328 OYSTERS, AND ALL ABOUT THEM. 



created and am sustained in being ?" And let the reply be 

 the guide of our future steps. ( /") 



But the oyster was also formerly used externally as a 

 remedy, no less than taken internally for its medicinal 

 properties. Its very abundance is a clear proof of the 

 bounty and goodness of Providence, furnishing us, at one 

 and the same time, with such delicious food, and so uni- 

 versal a remedy for the ills which man is heir to. 



AmbroisePare, physician to Charles IX., and the only 

 Protestant whom the King sought to save from the terrible 

 massacre of St. Bartholomew, by shutting him up in his 

 own closet, recommends oysters smashed in their shells 

 as an excellent poultice. " This animal, so used," says he, 

 " diminishes pain, and removes all heat and inflammation 

 in a remarkable manner." As the opinion of one of whom 

 the King himself declared that " a man so useful to all the 

 world ought not to perish like a dog," it may be admitted 

 to a place in my book, more particularly as it is borne out 

 by Paul Egona, who also recommends oysters being 

 smashed and saturated with their own liquor as the very 

 best of all poultices for sores or boils. 



Let me, in closing this chapter, add a few words on 

 the digestibility of the oyster from a medical point of 

 view. 



In a Lecture delivered to the Training School for 

 Nurses, at the Episcopal Hospital, Philadelphia, Dr. 

 Frederick P. Henry (g) said: . . "There is, at least, 

 one article of food that is rendered less digestible by cook- 

 ing, and that is the oyster. You may remember that, in 

 my last lecture, in speaking of the destination of starch, I 



(/} "Adventures of an Oyster." 



(g) Physician to the Episcopal, Philadelphia, and Jefferson College 



Hospitals. 



