ts
substance. Nature, in effecting this process, first reduces the food in
the stomach to a state of pulp, under the name of chyme, which passes
into the intestines, and is there divided into two principles, each
distinct from the other. One, a milk-white fluid,--the nutritive
portion,--is absorbed by innumerable vessels which open upon the mucous
membrane, or inner coat of the intestines. These vessels, or absorbents,
discharge the fluid into a common duct, or road, along which it is
conveyed to the large veins in the neighbourhood of the heart. Here it
is mixed with the venous blood (which is black and impure) returning
from every part of the body, and then it supplies the waste which is
occasioned in the circulating stream by the arterial (or pure) blood
having furnished matter for the substance of the animal. The blood of
the animal having completed its course through all parts, and having had
its waste recruited by the digested food, is now received into the
heart, and by the action of that organ it is urged through the lungs,
there to receive its purification from the air which the animal inhales.
Again returning to the heart, it is forced through the arteries, and
thence distributed, by innumerable ramifications, called capillaries,
bestowing to every part of the animal, life and nutriment. The other
principle--the innutritive portion--passes from the intestines, and is
thus got rid of. It will now be readily understood how flesh is affected
for bad, if an animal is slaughtered when the circulation of its blood
has been increased by over-driving, ill-usage, or other causes of
excitement, to such a degree of rapidity as to be too great for the
capillaries to perform their functions, and causing the blood to be
congealed in its minuter vessels. Where this has been the case, the meat
will be dark-coloured, and become rapidly putrid; so that self-interest
and humanity alike dictate kind and gentle treatment of all animals
destined to serve as food for man.

THE CHEMISTRY AND ECONOMY OF SOUP-MAKING.

96. STOCK BEING THE BASIS of all meat soups, and, also, of all the
principal sauces, it is essential to the success of these culinary
operations, to know the most complete and economical method of
extracting, from a certain quantity of meat, the best possible stock or
broth. The theory and philosophy of this process we will, therefore,
explain, and then proceed to show the practical course to be adopted.

97. AS ALL