295 "If we allow the flesh to boil for a long time with the water, or if we boil down the soup, it acquires, spontaneously, when conceutrated to a certain point, a brownish colour and a delicate flavour of roasted meat. If we evaporate it to dryness in the water-bath, or if possible, at a still lower temperature, we obtain a dark brown, soft mass, of which half an ounce suffices to convert one pound of water, with the addition of a little salt, into a strong well-flavoured soup. "The tablets of

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... so-called portable soup prepared in England and France are not to be compared to the extract of flesh just . mentioned; for these are not made from flesh, but consist of gelatine, more or less pure, only distinguished from bone gelatine by its higher price. "From thirty-two pounds of lean beef, free from bones and fat (eight pounds dry meat and twenty-four pounds water), there is obtained one pound of true extract of flesh, which, from its necessarily high price, can hardly become an article of commerce ; but if the experience of military surgeons agree with that of Parmentier, according to whom " the dried extract of flesh, as an article of provision in the train of a body of troops, supplies to severely-wounded soldiers a restorative or roborant, which, with a little wine, immediately revives their strength, exhausted by great loss of blood, and enables them to bear the transport to the nearest hospital," it appears to me to be a matter of conscience to recommend to the attention of Government the proposal of Parmentier and of Proust. "Now that the composition of the extract of flesh is some-.