A manual of nursing : medical and surgical / by Charles J. Cullingworth.

Date:
1883
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A manual of nursing : medical and surgical / by Charles J. Cullingworth. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

    53/192 (page 37)
    In preparing- all these dishes, it is absolutely necessary to complete the operation of peptonizing the gruel or the milk, even to the final boiling-, be- fore adding- the stiffening- ingredient. For if pan- creatic extract be allowed to act on the gelatine, the gelatine itself undergoes a process of digestion, and its power of setting- or cooling- is utterly abolished. The extreme solubility of digested products— whether of starch or of proteids—detracts from their acceptability to the healthy. To them they appear thin and watery—they miss the sense of substance and solidity, which is characteristic of their ordinary food. But to the weak invalid without appetite this sense of substance or thickening- is generally an ob- jection, and they take with more ease an aliment which they can drink like water. The jellies and blanc-manges, on the other hand, give to invalids of more power that sense of resistance and solidity which is desired by those of stronger appetite.