Broth

“ In this disease the greatest attention must be paid to the patient’s diet. Flesh, fish, and every thing that has a tendency to turn putrid or rancid on the stomach, must be abstained from. Apples boiled in milk, water-pap, and plain light pudding, with broth made of the gelatinous parts of animals, may constitute the principal part of the patient’s food. Gelatinous broth not only answers the purpose of food, but likewise of medicine. ”

“ I seldom breakfast, and then only on bread and butter. I take neither chocolate, nor coffee, nor tea, not being able to endure those foreign drugs. I am German in all my habits, and like nothing in eating or drinking which is not conformable to our old customs. I eat no soup but such as I can take with milk, wine, or beer. I cannot bear broth; whenever I eat anything of which it forms a part, I fall sick instantly, my body swells, and I am tormented with colics. When I take broth alone, I am compelled to vomit even to blood, and nothing can restore the tone of my stomach but—ham and sausages! ”

“ When cold, skim off the fat. Then warm the broth and serve. This broth is not to be seasoned while it is being cooked, but a little salt may be added when it is ready to serve. To one pound of lean meat there should be about one quart of broth. A teacupful to begin with is enough for a meal, and it is often necessary to give less than this. The gravest mistake is to be in a hurry about returning to full meals. The remarks about moderate feeding also apply to milk and fruit juices. ”

“ N.B. We direct the meat to be done no more than just sufficiently to be eaten; so a sick man may have plenty of good broth for nothing; as by this manner of producing it, the meat furnishes also a good family meal.
Obs.—This is an inoffensive nourishment for sick persons, and the only mutton broth that should be given to convalescents, whose constitutions require replenishing with restorative aliment of easy digestion. The common way of making it with roots, onions, sweet herbs, &c. &c. is too strong for weak stomachs. ”

“ A real motherly woman asked what I wanted to eat. I had eaten little except the chicken Billy and Mose brought me, and when she said she had chicken broth, I said, “Bring me two or three.” As soon as possible she came with a large pan full of broth, but the trouble was I could not sit up to eat it. At my suggestion she brought the prettiest girl in the room, who put her left arm around me and let me lean my head on her shoulder, while she fed me with the broth. Oh, it was nice! Either the broth or the young lady’s presence revived me. My new friend’s name was Lucy. ”

“ The flesh of young animals, as of lamb, veal, and sucking pigs, supplies us with a still less stimulating food. The broth of these is said to become sour, and continues so a considerable time before it changes into putridity; so much does their flesh partake of the chemical properties of the milk, with which these animals are nourished. ”

“ Another favourite vehicle was broth, generally composed of many and strange ingredients. We have come across the broth of calves’ lungs, broth of the bones of lizards, and broths made from snails, tortoises, woodlice, crabs, and vipers.
The recipe for the broth of viper we have taken from an old black-letter book, and is rather curious:— [191]
The materia medica of the old apothecary was largely drawn from the animal kingdom, the greater part of it being, no doubt, handed down from a very early period, when witchcraft and superstition exerted a powerful influence on the minds of the people. ”

“ That's why the grandmother or the older sister doesn't do it. They want me to make broths and jellies and things at home here and take them down there."
"You must do your very best, dear. It will be a splendid chance for you to take such a responsibility."
"The doctor says Mr. Emerson is to have chicken broth and toast at three o'clock, so I went to their [84] house after the club and got a tray and a small bowl and some plates, and then stopped at the meat market on the way home, so the broth is started now." ”

“ What wonder is it that dyspepsia and constipation are on the increase!
Fat meats, dried and salted meats, are constipating. Fresh poultry has a like effect. There are few persons who do not remember the old time practice of arresting the action of a cathartic drug by the use of a chicken broth.
Eggs and milk are constipating to many. ”

“ While any symptoms of derangement are present, particular attention must be paid to the diet, which should be of a soothing, lubricating, and light nature, as instanced in veal or chicken broth, which should contain but little salt. Rice, batter, and bread puddings will be generally relished, and be eaten with advantage; but the stomach is too much impaired to digest food of a more solid nature. ”

“ And the patient's stomach was right and the book was wrong. The articles craved for, in these cases, might have been principally arranged under the two heads of fat and vegetable acids.
There is often a marked difference between men and women in this matter of sick feeling. Women's digestion is generally slower.
[5] Chicken broth, with the fat well skimmed off, is, to most patients, more palatable than beef tea. ”

“ When recovering from agues and intermittent fevers, animal jellies, and plain animal food, with as little vegetable as possible, is the proper diet. Meat and meat broth, generally speaking, are not so well adapted for the re-establishment of health and strength, as more simple diets. Flesh being the food most used by old and young at all other times, is consequently that from which their distempers chiefly proceed, or at least it nourishes those disorders which other causes may have contributed to introduce. ”

“ Lean, juicy beef, mutton, or veal, form the basis of broth; procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and as fresh killed as possible.90-*
Stale meat will make broth grouty and bad tasted, and fat meat is wasted. ”

“ We have already, in the article Beef-tea, pointed out the common error, that broth is more easily digested than solid food. And though we are countenanced in this opinion by the most enlightened physicians of the age, yet, we fear, that old customs and deep-rooted prejudices will continue to prevail, while supported by so many old women, beside those of the Faculty. ”

“ Fresh new milk, and fresh broth, should be given them very frequently, and they should be suffered to go amongst the grass, which they sometimes eat for the purpose of an emetic; and, if possible, they should have access to a running stream of water, as the contagious mucus of the nostrils generally drops into the water they attempt to drink. ”

“ The cake of fat which collects on the top of broth tends to preserve the liquor while it remains unbroken; but if the skin or fat at top is broken, and if the broth or gruel is designed for use at a subsequent meal, the fat should be removed, and the remainder should be transferred to a clean, dry vessel. ”

“ If the patient’s vital powers are low, the milk may be peptonised by using Fairchild’s powders or by adding a little of Benger’s Liquor Pancreatices. In cases when milk cannot be taken in sufficient amount, animal food may be given in the form of plain meat broth. ”

“ There, perhaps, being nourished by tenderer, sweeter, and perhaps, more tasty tissues, the stomach becomes more vigorous, until it is fit to undertake less easily digested food. A nursling is fed on milk before proceeding to bread and broth. ”

“ Thin, nervous people can safely be given broths, preferably of lamb, mutton or chicken. Trim away all the fat, grind up the lean meat, and allow it to simmer (not boil) until all the juices are extracted from the meat. ”

“ In the evening of that day, after completing my preparations, I supped on the remaining portions of the sloth, not suitable for preservation, roasting bits of fat on the coals and boiling the head and bones into a broth; and after swallowing the liquid I crunched the bones and sucked the marrow, feeding like some hungry carnivorous animal. ”

“ The reason of this is obvious; constant movement of the intestines themselves, which serves so important a part in maintaining due action of the bowels, is increased by the upright position and by movement, and is reduced to a minimum by the horizontal position. A second precaution concerns the diet; solid food and animal broths should for a time be discontinued, and arrowroot, milk and water, and rice substituted for it, for a day or two, with isinglass jelly, and the white decoction of which I have already spoken. ”

“ Broths, meat extracts, and milk stimulate the secretion of the gastric juice, which makes rational the taking of soup or bouillon as the first course at dinner, or the eating of toast or zwieback by persons with weak digestions. Fats, on the other hand, tend to inhibit gastric secretion, so that an excessive proportion of fat in the meat might hinder digestion in the stomach. ”

“ It is an error to stuff a cold, but rather it should be starved. Beef tea and meat broths contain very little nourishment, but harmful extractives; their stimulation is in part from extractives, in part from the salt and heat. Hot milk, toast-water with butter, clear vegetable broths, provide the stimulation, with a higher percentage of nourishment and minerals, and with none of the disadvantages of meat broths.
Colds. Reduce food almost entirely for one or two days. Follow general diet for illness, or as for constipation. ”

“ Fluids in large quantities too much dilute the gastric juice, and over-distend the stomach, and hence weaken it, and thus produce indigestion: indeed, it might truly be said that the stomach often takes broths and soups in a grumbling way! ”

“ In this instance no opposition was offered to the demand for food, and vegetable broths were given. The organs of digestion, as was plainly evident to the trained mind, could not have reached the cleansed and rested state that would
permit them to resume their labors, and the administration of food resulted in nausea with vomiting, outward symptoms of organic inability to handle even the small amount ingested. ”

“ Liquids are rapidly removed from the stomach by absorption. Hence, in cases of great prostration, when it is desirable to introduce nutriment into the system, without delay, the animal and vegetable broths are a desirable and convenient form of supplying aliment.
323. The condition of the skin exercises an important influence on the digestive apparatus. Let free perspiration be checked, either from uncleanliness or from chills, and it will diminish the functional action of the stomach and its associated organs. ”

“ Else what would become of so many good strengthening soups and cunningly compounded broths, so much ambergris and other warming and comfortable drugs for to warm and comfort their stomach now grown old and chilly? ”

“ The food is masticated by a very complicated system of jaws and teeth, and after it has been mixed with a secretion, which is poured into the mouth by salivary glands, it passes through a long muscular œsophagus into the stomach, where it is acted upon by fluids furnished by a liver and other glands, before it passes into the long, convoluted intestine, where the nutritive portions are absorbed into the blood, while the waste products are discharged from the body through the anus. ”

“ When about 16 years of age I happened to meet with a book, written by one Tryon, recommending a vegetable diet. I determined to go into it. My brother, being yet unmarried, did not keep house, but boarded himself and his apprentices in another family. My refusing to eat flesh occasioned an inconveniency, and I was frequently chid for my singularity. ”

“ Kellogg. “Meat fried, fricasseed, or otherwise cooked in fat, fried bread, fried vegetables, doughnuts, griddle cakes, and all similar combinations of melted fat or other elements of food are most difficult articles of digestion. None but the most stalwart stomach can master such indigestibles. The gastric juice has little more action upon fats than water. Hence a portion of meat or other food saturated with fat is as completely protected from the action of gastric juice as is a foot within a well-oiled boot from the snow and water outside.” ”

“ The pancreatic secretion contains three separate and distinct ferments, which act respectively upon carbohydrate, protein, and fat. The absorption of fat, however, is materially assisted also by the action of the bile.
A part of what we eat always escapes digestion; the unused portion, it has been estimated, is somewhat less than one-tenth of an ordinary mixed diet. The residue from vegetables is notably larger than the residue from meat. The undigested portions of all the food- stuffs collect in the lowermost portion of the intestine and form a part of the feces. ”

“ In the present discussion the digestive capability under contemplation is that of an individual who has just succeeded in ridding his system of the toxic products of food in excess of the needs of the body. Hunger has returned and feeding must be resumed. If the milk of the cow is the form in which nourishment is supplied, and if, in addition, not one pint, but, as recommended, several quarts daily are imbibed, for each quart consumed, an equivalent in flesh food of one pound is offered for digestion. ”

“ We will now examine briefly the organs and their secretions that convert food-substances into blood, and, by the blood, into tissue.
The solvents and diluents of food in the human animal economy are the saliva of the mouth, the gastric juice of the stomach, the pancreative juice of the pancreas, the bile of the liver, and the juices of the intestines—the succus entericus.
The digestive apparatus consists mainly of the alimentary canal together with various glands of which it receives the secretions. ”