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Story
October 24, 1893
The Roanoke Times
Roanoke, Virginia
What is this article about?
Article debunks the myth that beef tea is nutritious for the sick, calling it a mere stimulant that has led to many deaths by starvation; advises against boiling it to avoid indigestibility.
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The Beef Tea Fallacy.
One of the hardest notions for the untrained nurse to give up is that beef tea is a valuable nutriment. The recent assertion of a writer in The American Lancet that thousands of sick persons have been starved to death on beef tea is only a summing up of what physicians and expert nurses have been trying to impress upon the minds of the laity for some time.
Beef tea is a stimulant, slight and evanescent, but to "live on beef tea," which has been the shibboleth of many a sickroom, is impossible. And The Lancet further counsels that if it must still be made and used to perform its very limited service, to remember that, like plain tea, it should never be boiled. That method of making contributes a positive vice--that of indigestibility.
One of the hardest notions for the untrained nurse to give up is that beef tea is a valuable nutriment. The recent assertion of a writer in The American Lancet that thousands of sick persons have been starved to death on beef tea is only a summing up of what physicians and expert nurses have been trying to impress upon the minds of the laity for some time.
Beef tea is a stimulant, slight and evanescent, but to "live on beef tea," which has been the shibboleth of many a sickroom, is impossible. And The Lancet further counsels that if it must still be made and used to perform its very limited service, to remember that, like plain tea, it should never be boiled. That method of making contributes a positive vice--that of indigestibility.
What sub-type of article is it?
Medical Curiosity
Curiosity
What themes does it cover?
Moral Virtue
Misfortune
What keywords are associated?
Beef Tea
Medical Fallacy
Nutrition Myth
Sickroom Care
Stimulant
Story Details
Story Details
Debunks the belief that beef tea provides nutrition to the sick, explaining it as a temporary stimulant that cannot sustain life and has caused starvation; recommends not boiling it to prevent indigestibility.