Veal

“ It may not here be out of place to direct attention to the composition of a kind of animal food extensively purchased by the poorer classes, and known under the term of slink veal. It is the flesh of calves that are killed on the first day of their existence, and also, I have reason to believe, that of very immature animals—of calves that have never breathed. ”

“ Tongue, liver, sweetbread and feet have their several admirers. Breast of veal, either stuffed or curried, is a good dish, and so is the fricandeau well larded and served with mushrooms, peas, spinach, or—best of all—with sorrel. To the various forms of paupiettes, escalopes and cutlets there is verily no end, and to sum up its qualifications, veal makes an excellent roast. ”

“ Veal is, by many, considered both unwholesome and indigestible. The practice, now illegal, of bleeding calves before killing them, until they were actually in a state of disease, had probably some effect in producing a general belief in the unwholesomeness of veal. The flesh of the immature animal is less easily digested because its fibres offer greater resistance to the digestive agents. When its fibres are reduced to a fine state of division by the various processes of mastication, mincing, pounding and sieving, veal is easily digested. ”

“ Test the freshness of lamb by touching the kidney-fat; if it is soft and moist the meat is on the verge of spoiling; a bad smell indicates that it is already tainted; it is utterly unfit for use.
Veal.—Prime veal is light flesh color, and has abundance of hard, white, semi-transparent fat. The flesh of the second quality is red in contrast to the pinkish-white color of the prime sort; and the fat is whiter, coarser-grained, and less abundant. The poorest kind has decidedly red flesh, and very little kidney-fat. The neck is the first part that taints, and it can easily be tested ”

“ Veal, so bad in England and so good in Southern Europe, is unknown. The long, lean, hairy black-and-white sheep do not supply an excellent article. Goats and kids are plentiful, and the flesh would be good if it had any taste. ”

“ We cut the throat of a calf and hang it up by the heels to bleed to death so that our veal cutlet may be white; we nail geese to a board and cram them with food because we like the taste of liver disease; we tear birds to pieces to decorate our women’s hats; we mutilate domestic animals for no reason at all except to follow an instinctively cruel fashion; and we connive at the most abominable tortures in the hope of discovering some magical cure for our own diseases by them. ”

“ Fish, and all other articles for frying, after being nicely prepared, should be laid on a board and dredged with flour or meal mixed with salt: when it becomes dry on one side, turn it, and dredge the other. For broiling, have very clear coals, sprinkle a little salt and pepper over the pieces, and when done, dish them, and pour over some melted butter and chopped parsley—this is for broiled veal, wild fowl, birds or poultry: beef-steaks and mutton chops require only a table-spoonful of hot water to be poured over. ”

“ The surgeon gazed, for a moment, on the black veil, as if to ascertain the expression of the features beneath it: its thickness, however, rendered such a result impossible.
‘You are ill,’ he said, gently, ‘although you do not know it. The fever which has enabled you to bear, without feeling it, the fatigue you have evidently undergone, is burning within you now. Put that to your lips,’ he continued, pouring out a glass of water—‘compose yourself for a few moments, and then tell me, as calmly as you can, what the disease of the patient is, and how long he has been ill. ”

“ When a clot of blood obstructs the vein he directs us to squeeze it out, or to dissolve it with oil or vinegar. When coldness of the body, occasioned whether by the temperature of the air, or the nature of the disease, prevents the flow of blood, he recommends fomentations and frictions. When a piece of fat or flesh blocks up the opening of the vein, he says there is no remedy for it but to cut it out or push it aside. When the object is to produce a sudden depletion he directs us to make a large incision in the vein, but a small one when it is intended to procure revulsion. ”

“ For the blood entering the mesentery by the cœliac artery, and the superior and inferior mesenteries, proceeds to the intestines, from which, along with the chyle that has been attracted into the veins, it returns by their numerous ramifications into the vena portas of the liver, and from this into the vena cava, and this in such wise that the blood in these veins has the same colour and consistency as in other veins, in opposition to what many believe to be the fact. ”

“ Nor are the veins equally apparent in all animals; but they are more manifest in [Pg 57] those which have most blood, and in the largest creatures; but in those animals which are small, and have not much blood, either by nature or from excess in fat, they are not so easily investigated, for some of the passages are confused, like rivulets that are lost in beds of mud; and there are some animals which have but few, and these fibres instead of veins. The great vein is very conspicuous in all, even the smallest animals. ”

“ In the rabbit a vein is a vessel bringing blood towards the heart, while an artery is a vessel conducting it away. Veins are thin-walled, and therefore flabby, a conspicuous purple when full of blood, and when empty through bleeding and collapsed sometimes difficult to make out in dissection. They are formed by the union of lesser factors. The portal breaks up into lesser branches within the liver. Arteries have thick muscular and elastic walls, thick enough to prevent the blood showing through, and are therefore pale pink or white and keep their round shape. ”

“ Round the head a handkerchief is wound, which spoils the effect of all the rest: but a woman in the East is never seen with the head uncovered, even in the house; and when she goes out, the veil, as we call it, though it has no resemblance to a veil, is used to conceal the whole person. ”

“ Another five minutes had elapsed, and the surgeon had resolved to explore the house, in search of some one to whom he might make his errand known, when the room-door opened, and his last night’s visitor, dressed in exactly the same manner, with the veil lowered as before, motioned him to advance. The singular height of her form, coupled with the circumstance of her not speaking, caused the idea to pass across his brain for an instant, that it might be a man disguised in woman’s attire. ”

“ Not at all: only I wished to explain to you, that, never having worn a thick veil in a room, I’m simply stifling.
Cha. I can quite believe you. Nothing, nothing is so dangerous as a thick veil: you must take it off at once,—you must. ”

“ So in the mesenteric veins of an animal we do not find either chyme or chyle and blood, blended together or distinct, but only blood, the same in colour, consistency, and other sensible properties, as it appears in the veins generally. Still as there is a certain though small and inappreciable proportion of chyle or unconcocted matter mingled with this blood, nature has interposed the liver, in whose meandering channels it suffers delay and undergoes additional change, lest arriving prematurely and crude at the heart, it should oppress the vital principle. ”

“ With these veils," cried Turgesius, "no longer delay;
Resistance is vain, we will quickly behold
Which robe hides the loveliest face in its fold;
These clouds shall no longer o'ershadow our bliss,
Let each seize a veil—and my trophy be this!"
He seized a white veil, and before him appear'd
No fearful, weak girl—but a foe to be fear'd! ”

“ Now if any branch of the venous system loses its power of absorption, the part swells, and at length bursts and discharges the blood, which the capillaries or other glands circulate through them.
It sometimes happens that the large external veins of the legs burst, and effuse their blood; but this occurs most frequently in the veins of the intestines, as the vena portarum is liable to suffer from a schirrus of the liver opposing the progression of the blood, which is absorbed from the intestines. ”

“ The distribution of the veins of the rabbit has only a superficial parallelism with arteries. The chief factors of vena cava inferior are the hepatic vein (h.v.) , which receives the liver blood, the renal veins (r.v.) ”

“ Fabricius gives an elegant description, as well as most beautiful figures, of the umbilical vessels. “The veins,” he says, [391] “which pass from the uterus in the direction of the fœtus are always closely united and become larger and larger as they proceed; nor does this mutual interlacement cease until all end in two large trunks; these penetrate the fœtus at the umbilicus, and become one vein of great size, which is inserted into the liver of the fœtus, and has a communication both with the vena cava and vena portæ. ”

“ The secret parts gape wide, the small gap reveals its hidden treasure, the delicate rosy lips, like the flushed petals of some living flower, display a beauteous world of pulpy flesh, in which a tiny pistil is thrilling sensuously. ”

“ In order more plentifully to drain off these salts, which must necessarily be convey'd into the blood, more or less, in all our meat, and drink, Nature has well provided us with two great glandular bodies, the kidneys, plac'd at the extremities of two large blood-vessels, the emulgent vein and artery, derived from the great vein and artery, very soon after their parting at the heart, the fountain of circulation. ”

“ With regard to veinlets or stringers and ’seams in the rocks,’ which are the thinnest stringers, the following is the mode of their arrangement. Veins in the earth, just like the veins of an animal, have certain veinlets of their own, but in a contrary way. For the larger veins of animals pour blood into the veinlets, while in the earth the humours are usually poured from the veinlets into the larger veins, and rarely flow from the larger into the smaller ones. ”

“ Or the dead blood drawn from her veins be in your veins blood?
Will ye gather up water again that was drawn and shed?
In the blood is the life of the veins, and her veins are dead.
For the lives that are over are over, and past things past ”

“ And there is the shape of a man who wrapped his face in a veil to keep out the fumes, and died so. The veil is there, reproduced with a fidelity no sculptor could duplicate, and through its folds you may behold the agony that made his jaw to sag and his eyes to pop from their sockets. ”

“ There is in man a vein which feedeth all the other veins. Now water is collected from the three hundred and sixty veins and, in the form of red blood, entereth the left testicle, where it is decocted, by the heat of temperament inherent in the son of Adam, into a thick, white liquid, whose odour is as that of the palm-spathe. ”

“ The commencements of these veins, when they are first of all divided, are called jugular veins; and having branched off in the neck from the great vein, they are continued to the trachea of the lungs. And if these veins are held on the outside, men fall down dead with insensibility, with closed eyes, but without choking. ”

“ But some veins breed more blood, and some less, and some better, and some worse blood, some hotter, and some colder, some grosser, and some purer, some thicker, and some thinner; and some veins breed rather an evil juice or corrupt matter then pure blood; the truth is, blood is bred somewhat after the manner of Excrements, for the veins are somewhat like the guts, wherein the excrements are digested. ”

“ When anybody is hurt and bleeding badly, the first thing to do is to find out whether it is an artery or a vein that's cut. If the blood is bright and comes out in spurts, it's an artery. If it is dark, and flows steadily, it's a vein. ”

“ If, however, the veins be so small, that we cannot detract enough of blood, and sufficiently quickly; or if, from any other cause, we cannot do so, then, if the general action be violent, we must have recourse to another vein, as the loss to be sustained, by confining ourselves to this vein, is infinitely greater, than any good which can be derived from it, as a local evacuation. ”

“ A vein and an artery, both styled vein by the ancients, and that not undeservedly, as Galen has remarked, because the one, the artery to wit, is the vessel which carries the blood from the heart to the body at large, the other or vein of the present day bringing it back from the general system to the heart ”

“ But his black vial was gone. His frown spread into fear as he searched for it in the other compartments of his belt. I had thought that he had more than one black vial, but now it seemed not. His huge face was swept with the panic of terror. He flung a wild glance around him. ”

“ Other veins, more minute, extend from the main veins; from that on the right towards the liver, from that on the left towards the spleen and the kidneys. The veins that run to the legs split at the juncture of the legs with the trunk and extend right down the thigh. The largest of these goes down the thigh at the back of it, and can be discerned and traced as a big one ”

“ L. When a vein of rock which is going on smoothly, is interrupted by another troublesome little vein, which stops it, and puts it out, so that it has to begin again in another place--that is called a fault. I always think it ought to be called the fault of the vein that interrupts it; but the miners always call it the fault of the vein that is interrupted. ”