Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 245, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 October 1913 — BEEF TEA AS AN INTOXICANT [ARTICLE]

BEEF TEA AS AN INTOXICANT

We find It difficult to believe the cable report that Liverpool physicians are very much exercised over the case of the traveling salesman' with delirium tremens induced by too much beef tea, says a writer in the New York Times. Food analyst* and nutrition experts have long been aware of the high stimulating power of meat protein*, which, Dr. Chittenden says, are approximated by one sort of protein from th* vegetable kingdom, that of oatmeal. The vegetarians, in fact, base their moat effective arguments in the fact that the stimulation from meat ia in a way lik* that from alcohol, effecting tissue change or metabolism rather than affording nutriment Beef tea la the highest stimulant among the meat Juices. Physicians bars long since abandoned the notion that It la a food capable of repairing tissue, for laboratory tests kite proved that It causes more rapid wasting of the body than no food at ail

Indeed, dogs fed entirely on concentrated beef Juice are so overstimulated that they die within a few days. Experiments conducted by the United States department of agriculture on losses in cooking meat showed that beef which has been used for the preparation of tea or broth had lost practically none of Its nutritive value, while most of the “flavoring material"—the toito and stimulating part of the beef—had gone into the extract. It is doubtfpl if the medical men of Liverpool •f* greatly surprised at the drummer's discovery of the hilarious consequences to be derived from l«ef Juice. Beef tea has never been regarded by thoee who know as an innocuous beverage; thoee who don’t know and who have been experimenting In their own kitchens for their own convalescents may well take warning trail th* sad and remarkable case of th* tr*T*ltag “'-Tfi In Liverpool.