The value of gelatine and gelatine preparations in the diet of man

Abstract

Four albino rats were given a diet of dried bread, 80.5 per cent.; butter, 15.0; salt, 2.0; and yeast, 2.5. Four others were given the same diet except ten parts of bread were replaced by ten of granulated gelatine. At the end of seventeen weeks the first group attained an average weight of 113 grams, and the second group an average weight of 194 grams. The gelatine thus supplemented the cereal diet with respect to protein, probably due to its high content of lysine in which cereals are low.

One hundred c.c. portions of plain milk and of milk containing one per cent. of gelatine were given to four normal men on successive days. Gastric digestion was followed by the fractional method. Finer and softer curds were formed with gelatine-milk than with plain milk. The hydrochloric acid was more rapidly and completely combined. The digestion time was shortened.

Eight children from three to eight months of age and suffering from indigestion or malnutrition, some with large curds in vomitus and stools, were placed on gelatine-milk for from six weeks to four months. A decided improvement in nutrition was noted in all cases and no untoward effects were observed.

Fifty persons suffering from tuberculosis were given gelatine in addition to their regular egg-milk diet. Thirty-five showed definite improvement. In most of the other cases intestinal ulcerations and other complications existed. The effects noted were probably due largely to the better utilization of milk.

The digestibility in the human stomach of a number of the more common gelatine preparations was studied by the fractional method. Four hundred C.C. of 1.5 per cent. gelatine left the stomach in one hour. Fruit juice preparations left the stomach almost as rapidly.