One pound of lean beef is minced very fine and mixed in a fire-proof porcelain jar with a pint of water and three teaspoonfuls of pure hydrochloric acid. The mixture is then placed in a Papin's digester, and the lid screwed firmly down. It is boiled from ten to fifteen hours. In a Papin's digester the steam cannot escape, and the water is thus kept boiling at a much higher temperature than in an exposed vessel. After being boiled this length of time, the mass is taken out and pestled in a mortar till of a smooth paste. It is then returned to the digester and boiled again for nearly twenty hours. It is removed and spread out on a flat dish and the acid is carefully neutralised with pure carbonate of soda. Returned to an open enamelled saucepan it is slowly evaporated to a syrupy consistence. In order to make this food palatable a little spice and celery seed should be added to the meat, and before serving care should be taken to make it both look and taste nice. In this meat solution the meat has been partly pre-digested, but all the albumen has not been turned into peptone. It is, therefore, a useful intermediate food.

Care must be exercised not to take predigested foods too long, else the stomach becomes demoralised, and the very condition aimed at, the return to normal digestive power, is delayed. Predigested foods are crutches, which must be discarded as soon as there are indications of the return of healthy appetite, and that the stomach can digest its foods, instead of having them digested for it outside the body.

The return to solid food should be very gradual, and only the most easily digested foods should be attempted, such as the ball of a well-grilled mutton chop warrenised, and not boiled, mutton or chicken. All uncooked vegetables or salads, and any hard chippy articles, such as fried bread crumbs, should be avoided, also any foods or dishes which are found by experience to produce the uncomfortable sensations of indigestion.