Chapter 18

There have been several collective editions of Fontenelle’s works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at the Hague in 1728-1729. The best is that of Paris, in 8 vols. 8vo, 1790. Some of his separate works have been very frequently reprinted and also translated. ThePluralité des mondeswas translated into modern Greek in 1794. Sainte-Beuve has an interesting essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in theCauseries du lundi, vol. iii. See also Villemain,Tableau de la littérature française au XVIIIesiècle; the abbé Trublet,Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle(1759); A. Laborde-Milaà,Fontenelle(1905), in the “Grands écrivains français” series; and L. Maigron,Fontenelle, l’homme, l’œuvre, l’influence(Paris, 1906).

FONTENOY,a village of Belgium, in the province of Hennegau, about 4 m. S.E. of Tournai, famous as the scene of the battle of Fontenoy, in which on the 11th of May 1745 the French army under Marshal Saxe defeated the Anglo-Allied army under the duke of Cumberland. The object of the French (see alsoAustrian Succession, War of the) was to cover the siege of the then important fortress of Tournai, that of the Allies, who slowly advanced from the east, to relieve it. Informed of the impending attack, Louis XV., with the dauphin, came with all speed to witness the operations, and by his presence to give Saxe, who was in bad health and beset with private enemies, the support necessary to enable him to command effectively. Under Cumberland served the Austrian field-marshal Königsegg, and, at the head of the Dutch contingent, the prince of Waldeck.

The right of the French position (see map) rested on the river at Antoing, which village was fortified and garrisoned, between Antoing and Fontenoy three square redoubts were constructed, and Fontenoy itself was put in a complete state of defence. On the left rear of this line, and separated from Fontenoy by some furlongs of open ground, another redoubt was made at the corner of the wood of Barry and a fifth towards Gavrain. The infantry was arrayed in deployed lines behind the Antoing-Fontenoy redoubts and the low ridge between Fontenoy and the wood; behind them was the cavalry. The approaches to Gavrain were guarded by a mounted volunteer corps calledGrassins. At Calonne the marshal had constructed three military bridges against the contingency of a forced retreat. The force of the French was about 60,000 of all arms, not including 22,000 left in the lines before Tournai. Marshal Saxe himself, who was suffering from dropsy to such an extent that he was unable to mount his horse, slept in a wicker chariot in the midst of the troops. At early dawn of the 11th of May, the Anglo-Hanoverian army with the Austrian contingent formed up in front of Vézon, facing towards Fontenoy and the wood, while the Dutch on their left extended the general line to Péronne. The total force was 46,000, against about 52,000 whom Saxe could actually put into the line of battle.

The plan of attack arranged by Cumberland, Königsegg and Waldeck on the 10th grew out of circumstances. A preliminary skirmish had cleared the broken ground immediately about Vézon and revealed a part of the defender’s dispositions. It was resolved that the Dutch should attack the front Antoing-Fontenoy,while Cumberland should deliver a flank attack against Fontenoy and all in rear of it, by way of the open ground between Fontenoy and the wood. A great cavalry attack round the wood was projected but had to be given up, as in the late evening of the 10th the Allies’ light cavalry drew fire from its southern edge. Cumberland then ordered his cavalry commander to form a screen facing Fontenoy, so as to cover the formation of the infantry. On the morning of the 11th another and most important modification had to be made. The advance was beginning when the redoubt at the corner of the wood became visible. Cumberland hastily told off Brigadier James Ingoldsby (major and brevet-colonel 1st Guards), with four regiments and an artillery detachment, to storm this redoubt which, crossing its fire with that of Fontenoy, seemed absolutely to inhibit the development of the flank attack. At 6A.M.the brigade moved off, but it was irresolutely handled and halted time after time; and after waiting as long as possible, the British and Hanoverian cavalry under Sir James Campbell rode forward and extended in the plain, becoming at once the target for a furious cannonade which killed their leader and drove them back. Thereupon Sir John (Lord) Ligonier, whose deployment the squadrons were to have covered, let them pass to the rear, and, hearing the guns of the Dutch towards Antoing, pushed the British infantry forward through the lanes, each unit on reaching open ground covering the exit and deployment of the one in rear, all under the French cannonade. This went on for two hours, and save that it showed the magnificent discipline of the British and Hanoverian regiments, was a bad prelude to the real attack. Cumberland’s own exertions brought a few small guns to the front of the Guards’ Brigade, and one of the first shots from these killed Antoine Louis, duc de Gramont, colonel of the Gardes Françaises, and another Henri du Baraillon du Brocard, Saxe’s artillery commander.

It was now 9A.M., and while the guns from the wood redoubt battered the upright ranks of the Allies, Ingoldsby’s brigade was huddled together, motionless, on the right. Cumberland himself galloped thither, and under his reproaches Ingoldsby lost the last remnants of self-possession. To Sir John Ligonier’s aide-de-camp, who delivered soon afterwards a bitterly formal order to advance, Ingoldsby sullenly replied that the duke’s orders were for him to advance in line with Ligonier’s main body. By now, too, the Dutch advance against Antoing-Fontenoy had collapsed.

But on the right the cannonade and the blunders together had roused a stern and almost blind anger in the leaders and the men they led. Ingoldsby was wounded, and his successor, the Hanoverian general Zastrow, gave up the right attack and brought his battalions into the main body. A second halfhearted attack on Fontenoy itself, delivered by some Dutch troops, was almost made successful by the valour of two of these battalions (one of them being the then newly raised Highland regiment, the Black Watch) which came thither of their own accord. Meantime the young duke and the old Austrian field-marshal had agreed to take all risks and to storm through between Fontenoy and the wood redoubt, and had launched the great attack, one of the most celebrated in the history of war. The English infantry was in two lines. The Hanoverians on their left, owing to want of space, were compelled to file into third line behind the redcoats, and on their outer flanks were the battalions that had been with Ingoldsby. A few guns, man-drawn, accompanied the assaulting mass, and the cavalry followed. The column may have numbered 14,000 infantry. All the infantry battalions closed on their centre, the normal three ranks becoming six. If the proper distances between lines were preserved, the mass must have formed an oblong about 500 yds × 600 yds (excluding the cavalry).

The duke of Cumberland placed himself at the head of the front line and gave the signal to advance. Slowly and in parade order, drums beating and colours flying, the mass advanced, straight up the gentle slope, which was swept everywhere by the flanking artillery of the defence. Then, when the first line reached the low crest on the ends of which stood the French artillery, the fire, hitherto convergent, became a full enfilade from both sides, and at the same moment the enemy’s horse and foot became visible beyond. A brief pause ensued, and the front gradually contracted as regiments shouldered inwards to avoid the fire. Then the French advanced, and the Guards Brigade and the Gardes Françaises met face to face. Captain Lord Charles Hay (d. 1760), lieutenant of the First (Grenadier) Guards, suddenly ran in front of the line, took off his hat to the enemy and drank to them from a pocket flask, shouting a taunt, “We hope you will stand till we come up to you, and not swim the river as you did at Dettingen,” then, turning to his own men, he called for three cheers. The astonished French officers returned the salute and gave a ragged counter-cheer. Whether or not the French, as legend states, were asked and refused to fire first, the whole British line fired one tremendous series of volleys by companies. 50 officers and 760 men of the three foremost French regiments fell at once, and at so appalling a loss the remnant broke and fled. Three hundred paces farther on stood the second line of the French, and slowly the mass advanced, firing regular volleys. It was now well inside the French position, and no longer felt the enfilade fire that swept the crest it had passed over. By now, as the rear lines closed up, the assailants were practically in square and repelled various partial attacks coming from all sides. The Régiment du Roi lost 33 officers and 345 men at the hands of the Second (Coldstream) Guards. But these counter-attacks gained a few precious minutes for the French. It was the crisis of the battle. The king, though the court meditated flight, stood steady with the dauphin at his side,—Fontenoy was the one great day of Louis XV.’s life,—and Saxe, ill as he was, mounted his horse to collect his cavalry for a charge. The British and Hanoverians were now at a standstill. More and heavier counter-strokes were repulsed, but no progress was made; their cavalry was unable to get to the front, and Saxe was by now thinking of victory. Captain Isnard of the Touraine regiment suggested artillery to batter the face of the square, preparatory to a final charge. General Löwendahl galloped up to Saxe, crying, “This is a great day for the king; they will never escape!” The nearest guns were planted in front of the assailants, and used with effect. The infantry, led by Löwendahl, fastened itself on the sides of the square, the regiments of Normandy and Vaisseaux and theIrish Brigade conspicuous above the rest. On the front, waiting for the cannon to do its work, were the Maison du Roi, the Gendarmerie and all the light cavalry, under Saxe himself, the duke of Richelieu and count d’Estrées. The left wing of the Allies was still inactive, and troops were brought up from Antoing and Fontenoy to support the final blow. About 2P.M.it was delivered, and in eight minutes the square was broken. As the infantry retired across the plain in small stubborn groups the French fire still made havoc in their ranks, but all attempts to close with them were repulsed by the terrible volleys, and they regained the broken ground about Vézon, whence they had come. Cumberland himself and all the senior generals remained with the rearguard.

The losses at Fontenoy were, as might be expected, somewhat less than normally heavy when distributed over the whole of both armies, but exceedingly severe in the units really engaged. Eight out of nineteen regiments of British infantry lost over 200 men, two of these more than 300. A tribute to the loyalty and discipline of the British, as compared with the generality of armies in those days, may be found in the fact that the three Guards’ regiments had no “missing” men whatever. The 23rd (Royal Welsh Fusiliers) had 322 casualties. Böschlanger’s Hanoverian regiment suffered even more heavily, and four others of that nation had 200 or more casualties. The total loss was about 7500, that of the French 7200. The French “Royal” regiment lost 30 officers and 645 men; some other regimental casualties have been mentioned above. The Dutch lost a bare 7% of their strength.

Fontenoy was in the 18th century what the attack of the Prussian Guards at St Privat is to-day,a locus classicusfor military theorists. But the technical features of the battle are completely overshadowed by its epic interest, and above all it illustrates the permanent and unchangeable military characteristics of the British and French nations.

FONTEVRAULT,orFontevraud(Lat.Fons Ebraldi), a town of western France, in the department of Maine-et-Loire, 10 m. S.E. of Saumur by road and 2½ m. from the confluence of the Loire and Vienne. Pop. (1906) 1279. It is situated in the midst of the forest of Fontevrault. The interest of the place centres in its abbey, which since 1804 has been utilized and abused as a central house of detention for convicts. The church (12th century), of which only the choir and apse are appropriated to divine service, has a beautiful nave formerly covered by four cupolas destroyed in 1816. There is a fifth cupola above the crossing. In a chapel in the south transept are the effigies of Henry II. of England, of his wife Eleanor of Guienne, of Richard I. of England and of Isabella of Angoulême, wife of John of England—Eleanor’s being of oak and the rest of stone. The cloister, refectory and chapter-house date from the 16th century. The second court of the abbey contains a remarkable building, the Tour d’Évrault (12th century), which long went under the misnomer ofchapelle funéraire, but was in reality the old kitchen. Details and diagrams will be found in Viollet-le-Duc’sDictionnaire de l’architecture. There are three stories, the whole being surmounted by a pyramidal structure.

TheOrder of Fontevraultwas founded about 1100 by Robert of Arbrissel, who was born in the village of Arbrissel or Arbresec, in the diocese of Rennes, and attained great fame as a preacher and ascetic. The establishment was a double monastery, containing a nunnery of 300 nuns and a monastery of 200 monks, separated completely so that no communication was allowed except in the church, where the services were carried on in common; there were, moreover, a hospital for 120 lepers and other sick, and a penitentiary for fallen women, both worked by the nuns. The basis of the life was the Benedictine rule, but the observance of abstinence and silence went beyond it in stringency. The special feature of the institute was that the abbess ruled the monks as well as the nuns. At the beginning the order had a great vogue, and at the time of Robert’s death, 1117, there were several monasteries and 3000 nuns; afterwards the number of monasteries reached 57, all organized on the same plan. The institute never throve out of France; there were attempts to introduce it into Spain and England: in England there were three houses—at Ambresbury (Amesbury in Wiltshire), Nuneaton, and Westwood in Worcestershire. The nuns in England as in France were recruited from the highest families, and the abbess of Fontevrault, who was the superior-general of the whole order, was usually of the royal family of France.

See P. Hélyot,Hist, des ordres religieuses(1718), vi. cc. 12, 13; Max Heimbucher,Orden und Kongregationen(1907), i. 46; the arts. “Fontevrauld” in Wetzer and Welte,Kirchenlexicon(ed. 2), and in Herzog-Hauck,Realencyklopädie(ed. 3), supply full references to the literature. The most recent monograph is Édouard,Fontevrault et ses monuments(1875); for the later history see art. by Edmund Bishop inDownside Review(1886).

(E. C. B.)

FOOD(like the verb “to feed,” from a Teutonic root, whence O. Eng.foda; cf. “fodder”; connected with Gr.πατεῖσθαι, to feed), the general term for what is eaten by man and other creatures for the sustenance of life. The scientific aspect of human food is dealt with underNutritionandDietetics.

Infancy.—The influence of a normal diet upon the health of man (we exclude here the question of diet in illness, which must depend on the abnormal conditions existing) begins at the earliest stage of his life. No food has as yet been found so suitable for the young of all animals as their mother’s milk. This, however, has not been from want of seeking. Dr Brouzet (Sur l’éducation médicinale des enfants, i. p. 165) had such a bad opinion of human mothers, that he expressed a wish for the state to interfere and prevent them from suckling their children, lest they should communicate immorality and disease! A still more determined pessimist was the famous chemist Van Helmont, who thought life had been reduced to its present shortness by our inborn propensities, and proposed to substitute bread boiled in beer and honey for milk, which latter he calls “brute’s food.” Baron Justus von Liebig, as the result of his chemical researches, introduced a “food for infants,” which in more modern days has been followed by a multiplication of patent foods. A close imitation of human milk may also be made by the addition to fresh cow’s milk of half its bulk of soft water, in each pint of which has been mixed a heaped-up teaspoonful of powdered “sugar of milk” and a pinch of phosphate of lime. These artificial substitutes for the natural nutriment have their value where for any reason it is not available. The wholesomest food, however, for the first six months is certainly mother’s milk alone. A vigorous baby can indeed bear with impunity much rough usage, and often appears none the worse for a certain quantity of farinaceous food; but the majority do not get habituated to it without an exhibition of dislike which indicates rebellion of the bowels. It is only when the teeth are on their way to the front, as shown by dribbling, that the parotid glands secrete an active saliva capable of digesting bread stuffs. Till then anything but milk must be given tentatively, and considered in the light of a means of education for its future mode of nutrition.

The time for weaning should be fixed partly by the child’s age, partly by the growth of the teeth. The first group of teeth nine times out of ten consists of the lower central front teeth, which may appear any time during the sixth and seventh month. The mother may then begin to diminish the number of suckling times; and by a month she can have reduced them to twice a day, so as to be ready when the second group makes its way through the upper front gums to cut off the supply altogether. The third group, the lateral incisors and first grinders, usually after the first anniversary of birth, give notice that solid food can be chewed. But it is prudent to let dairy milk form a considerable portion of the fare till the eye-teeth are cut, which seldom happens till the eighteenth or twentieth month.

Childhood and Youth.—At this stage of life the diet must obviously be the best which is a transition from that of infancy to that of adult age. Growth is not completed, but yet entire surrender of every consideration to the claim of growth is not possible, nor indeed desirable. Moreover, that abundance of adipose tissue, or reserve new growth, which a baby can bear is an impediment to the due education of the muscles of the boy or girl. The supply of nutriment need not be so continuous as before, but at the same time should be more frequent than forthe adult. Up to at least fourteen or fifteen years of age the rule should be four meals a day, varied indeed, but nearly equal in nutritive power and in quantity, that is to say, all moderate, all sufficient. The maturity the body then reaches involves a hardening and enlargement of the bones and cartilages, and a strengthening of the digestive organs, which in healthy young persons enables us to dispense with some of the watchful care bestowed upon their diet. Three full meals a day are generally sufficient, and the requirements of mental training may be allowed to a certain extent to modify the attention to nutrition which has hitherto been paramount.

Adults.—It is only necessary here to refer to the article onDietetics(see alsoVegetarianism) for a discussion of the food of normal adults; and to such headings asDietary(for fixed allowances) orCookery. Different staple articles of food are dealt with under their own headings. For animals other than man see the respective articles on them.

Among numerous books on the subject, in addition to those enumerated underDietetics, see Sir Henry Thompson’sFoods and Feeding(1894); Hart’sDiet in Sickness and Health(1896); Knight,Food and its Functions(1895).

FOOD PRESERVATION.The preservation of food material beyond the short term during which it naturally keeps sound and eatable has engaged human thought from the earliest dawn of civilization. Necessity compelled man to store the plenitude of one season or place against the need of another. The hunter dried, smoked and salted meat and fish, pastoral man preserved milk in the form of cheese and butter, or fermented grape-juice into wine. With the separation of country from town, the development of manufacturing nation as distinct from agricultural and food-producing people, the spreading of civilized man from torrid to arctic zones, the needs of travellers on land and sea and of armies on the march, the problem of the prevention of the natural decomposition to which nearly all food substances are liable became increasingly urgent, and forms to-day, next to the production of food, the most important problem in connexion with the feeding and the trade of nations. As long as the reasons of decomposition were unknown, all attempts at preservation were necessarily empirical, and of the numberless processes which have during modern times been proposed and attempted comparatively few have stood the test of experience. In the light of modern knowledge, however, the guiding principles appear to be very simple.

Very few organic materials undergo decomposition, as it were, of their own accord. They may lose water by evaporation, and fatty substances may alter by the absorption of oxygen from the air. They are otherwise quite stable and unchangeable while not attacked and eaten up by living organisms, or while the life with which they may be endowed is in a state of suspense. An apple is alive and in breathing undergoes its ripening change; a grain of wheat is dormant and does not alter. A substance, in order to be a food material, must be decomposable under the attack of a living organism; the energy stored in it must be available to that stream of energy which we call life, whether the life be in the form of the human consumer or of any lower organism. All decomposition of food is due to the development within the food of living organisms. Under conditions under which living organisms cannot enter or cannot develop food keeps undecomposed for an indefinite length of time. The problem of food preservation resolves itself, therefore, into that of keeping out or killing off all living things that might feed upon and thus alter the food, and as these organisms mainly belong to the family of moulds, yeasts and bacteria, modern food preservation is strictly a subject for the bacteriologist.

The changes which food undergoes on keeping are easily intelligible when once their biological origin is recognized. Yeasts cause the decomposition of saccharine substances into alcohol and carbon dioxide, acetic and lactic ferments produce from sugar or from alcohol the organic acids causing the souring of food, moulds as a rule cause oxidation and complete destruction of organic matter, nitrogenous or saccharine, while most bacteria act mainly upon the nitrogenous constituents, producing albumoses and peptones and breaking up the complex albumen-molecule into numerous smaller molecules often allied to alkaloids, generally with the production of evil-smelling gases. These processes may go on simultaneously, but more frequently take place successively in the decomposition of food, one set of organisms taking up the work of destruction as the conditions become favourable to its development and unfavourable to its predecessor. The organisms may come from the air, the soil or from animal sources. The air teems with organisms which settle and may develop when brought upon a favourable nidus; the organic matter of the soil largely consists of fungoid life; while the intestinal canal and other mucous membranes of all animals harbour bacteria, sarcinae and other organisms in countless millions. Whenever, therefore, food material is exposed to the air, or touched by the soil or by animals or man, it becomes infected with living cells, which by their development lead to its decomposition and destruction.

Fungoid organisms may be killed by heat or by chemicals; or their development may be arrested by cold, removal of water, or by the presence of agents inhibiting their growth though not destroying their life. All successful processes of food preservation depend upon one or other of these circumstances.

Preservation by Heat.—At the boiling-point of water all living cells perish, but some spores of bacteria may survive for about three hours. Few adult bacteria can live beyond 75° C. (167° F.) in the presence of water, though dry heat only kills with certainty at 140° C. (284° F.). Destruction of life takes place more rapidly in solutions showing an acid than a feebly alkaline reaction; hence acid fruit is more easily preserved than milk, which, when quite fresh, is alkaline. By cooking, therefore, food becomes temporarily sterile, until a fresh crop of organisms finds access from the air. By repeated cooking all food can be indefinitely preserved. One of the most important functions of cookery is sterilization. Civilized man unwittingly revolts against the consumption of non-sterile food, and the use of certain fungus-infected material is an inheritance from barbarous ages; few materials of animal origin are eaten raw, and in vegetables some sort of sterilizing process is attempted by washing (of salads) or removal of the outer skin (of fruits). All preparation of food for the table, cooking being the most important, tends towards preservation, but is effectual only for a few hours or days at most, unless special means are adopted to prevent reinfection. The housewife covering the jam with a thin paper soaked in brandy, or the potted meat with a thin layer of lard, attempts unconsciously to bar the road to bacteria and other minute organisms. To preserve food in a permanent manner and on a commercial scale it has to be cooked in a receptacle which must be sufficiently strong for transport, cheap, light and unattacked by the material in contact with it. None of the receptacles at present in use quite fulfils the whole of these conditions: glass and china are heavy and fragile, and their carriage is expensive; tinned iron, so-called tin-plate, is rarely quite unaffected by food materials, but owing to its strength, tenacity and cheapness, it is used on an ever-increasing scale. The sheet iron, which formerly was made of soft wrought iron, now generally consists of steel containing but very little carbon; it is cleaned by immersion in acid and covered with a very thin layer of pure tin, all excess of tin being removed by hot rollers and brushes. The layer of tin, which formerly constituted from 3 to 5% of the total weight of the plate, has, owing to the increased price of tin and the improvement in machinery, gradually become so thin that its weight is only from 1 to 3%. Not rarely, therefore, the tin-surface is imperfect, perforated or pin-holed. Tin itself is slightly attacked by all acid juices of vegetable or animal substances. With the exception of milk, all human food is slightly acid, and consequently all food that has been preserved in tin canisters contains variable traces of dissolved tin. Happily, salts of tin have but little physiological action. Nevertheless, the employment cf tin-plate for very acid materials, like tomatoes, peaches, &c., is very objectionable.

The process of preservation in canisters is carried out asfollows:—The canister, which has been made either by the use of solder or by folding machinery only, is packed with the material to be preserved, and a little water having been added to fill the interstices the lid is secured by soldering or folding, generally the former. Sterilization is effected by placing the tins in pressure chambers, which are heated by steam to 120° C. or more. The tins are exposed to that temperature for such time as experience has shown to be necessary to heat the contents throughout to at least 100° C. The temperature is then allowed to fall slowly to below the boiling-point of water, when the tins can be taken out of the pressure chamber, or they are placed in pans filled with water or a solution of calcium chloride and are therein heated till thoroughly cooked. Sometimes a small aperture is pierced through the lid, to allow of the escape of the expanding air, such holes before cooling closed by means of a drop of solder. This process, which was originally introduced by François Appert early in the 19th century, is employed on an enormous scale, especially in America. The use of lacquered tins, having the inner surface of the tin covered with a heat-resisting varnish, is gradually extending. Imperfect sterilization shows itself in many cases by gas development within the tin, which causes the ends to become convex and drummy. More frequently than not the contents of the larger tins, containing meat or other animal products, are not absolutely sterile, but the conditions are mostly such that the organisms which have survived the cooking process cannot develop. When they can develop without formation of gas dangerous products of decomposition may be produced without showing themselves to taste or smell. Numerous cases of so-called ptomaine poisoning have thus occurred; these are more frequently associated with preserved fish and lobster than with meats, although no class of preserved animal food is free from liability of ptomaine formation. The formation of poisonous substances has never been traced to preserved fruit or other material poor in nitrogen. The mode of preserving food in china or glass is quite similar, but the losses by breakage are not inconsiderable. Food which has been preserved in tins is sometimes transferred to glass and re-sterilized, the feeling against “tinned” food caused by the “Chicago scandals” not having entirely subsided. Were it not for the facts that sterilization is rarely quite perfect, and that the food attacks the tin, the contents of tin canisters ought to keep for an indefinite length of time. Under existing circumstances, however, there is a distinct limit to the age of soundness of canned food.

Preservation by Chemicals.—Salt is the oldest chemical preservative and, either alone or in conjunction with saltpetre and with wood-smoke, has been used for many centuries, mainly as a meat preservative. It is used either dry in layers strewn on the surface of the meat or fish to be preserved, or in the form of brine in which the meat is submerged or which is injected into the carcasses. The preserving power of salt is but moderate. It has the great advantage that in ordinary doses it is non-injurious, that an excess at once betrays itself in the taste, and that it can be readily removed by soaking in water. When aided by wood-smoke, which depends for its preservative power upon traces of creosote and formaldehyde, it is, however, quite efficient. The addition of saltpetre is principally for the purpose of giving to the meat a bright pink tint. The strongly saline taste of pickled meat or salted butter appears gradually to have become repugnant to a large part of mankind, and other preservatives have come into use, possessing greater bactericidal power and less taste. The serious objection attaching to them is discussed in the articleAdulteration. At the present time the use of borax or boracic acid is almost universal in England. Meat which has been exposed to the vapours of formaldehyde, and has thus been superficially sterilized, is also coming into commerce in increasing quantities. Formaldehyde in itself is distinctly poisonous, and has the property of combining with albuminoids and rendering them completely insoluble in the digestive secretions. Salicylic and benzoic acids are not infrequently used to stop fermentation of saccharine beverages or deterioration of so-called “potted meats,” which are supposed to last fresh and sweet on the consumer’s table for a considerable length of time. Sulphurous acid and sulphites are chiefly used in the preservation of thin ales, wine and fruit, and sodium fluoride has been found in butter. The whole of these substances possess decided and injurious physiological properties. Alcohol now rarely forms a preservative of food material, its employment being confined to small fruit. The use of sugar as a preservative depends upon the fact that, although in a dilute solution it is highly prone to fermentation and other decomposition, it possesses bactericidal properties when in the form of a concentrated syrup. A sugar solution containing 30% of water or less does not undergo any biological change; in the presence of organic acids, like those contained in fruit, growth of organisms is inhibited when the percentage of water is somewhat greater. Upon this fact depends the use of sugar in the manufacture of jams, marmalades and jellies. Moulds may grow on the surface of such saccharine preparations, but the interior remains unaffected and unaltered.

Preservation by Drying.—Food materials in which the percentage of moisture is small (not exceeding about 8%) are but little liable to bacterial growths, at most to the attacks of innocentPenicillium. Nature preserves the germs in seeds and nuts, which are laden with otherwise decomposable food material, by the simple expedient of water removal. The life of cereal grains and many seeds appears to be unlimited. By the removal of water the most perishable materials, like meat or eggs, can be rendered unchangeable, except so far as the inevitable oxidation of the fatty substances contained in them is concerned and which is independent of life-action. The drying of meat, upon which a generation ago inventors bestowed a great deal of attention, has become almost obsolete, excepting for comparatively small articles or animals, like ox tongues or tails and fish. It has been superseded even among less civilized communities by the spread of canned food. Fruit, however, is very largely preserved in the dried state. Grapes are sun-dried and thus form currants, raisins and sultanas, the last variety being often bleached by the addition of sulphites. Plums, apples and pears are artificially dried in ovens on wooden battens or on wire sieves; from the latter they are apt to become contaminated with notable quantities of zinc. Excellent preparations of dried vegetables, including potatoes, carrots, onions, French beans and cabbages, are also manufactured.

The utilization of meat in the form of meat extract belongs to some extent to this class of preserved foods. Its origin is due to J. von Liebig and Max von Pettenkofer, and dates from the middle of the 19th century. The soluble material is extracted mainly from beef, in Australia to some extent from mutton, by means of warm water; the albumen is coagulated by heat and removed, and the broths thus obtained are evaporatedin vacuountil the extract contains no more than about 20% of water. One pound of extract is obtained from about 25 ℔ of lean beef.

Preservation by Refrigeration.—At or below the freezing-point of water fungoid organisms are incapable of growth and multiplication. Although it has been asserted that many of them perish when kept for some time in the frozen condition, it is certain that the vast majority of bacteria and their germs remain merely dormant. Even so highly organized structures as cereal seeds do not suffer in vitality on being kept for a considerable length of time at the far lower temperature of liquid air. Biological change is, therefore, arrested at freezing-point, and as long as that temperature is maintained food material remains unaltered, except for physical changes depending upon the evaporation of water and of volatile flavouring matters, or chemical alterations due to oxidation.

Refrigeration, therefore, affords the means of keeping for a reasonably long time, and without the addition of any preservative substance, food in a raw condition. It is the only process of preservation which from a sanitary point of view is entirely unobjectionable as ordinarily and properly employed. Its introduction on a commercial scale has more powerfully affected the economic conditions of England and, to a less degree,of the United States than any other scientific advance since the establishment of railways and steamboats. Enormous quantities of frozen carcasses, butter, fruit, vegetables and fish are introduced in the fresh condition into Great Britain and stored until required. Extreme fluctuations of supply or of price have become almost impossible, and the abundance of Australian and New Zealand ranches, and of West Indian orchards, has been made readily accessible to the British consumer. For household purposes cooling in ice-chests or ice-chambers suffices to preserve food on a comparatively small scale. The ice used for the purpose comes, to a small extent, from natural sources, stored from the winter or imported from northern countries; a far larger quantity is artificially produced by the methods described in the article onRefrigerating, which also contains an account of the means by which low temperatures are produced for industrial purposes of importation and storage. Fleets of steamships fitted with refrigerating machinery and insulated cold-rooms are employed in carrying the food materials, which are deposited in cold-stores at docks, warehouses, markets and hotels. The first cargo of frozen meat was shipped in July 1873 from Melbourne, but arrived in October in an unsatisfactory state. In 1875-1876 sound frozen meat came from America. The first cargo of frozen meat was successfully brought to the United Kingdom in 1880 from Australia in the “Strathleven,” fitted with a Bell-Coleman air machine. The temperature in the cold-storage rooms is generally kept near 34° F., whilst in the chilling chambers a somewhat lower, and in the freezing room or chambers a much lower temperature (between 0° and 10° F.) is maintained. The carcasses to be frozen should be cooled slowly at first to ensure even freezing throughout and to prevent damage by the unequal expansion of the outer layer of ice. The carcasses when freezing must be hung separated from each other, but for storage or transportation they are packed tightly together. Fish such as salmon is washed, thoroughly cleansed, and frozen on trays. Butter should be cooled as rapidly as possible to about 10° F.; its composition as regards proportion of volatile fatty-acids, &c., remains absolutely unaltered for years. Cheese should only be cold-stored when nearly ripe and should not be frozen. Eggs must be carefully selected, each one being inspected by candle-light. They are placed in cases holding about three hundred, which are taken first to a room in which they are slowly cooled to about 33° F., and are then kept in store just below freezing-point. Particular attention must be paid to the relative humidity of the air in egg stores. Fruit should be quite fresh; grapes may be chilled to 26° F., while lemons cannot safely be kept at a lower temperature than 36°. The time during which soft fruit can be kept even in cold-store is limited, and does not exceed about six weeks.

In the early days of the chilled-meat trade considerable prejudice existed against stored meat. While in many cases the flavour of fresh meat is rather superior, the food value is in no way altered by cold-storage.1

Preservation by Pickling other than Salt.—For the preservation of vegetables, vinegar or other solution of acetic acid is used to a limited extent. Eggs are submerged in lime-water or a dilute solution of sodium silicate (soluble glass). During the storage of eggs the more aqueous white of egg yields by endosmosis a portion of its water to the more concentrated yolk, which thereby expands and renders its thin containing-membrane liable to rupture. Fish, such as sardines, sprats and salmon, is preserved by packing in olive or other oil.

The preservation of the most important dairy product, namely, milk, deserves a separate notice. It has already been stated that alkaline liquids, like milk, are more difficult to sterilize by heat than acid materials. In consequence of the alteration in flavour which milk undergoes by long continued boiling, and of the fact that milk forms perhaps the best medium for the growth and propagation of bacterial organisms, there is exceptional difficulty in its sterilization. As secreted by a healthy cow it is a perfectly sterile fluid, and, as shown by Sir J. Lister, when drawn under aseptic conditions and kept under such, it remains definitely fresh and sweet. Bacterial and other pollution at the time of milking arises from the animal, the stable, the milker and the vessels. In animals suffering from tuberculosis and other bacterial affections the milk may be infected within the udder. Milk as it reaches the consumer rarely contains less than 50,000 bacteria and often many millions per cubic centimetre. In fresh country cream 100 millions per cubic centimetre are not unusual. These bacteria are of many kinds, some of them spore-bearing. The spores are more difficult to kill than the adult organism. The first step towards preservation is the removal of the dirt unavoidably present, to the particles of which a considerable proportion of the bacteria adhere. Filtration through cloths or, better, the passing of the milk through centrifugals effects that removal. Subsequent treatment is preferably preceded by a breaking-up of the larger fat-globules by the projection of a jet of the milk under high pressures against a steel or agate plate, a process known as homogenizing. From homogenized milk the cream separates slowly, and does not form the coherent layer thrown up by ordinary milk. Heating is then effected either after bottling or by passing the milk continuously through pipes in which it is heated to from 160° to 170° F. By a repetition of the heating process on two or more succeeding days, complete sterilization may be effected, although a single treatment is sufficient to render the milk stable for a few days. Many forms of pasteurizing apparatus for milk are in use. Since the general introduction of pasteurization of the skim-milk used in Denmark for the feeding of calves and pigs, tuberculosis in these animals has practically disappeared. On the continent of Europe the use of sterilized milk is now very general. In England it has found little favour in households, but is making rapid progress on board ship.

Milk which has been condensed has for many years found a most extensive sale. The first efforts to condense and thus preserve milk date from 1835, when an English patent was granted to Newton. In 1849 C.N. Horsford prepared condensed milk with the addition of lactose. Commercially successful milk condensation began in 1856. The milk is heated to about 180° F. and filled into large copper vacuum pans, after having been mixed with from 10 to 12 parts of sugar per 100 parts of milk. Evaporation takes place in the pans at about 122° F., and is carried on till the milk is boiled down to such concentration that 100 parts of the condensed milk, including the sugar, contain the solids of 300 parts of milk. Sweetened condensed milk, although rarely quite sterile, keeps indefinitely, and is invariably brought into commerce in tin canisters. The preparation of sweetened condensed milk forms one of the most important branches of manufacture in Switzerland and is steadily increasing in England. Although milk can quite well be preserved in the form of condensed unsweetened milk, which dietetically possesses immense advantages over the sweetened milk in which the balance between carbohydrates and albuminoids is very unfavourable, such unsweetened milk has found little or no favour. Milk powder is manufactured under various patents, the most successful of which depends upon the addition of sodium bicarbonate and the subsequent rapid evaporation of the milk on steam-heated revolving iron cylinders. Milk powder made from skim-milk keeps well for considerable periods, but full-cream milk develops rancid or tallowy flavours by the oxidation of the finely divided butter-fat. It is largely employed in the preparation of so-called milk chocolates.

(O. H.*)

1Per contra, see the article by Mary E. Pennington in theYear-book for 1907(1908) of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, pp. 197-206, with illustrations of chickens kept in cold storage for two and three years. The results there shown cast considerable doubt on the efficiency of even refrigeration so far as an “indefinite” period is concerned; and it is suggested that the consumption of frozen meat may really account for various modern diseases.

FOOL(O. Fr.fol, modernfou, foolish, from a Late Latin use offollis, bellows, a ball filled with air, for a stupid person, a jester, a wind-bag), a buffoon or jester.

The class of professional fools or jesters, which reached its culminating point of influence and recognized place and function in the social organism during the middle ages, appears to have existed in all times and countries. Not only have there alwaysbeen individuals naturally inclined and endowed to amuse others; there has been besides in most communities a definite class, the members of which have used their powers or weaknesses in this direction as a regular means of getting a livelihood. Savage jugglers, medicine-men, and even priests, have certainly much in common with the jester by profession. There existed in ancient Greece a distinct class of professed fools whose habits were not essentially different from those of the jesters of the middle ages. Of the behaviour of one of these, named Philip, Xenophon has given a picturesque account in theBanquet. Philip of Macedon is said to have possessed a court fool, and certainly these (as well as court poets and court philosophers, with whom they have sometimes been not unreasonably confounded) were common in a number of the petty courts at that era of civilization.Scurraeandmorioneswere the Roman parallels of the medieval witty fool; and during the empire the manufacture of human monstrosities was a regular practice, slaves of this kind being much in request to relieve the languid hours. The jester again has from time immemorial existed at eastern courts. Witty stories are told of Bahalul (seeD’Herbelot, s.v.) the jester of Harun al-Reshid, which have long had a place in Western fiction. On the conquest of Mexico court fools and deformed human creatures of all kinds were found at the court of Montezuma. But that monarch no doubt hit upon one great cause of the favour of monarchs for this class when he said that “more instruction was to be gathered from them than from wiser men, for they dared to tell the truth.” Douce, in his essayOn the Clowns and Fools of Shakespeare, has made a ninefold division of English fools, according to quality and place of employment, as the domestic fool, the city or corporation fool, the tavern fool, the fool of the mysteries and moralities. The last is generally called the “vice,” and is the original of the stage clowns so common among the dramatists of the time of Elizabeth, and who embody so much of the wit of Shakespeare. A very palpable classification is that which distinguishes between such creatures as were chosen to excite to laughter from some deformity of mind or body, and such as were so chosen for a certain (to all appearance generally very shallow) alertness of mind and power of repartee,—or briefly, butts and wits. The dress of the regular court fool of the middle ages was not altogether a rigid uniform. To judge from the prints and illuminations which are the sources of our knowledge on this matter, it seems to have changed considerably from time to time. The head was shaved, the coat was motley, and the breeches tight, with generally one leg different in colour from the other. The head was covered with a garment resembling a monk’s cowl, which fell over the breast and shoulders, and often bore asses’ ears, and was crested with a cockscomb, while bells hung from various parts of the attire. The fool’s bauble was a short staff bearing a ridiculous head, to which was sometimes attached an inflated bladder, by means of which sham castigations were effected. A long petticoat was also occasionally worn, but seems to have belonged rather to the idiots than to the wits.

The fool’s business was to amuse his master, to excite him to laughter by sharp contrast, to prevent the over-oppression of state affairs, and, in harmony with a well-known physiological precept, by his liveliness at meals to assist his lord’s digestion. The names and the witticisms of many of the official jesters at the courts of Europe have been preserved by popular or state records. In England the list is long between Hitard, the fool of Edmund Ironside, and Muckle John, the fool of Charles I., and probably the last official royal fool of England. Many are remembered from some connexion with general or literary history. Scogan was attached to Edward IV., and later was published a collection of poor jests ascribed to him, to which Andrew Boorde’s name was attached, but without authority.

Will Sommers, of the time of Henry VIII., seems to have been a kind-hearted as well as a witty man, and occasionally used his influence with the king for good and charitable purposes. Armin, who, in hisNest of Ninnies, gives a full description of Sommers, and introduces many popular fools, says of him—

“Only this much, he was a poor man’s friend.And helpt the widow often in her end.The king would ever grant what he would crave.For well he knew Will no exacting knave.”

“Only this much, he was a poor man’s friend.

And helpt the widow often in her end.

The king would ever grant what he would crave.

For well he knew Will no exacting knave.”

The literature of the period immediately succeeding his death is full of allusions to Will Sommers.

Richard Tarleton, famous as a comic actor, cannot be omitted from any list of jesters. A book of Tarleton’s Jests was published in 1611, and, together with hisNews out of Purgatory, was reprinted by Halliwell Phillips for the Shakespeare Society in 1844. Archie Armstrong, for a too free use of wit and tongue against Laud, lost his office and was banished the court. The conduct of the archbishop against the poor fool is not the least item of the evidence which convicts him of a certain narrow-mindedness and pettiness. In French history, too, the figure of the court-jester flits across the gay or sombre scene at times with fantastic effect. Caillette and Triboulet are well-known characters of the times of Francis I. Triboulet appears in Rabelais’s romance, and is the hero of Victor Hugo’sLe Roi s’amuse, and, with some changes, of Verdi’s operaRigoletto; while Chicot, the lithe and acute Gascon, who was so close a friend of Henry III., is portrayed with considerable justness by Dumas in hisDame de Monsoreau. In Germany Rudolph of Habsburg had his Pfaff Cappadox, Maximilian I. his Kunz von der Rosen (whose features, as well as those of Will Sommers, have been preserved by the pencil of Holbein), and many a petty court its jester after jester.

Late in the 16th century appearedLe Sottilissime Astuzie di Bertoldo, which is one of the most remarkable books ever written about a jester. It is by Giulio Cesare Croce, a street musician of Bologna, and is a comic romance giving an account of the appearance at the court of Alboin king of the Lombards of a peasant wonderful in ugliness, good sense and wit. The book was for a time the most popular in Italy. A great number of editions and translations appeared, and it was even versified. Though fiction, both the character and the career of Bertoldo are typical of the jester. That the private fool existed as late as the 18th century is proved by Swift’s epitaph on Dicky Pearce, the earl of Suffolk’s jester.

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