the despised extract for the preparation of broths. The physician may henceforth advise beef tea and meat broths generally with a clear conscience and scientific satisfaction; they have triumphed over their enemies and detractors and will resume their honored station upon the invalid's"tray as unapproachable adjuvants to digestion and assimilation, adding one more example to the list of remedies founded in crass empiricism, but finding at last a true scientific basis for their raison d’etre.