It is interesting to observe the condition of lean meat that has thus been minced and exposed for a few hours to these actions by immersion in cold water. On removing and straining such minced meat it will be found to have lost its colour, and if it is now cooked it is insipid, and even nauseous if eaten in any quantity. It has been given to dogs and cats and pigs; these, after eating a little, refuse to take more, and when supplied with this juiceless meat alone, they languish, become emaciated, and die of starvation if the experiment is continued. Experiments of this kind contributed to the fallacious conclusions of the French Academicians. Although the meat from which the juices are thus completely extracted is quite worthless _alone_, and meat from which they are partially extracted is nearly worthless _alone_, either of them becomes valuable when eaten with the juices. The stewed beef of the Frenchman would deserve the contempt bestowed upon it by the prejudiced Englishman if it were eaten as the Englishman eats his roast beef; but when preceded by a _potage_ containing the juices of the beef it is quite as nutritious as if roasted, and more easily digested. Graham found that increase of temperature increases the rate of diffusion of liquids, and in accordance with this the extraction of the juices of meat is effected more rapidly by warm than by cold water; but there is a limit to this advantage, as will be easily understood from what has already been explained in Chapter III. concerning the coagulation of albumen, which at the temperature of 134° Fahr. begins to show signs of losing its fluidity; at 160° becomes a semi-opaque jelly; at the boiling point of water is a rather tough solid; and if kept at this temperature, shrinks, and becomes harder and harder, tougher and tougher, till it attains a consistence comparable to that of horn tempered with gutta-percha.