transparent hands, wasted by wo and vigils, she exclaimed with a piercing cry, Then he loved me after all!'

Rigid as were the poor nun's notions of the duty of self-abnegation, such a feeling as this was one to be expiated by confession and penance; but as nuns are still women, it was not in the nature of things that she should not be the happier for the conviction that her love had been returned-nay, more than returned, for Saint-Phale had loved her first; and if she had forsaken the world for his sake, he had requited the sacrifice by dying for her. It was a balm even to that pious spirit to know that she, the deformed, the bossue, as she called herself, who had thought it impossible she could inspire affection, had been the chosen object of this devoted passion.

Madame Louise survived her lover nine years; and they were much calmer and happier years than those that preceded his death. She could now direct her thoughts wholly to the skies, for there she hoped and believed he was: and since human nature, as we have hinted before, will be human nature within the walls of a convent as well as outside of them, she had infinitely more comfort and consolation in praying for the repose of his soul in heaven, than she could have had in praying for his happiness on earth-provided he had sought that happiness in the arms of Madame de Châteaugrand, or any other fair lady.

LIEBIG'S RESEARCHES ON FOOD. NOTHING but accurate scientific investigation can ever teach the proper treatment of the human system either in health or in disease. No length of experience of vague sensations, following up the taking of certain kinds of food, exercise, or drugs, is enough to determine the precise virtues of these appliances. There is only one sure way of finding out the exact uses and functions of what we eat, or what acts on our bodies; and that is, to determine precisely on the one hand the substances used by nature in the vital processes, and on the other, the composition of the materials that we supply to the system. If we determine first the wants of the body, and next the resources of the world, and select the latter exactly to meet the former, we will learn on truly rational grounds the way of keeping up the vigour of our physical framework.

Baron Liebig is at present conducting a series of researches on the nutrition of animals, on exactly the same principle that he and others have proceeded with respect to the nourishment of plants.* A plant is analysed, and found to contain certain constant elements; some of these derived from air and water, others of an earthy kind derived from the solid soil. The requirements of the plant being thus laid open, it can be seen by a similar investigation if a soil contains in proper form these precise elements. If it contain some of them, and not others, then what is wanting is communicated, and no more. This is true insight and rational practice. All other schemes, founded on what is called farming experience,' can be at best mere probabilities.

The present work of Liebig is a contribution to the accurate knowledge of the action of food on the system. It is wholly devoted to the constitution of the flesh or muscles of the body, which form one of the largest and most important constituents of the system. The fleshy masses, which make the soft parts between the skin and the deep-lying bones of the skeleton, are the prime forces of the moving organs-the source of strength, energy, and every form of bodily activity. The first consequence of derangement in the constitution of the flesh is a loss of working vigour; and this is apt to

* Researches on the Chemistry of Food, by Justus Liebig, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Giessen. Edited from the Manuscript of the Author, by William Gregory, M.D., Professor of Chemistry in the University of Edinburgh. London: Taylor

and Walton. 1847.

be followed up with disorders in the other parts of the system-the stomach, lungs, brain, &c. It is of prime importance, therefore, that we should know in a rigorous scientific way (which means in the one perfect way) what is necessary for preserving or restoring the elements which enter into healthy flesh.

Liebig, accordingly, has set to work, by chemical analysis, to find what are the substances that are combined together in animal muscle; and in the present work he has described them, so far as his examination has gone. Some of the substances that he has found are entirely new; and he confesses that there yet remain one or two constituents which he has not sufficiently investigated, so as to be able to say what they are.

Flesh is made up of solid fibres, cells, membranes-all of an organised structure-with fat; it also contains a very large quantity of liquid matter, called the juice of the flesh. This juice is a solution of a great many elements or substances in water; the weight of the water itself being many times that of all the dissolved substances put together. Liebig's investigations have been directed to the analysis of these substances. He takes a mass of ten pounds of newly-killed flesh, reduces it to a fine mince, mixes it with water, and squeezes the whole mass through a linen bag, until he has extracted as much of the liquid contents as possible, and left only the solid portions behind. When the fluid thus obtained is heated up to a certain temperature, the albumen, which is one constituent, coagulates, and can be separated. At a still higher temperature, the colouring matter, which makes the redness of raw flesh, also coagulates, and is removed. The separation of these simplifies the compound. The remaining fluid is always of an acid character, showing that it contains, with its other ingredients, one or more acid substances, in a free or unneutralised state. A part of the inquiry is to find what these acids are: accordingly, an alkali (baryta) is poured in to combine with and precipitate them. The precipitate is withdrawn and examined, and found to consist of phosphates, which phosphates have the double base of baryta and magnesia, which last, therefore, must have been present in the juice. It is thus shown that phosphoric acid is an essential constituent of the juice of muscle.

The liquid that is freed by filtration from these precipitated phosphates is slowly evaporated, until at last crystals, in the form of colourless needles, appear at the bottom. These crystals, when examined by chemical tests, are found to be an entirely new substance, with distinct and specific properties, which Liebig has fully investigated; and it has received the name of kreatine, from the Greek word for flesh. This kreatine, therefore, is an invariable constituent of the muscular fluid. Its amount in any animal is greatest when there is least fat; as fat accumulates, it diminishes.

The physical properties of a substance are its specific gravity, texture, colour, and appearance. The chemical properties are its composition, or the proportions of its elementary constituents, and its chemical action upon other bodies, such as acids, alkalies, and tests of all sorts. These properties Liebig has detailed in reference to the new substance, and by them a key will be found to its uses in the living body.

The action of a strong acid on kreatine creates a second substance hitherto unknown to chemists, which is alkaline in its nature, called by Liebig kreatinine. This substance, however, may not only be produced from kreatine, but it is found in the system as another permanent constituent, and as such its properties deserve and have received a distinct investigation.

The original kreatine, resolved by an acid into kreatinine, is next resolved by baryta into two other elements, one of them urea, already well known; but the other is a completely new substance of the alkaline character, named sarcosine, and apparently worthy of being studied. Here, therefore, from one crystalline deposit there arises three organic compounds, that have all something to do with human vitality.

We are not yet done with the original liquid. After the crystals of kreatine are deposited, there is a liquor still remaining. By adding alcohol to it, it is made to give a new deposit in white foliated crystals. These are separated by filtration, and examined, and yield a fourth new substance of an acid character, called by Liebig inosinic acid. This is a very remarkable element. The flavour of the meat seems to reside in it: when it is acted on by a high heat, it gives off the very smell of roasting meat. Its properties are also given.

Recurring again to the unexhausted mother liquid, and adding more alcohol, a new separation takes place; a thick sirupy substance falls to the bottom, and a lighter liquid floats above. The separate examination of these brings out additional elements. Here is found the kreatinine natural to the muscle. There is also now found lactate of potash; and it turns out that lactic acid, or the acid of sour milk, is a constant element of muscular juice, as well as the phosphoric acid that came out at an earlier stage. The lactates of flesh receive from Liebig a separate investigation.

After settling the characters of these great organic constituents-kreatine, kreatinine, sarcosine, inosinic acid-and the compounds of lactic acid, he now turns to what are called the inorganic elements, such as phosphoric acid, potash, and other alkalies, and founds a curious speculation upon the presence and mutual actions of the lactic and phosphoric acids. The great idea of the speculation is, that lactic acid is the substance that directly supports respiration, or whose consumption gives the animal heat; and that the sugar and starch taken in our food are changed into lactic acid, in order to become respiratory elements. In fact, the use of sugar is to supply the lactic acid constituent, which has to serve this and other purposes in the body. Another very refined speculation is offered by the author, founded on the fact, that the alkali contained in the flesh is potash, and the alkali contained in the blood is soda. He shows how the chemical properties of phosphoric acid and soda, which go together in the blood, would explain the process whereby nature makes the exchange of carbonic acid for pure oxygen, in the final act of the respiratory process. But this we have not space to dwell

upon.

These elements do not exhaust the constituents of muscle, and it will take much additional study to follow out all their functions in the human body. Moreover, muscle, although a very important tissue, is only one out of many; and it will be necessary to go through a similar examination of nerve and other tissues before the chemical actions involved in the animal system are fully known. But in the meantime, Liebig draws some very important practical inferences from the discoveries already made.

In the first place, he shows how the boiling of meat acts upon the various constituents of the juice. We require, for the support of our muscle, not merely the fibrous matter of animal flesh, but all the array of the albumen, lactates, phosphates, kreatine, &c. already mentioned: if any of these are allowed to escape, we are deprived of some needful element, and our system suffers. Now, cold water can dissolve the great mass of these important ingredients, so that if meat is put into cold water, and slowly boiled up, the water will have carried off all the albumen and several other substances, and the remaining beef will be a kind of husk, insufficient to nourish the system, unless the water it has been boiled in is taken at the same time in the form of soup. To boil beef without losing the nutritious and savoury elements, Liebig gives the following directions:-The water is, in the first place, to be put into a brisk boiling state; into this boiling water the meat should be plunged, and allowed to lie for a few minutes; it is then taken out, and cold water is to be poured into the boiler till the heat be reduced far below boiling, or to about 160 degrees; the meat is then put in again, and kept in the water at this temperature for two or three hours. Everything is in this way effected

that can render the flesh pleasant and wholesome as food. The contact with the boiling water at the outset coagulates the albumen of the flesh all round the surface of the meat, and closes up its pores with a solid wall, that none of the internal juices can pass through, and the meat is preserved in all its integrity while undergoing the action of the heat.

On the other hand, when we wish to have a rich soup, we must take means for thoroughly extracting the various elements of the fleshy juice, for these elements are the essential portion of a soup. A perfect soup would be a mixture of all the soluble constituents of the muscle-in fact, Liebig's original mother liquor, which he wrought upon to bring out all the various substances already enumerated. Accordingly, the plan of making soup is as follows:

When one pound of lean beef, free of fat, and separated from the bones, in the finely-chopped state in which it is used for beef-sausages or mince-meat, is uniformly mixed with its own weight of cold water, slowly heated to boiling, and the liquid, after boiling briskly for a minute or two, is strained through a cloth from the coagulated albumen and the fibrine, now be come hard and horny, we obtain an equal weight of the most aromatic soup, of such strength as can be obtained even by boiling for hours from a piece of flesh. When mixed with salt, and the other usual additions by which soup is usually seasoned, and tinged somewhat darker by means of roasted onions or burnt sugar, it forms the very best soup that can be prepared from one pound of flesh.'

An extract of meat thus prepared is found to be an invaluable provision for an army in active service. Administered along with a little wine to wounded soldiers, it immediately restores their strength, exhausted by loss of blood, and enables them to sustain the fatigue of removal to the nearest hospital. Of course what is so useful in this extreme case must be useful in thousands of minor occasions of bodily prostration. The loss of strength means the loss of the substances that support vitality, such as these very ingredients of fleshy juice. The fleshy fibre itself is wasted more slowly than the substances that float in the liquid that invests it; so that, in fact, a supply of these matters has a more instantaneous action than any other refreshment. We can thus explain the effect of soups upon convalescent patients. No doubt the perfect soup of Liebig's description would be found to have a far greater strengthening power than the generality of those in common use.

There is one other principle of very great consequence stated in the volume before us. It is, that the gastric juice of the stomach, which dissolves the solid food into a liquid pulp, has nearly the same ingredients as the juice of flesh; so that the power of digestion will be very much affected by the supply of the constituents of juice to the system. Hence a good fleshextract soup, besides giving materials to the muscle, provides the solvent liquid of the stomach, and facilitates digestion. To people suffering from indigestion in the sense of deficiency in the gastric juice, the supply of this material is the natural remedy. Another useful hint is also suggested by this connection of stomach and muscle. The digestion of the food, and the exertion of the muscles, consume the same ingredients, so that both operations cannot well be sustained together beyond a certain limit. Moreover, it naturally follows that rest during one operation will cause increase of energy in the other. During the height of the digestive action, muscular exertion cannot well be afforded, unless there is a great overplus of the common aliment. It is well! known that when digestion is weak, rest after meals is necessary, and that excessive exercise unfits the stomach for its work. The explanation now afforded may supply practical wisdom on this head to all men.

Liebig has also pointed out the effect that the salting of meat has on the precious constituents of its juice. The salt withdraws a great portion of these dissolved matters, which are thrown away with the brine.

The

with weeds, their once fertile fields were covered with stones, their cattle died for want of pasture, and their turf lay undug in the commons. This universal charmer having brought things to such a deplorable crisis, under pretence of making a journey to a distant part of the island, set out on a milk-white palfrey, accompanied by her admirers on foot, till, having led them into a deep river, she drowned six hundred of the best men the island had ever seen, and then flew away in the shape of a bat. To prevent the recurrence of a like disaster, these wise people ordained that their women should henceforth go on foot and follow the men, which custom is so religiously observed, that if by chance a woman is observed walking before a man, whoever sees her cries out immediately," Tehi! Tehi!" which, it seems, was the name of the enchantress who occasioned this law.'

The supposition that fairies sometimes took away mortal babes, and left their own wretched offspring in their place, is perhaps now declined in Man, as in other places; but it was rife a century ago. Waldron, who wrote a book on Man, published in 1732, gives the following account:- I was prevailed on,' says he, to go and see a child, who, they told me, was one of these changelings; and indeed must own, was not a little surprised as well as shocked at the sight. Nothing under heaven could have a more beautiful face; but though between five and six years old, and seemingly healthy, he was so far from being able to walk or stand, that he could not so much as move any one joint. His limbs were vastly long for his age, but smaller than an infant's of six months; his complexion was perfectly delicate, and he had the finest hair in the world. He never spoke nor cried, ate scarce anything, and was very seldom seen to smile; but if any one called him a fairy elf, he would frown and fix his eyes so earnestly on those who said it, as if he would look them through. His mother, or at least his supposed mother, being very poor, frequently went out a charing, and left him a whole day together. The neighbours, out of curiosity, have often looked in at the window to see how he behaved when alone, which, whenever they did, they were sure to find him laughing, and in the utmost delight. This made them judge that he was not without company more pleasing to him than any mortals could be; and what made this conjecture seem the more reasonable was, that if he were left ever so dirty, the woman, at her return, saw him with a clean face, and his hair combed with the utmost exactness and nicety.'

In accounts of customs from different districts, one is perpetually called on to wonder at the parities observable in many small matters. We are told by Mr Train, that formerly weddings were generally preceded by musicians playing the Black and the Gray, the only tune struck up on such occasions.' What this tune may be we cannot tell-probably it is not now recoverable; but what is very curious, it was the tune which was played at weddings by the last piper of Peebles, who died upwards of forty years ago.

Peel Castle, on the west side of the island, is the locality of a strange tradition, which Mr Train quotes from his predecessor Waldron. There was formerly a passage to the apartment belonging to the captain of the guard; but it is now closed up: the reason they give you for it is a pretty odd one. They say that an apparition, called in the Manx language the Moddey Doo, in the shape of a large black spaniel, with curled shaggy hair, was used to haunt Peel Castle; and has been frequently seen in every room, but particularly in the guard-chamber, where, as soon as the candles were lighted, it came and lay down before the fire, in presence of the soldiers, who at length, by being so much accustomed to the sight of it, lost great part of the terror they were seized with at its first appearance. They still, however, retained a certain awe, as believing it was an evil spirit, which only waited permission to do them hurt; and for that reason forbore swearing and profane discourse while in its company. But though

they endured the shock of such a guest when all together in a body, none cared to be left alone with it. It being the custom, therefore, for one of the soldiers to lock the gates of the castle at a certain hour, and carry the keys to the captain, to whose apartment the way led through the church, they agreed among themselves that whoever was to succeed the ensuing night his fellow in this errand, should accompany him that went first, and by this means no man would be exposed singly to danger; for I forgot to mention, that the Moddey Doo was always seen to come out from that passage at the close of day, and return to it again as soon as morning dawned; which made them look on this place as its peculiar residence. One night a fellow being drunk, and by the strength of his liquor rendered more daring than ordinarily, laughed at the simplicity of his companions; and although it was not his turn to go with the keys, would needs take that office upon him, to testify his courage. All the soldiers endeavoured to dissuade him; but the more they said, the more resolute he seemed, and swore that he desired nothing more than that the Moddey Doo would follow him as it had done the others, for he would try whether it were dog or devil.

'After having talked in a very reprobate manner for some time, he snatched up the keys, and went out of the guard-room. In some time after his departure a great noise was heard, but nobody had the boldness to see what occasioned it, till, the adventurer returning, they demanded the knowledge of him; but as loud and noisy as he had been at leaving them, he was now become sober and silent enough, for he was never heard to speak more; and though all the time he lived, which was three days, he was intreated by all who came near him to speak, or if he could not do that, to make some signs by which they might understand what had happened to him, yet nothing intelligible could be got from him, only that, by the distortions of his limbs and features, it might be guessed that he died in agonies more than is common in a natural death. The Moddey Doo was, however, never after seen in the castle, nor would any one attempt to go through that passage; for which reason it was closed up, and another way made. This accident happened about threescore years since.'

In zoology, the island has, or had, some peculiar features. The native sheep, called the Loaghtyn, of mean appearance, with high back, narrow ribs, and tail like that of a goat, finds a fit associate in the poor little stunted pony. There was once a peculiar variety of the wild boar in Man-called the purr-of a gray sandy colour, spotted with black. It ran wild in the mountains, and was a destructive creature. The last purr had a den in the mountain of South Barrule, whence he sallied forth almost daily into some of the surrounding valleys in search of prey. In summer, a fold was no barrier to his killing and carrying off both sheep and lambs. In winter, impelled perhaps by hunger, he became so daring, that every adjoining farmyard was the scene of his depredations. At last the people rose to drive the enemy from his stronghold, and besetting him with the fiercest dogs that could be procured, they succeeded in hunting him over the high cliffs of Brada Head, where he was killed by falling amongst the rocks, ere he reached the sea below.' It is a little known, but curious fact, that the cats of the Isle of Man have no tail, and at most a mere rudiment of caudal vertebrae. They are called rumpies, and are excellent mousers. Mr Train, after keeping one for four years, expresses his belief that it is a hybrid animal, between the cat and rabbit; but, from the decided diversity of these species, we feel inclined to pronounce very confidently that no such union could take place.

In agriculture, the Manxmen are, or at a very recent period were, much behind their fellow-countrymen of Britain. Their field implements were extremely rude, and they carried manure to the field and brought home their crops in creels on the backs of horses. Mr Train, however, alleges that they were willing to do better;