Dried beef blood, powdered, has been recommended by Regnard and others for use by addition to soups and various forms of foods. The taste and odour of dried blood is disagreeable, and the idea of eating it in any form is repugnant to most persons.

It has also been used for rectal injection, but I have always observed it to cake inside the bowel, and there is very little evidence that it is absorbed at all.

Meat lozenges are prepared by Mason as a convenient and portable form of condensed food. Soup lozenges and capsules are also made.

Beef peptonoids are prepared in powdered form by several manufacturers; one variety contains predigested and sterilised beef, milk, and gluten.

Rudisch's beef peptone (or sarco-peptone) is a dark-brown, semisolid paste, having a strong meaty odour and flavour. One pound of this preparation represents eight pounds of fresh lean beef. In addition to the extractive materials which are obtainable in ordinary beef tea, it contains predigested proteids in a form, suited for prompt absorption. It may be eaten spread upon crackers or toast, or it may be dissolved in chocolate or almost any suitable fluid, either hot or cold. It is given in doses varying from half a teaspoonful or less for young children, up to a teaspoonful or tablespoonful for adults. If its flavour when dissolved in water alone is disagreeable or becomes tiresome, it may be altered by giving it ice cold, or by the addition of salt, celery salt, pepper, or Worcestershire sauce, and for children it may be sweetened with sugar. It is often added to milk, sherry, eggnog, gluten, and farinaceous gruels of oatmeal, rice, or arrowroot, or it may be used to re-enforce soups, broths, and jellies.

The Maltine Company furnish a similar preparation which contains 70 per cent of albuminous material with phosphates, fat, and carbohydrates.

The South American beef extract is a predigested preparation which, by the analysis of Kemmerich, contains, with other proteid matter, a large proportion - over 27 per cent - of albumoses and peptones, ready for immediate absorption.

Somatose is a granular predigested meat powder which, according to analysis reported by Hildebrandt, contains 90 per cent of albumoses (deutero- and hetero-albumose), and is free from peptones. It is of a yellowish colour, amorphous, finely granular, having but faint taste and odour. Dissolved in water, it forms a clear, light yellow or brownish solution, almost tasteless. It is not precipitated by heat or by strong acids. The latter, in fact, redissolve a precipitate which is formed by very weak acids. It is claimed for it that it is eight times as nutritious as meat, but estimates of this kind applied to artificial foods are always fallacious. Of course for an invalid who cannot digest any meat such preparations are indefinitely "stronger," but for those who can assimilate meat they are much weaker. Somatose can be injected in hypodermic solution without local irritation. It may be given as fine powder with bread and butter or spread upon toast. It is also administered like similar preparations in milk, mucilage, soup, cocoa, or coffee.

When mixed with such substances it should be first stirred into a thin paste with an equal volume of the fluid and then added to the remainder.

It is well tolerated by irritable stomachs and is speedily absorbed, and it possesses the advantage of having a less disagreeable taste than many preparations of meat.

Eskay's Food is an albuminised food suitable for emergency feeding of infants and for adults with disordered stomach or bowels.