75 
or 25 years ago was a regular plague, as it would strike down 25 or 30 
men in a shanty composed of 40 individuals. 
Nowadays, we meet almost every spring with a certain number of 
cases, but it has become a good deal less common, and shows a tendency 
to disappear. What is the cause ot this consoling diminution ? For- 
merly, our forests, so rich in wood, were poor in settlers. Food in- 
tended for the shantymen was exclusively bought in cities, and consisted 
of salt pork and beans. As clearings allowed settlers to establish them- 
selves, farms were created on almost every limit. On these farmsj 
vegetables are being cultivated, especially potatoes, with which the 
shantymen can easily be supplied for their alimentation. Those who 
are to-day the victims of scurvy are those who winter in the remotest 
parts, away from established settlements. Do you know to what treat- 
ment we subject these unfortunate patients suffering from black-leg ? 
We actually stuff them with potatoes and other fresh vegetables, and in 
a few weeks they are perfectly cured. 
The general opinion to-day is that scurvy proceeds from the priva" 
tion of vegetables, and that these vegetables posess anti-scorbutic 
properties, owing to the salts of potassium they contain. Here it is 
curious enough to remark, that these salts of potassium exist in veget- 
ables in a special chemical state which causes all their efficacy. In fact, 
mutton contains by ounce 0.846 of salts of potash, and besides, you 
are aware that the pork destined to shantymen is generally salted with 
nitrate of potash. Still, in spite of this alimentation, scurvy soon 
appears. What can be the reason of this apparent contradiction ? 
Here it is : Salts of potash in food, as all the mineral salts, must 
be introduced on determinate chemical forms in order that these prin- 
ciples may be fixed in sufficient quantity by the functions of assimila- 
tion. Thus, phosphate, nitrate of potash, and chloride of potassium 
traverse the whole system, and are expelled almost entire through the 
excretions and secretions of the body. These salts are stable. On the 
contrary, in a combination of potassium with an organic acid, such as 
the citrates, nitrates and tartrates, the organic acid is decomposed^ 
giving up carbonic acid, and the economy finding itself in posession of 
a salt of little stability, nutrition takes up and utilizes its base. Fresh 
green vegetables contain potash combined with organic acids, which 
