Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages: Including a System of Vegetable Cookery

and indigestible. Besides, they are much used, as condiments are, to excite or provoke an appetite--a thing usually wrong. A feeble appetite, say at the opening of the spring, however common, is a great blessing. If let alone, nature will erelong set to rights those things, which have gone wrong perhaps all winter; and then appetite will return in a natural way. But the worst thing about greens, salads, and some other things, is, they are eaten with vinegar. Vinegar and all substances, I must again say, which resist or retard putrefaction, retard also the work of digestion. It is a universal law, and ought to be known as such, that whatever tends to preserve our food--except perhaps ice and the air-pump--tends also to interfere with the great work of digestion. Hence, all pickling, salting, boiling down, sweetening, etc., are objectionable. Pereira says, "By drying, salting, smoking, and pickling, the digestibility of fish is greatly impaired;" and this, except as regards _drying_, is but the common doctrine. It should, however, be applied generally as well as to fish. FOOTNOTES: [25] Formerly called Graham meal. [26] I shall use these terms indiscriminately, as they mean in practice the same thing. [27] Both these processes are patented in Great Britain. The bread thus retains its sweetness--no waste of its saccharine matter, and no residuum except muriate of soda or common salt. Sesquicarbonate of soda is made of three parts or atoms of the carbonic acid, and two of the soda. [28] Keep butter and all greasy substances away from every preparation of food which belongs to this division--especially from green peas, beans, corn, etc. [29] Some prepare them, and soak them in water over the night. [30] In general, the appetites of the sick are taken away by design. In such cases there should be none of the usual forms of indulgence. A little bread--the crust is best--is the most proper indulgence. If, however, the appetite is raging, as in a convalescent state it sometimes is, puddings and even gruel may be proper, because they busy the stomach without giving it any