TWO SCIENTIFIC WORTHIES. 85 



the diet of a Charles V ? Is the art of cooking so far advanced 

 that we are no longer obliged to cover up taint with aromatics ? 

 But after answering such questions, and after making allowance 

 for changes in taste, it is a striking fact that spices should at any 

 time have entered into questions of state policies. 



As an antithesis to an active life Herrick says of a rustic 

 hero : 



Thou never plow'st the ocean's foam 



To seek and bring- roug-h pepper home, 



Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove 



To bring from thence the scorched clove. 



Was not the zest to control spice due to its use, not as a condi- 

 ment as it is with us, but as a preservative ? Ice appears to have 

 had a small place in preserving perishable articles. Salt is a 

 coarse agent and impairs both the flavor and digestibility of food 

 when used in sufficient quantity to arrest decomposition, and with 

 the exception of the olive is not applicable to fruits. Spices are 

 highly antiseptic. Oil of cloves is used by microscopists in pre- 

 serving sections of tissue. Oil of cinnamon is one of the most 

 valuable antiseptics in the modern materia medica. Spices in- 

 crease the preservative power of sugar, an article of luxury in the 

 middle ages and far out of the reach of the masses. If this view 

 of the importance of spices be conceded, we can understand their 

 value as something over and above their use to improve a defect- 

 ive cuisine, increase flavor, and add variety to diet. We must 

 also remember that while the attempts to find new routes to 

 the Spice Islands by sailing west failed, the early voyagers dis- 

 covered in the American tropics vast tracts of arable land which 

 were adapted to the growing of many of the spices; they also 

 succeeded in bringing to the European market new condiments 

 in capsicum and allspice. Besides this, rapid transportation 

 places fresh fruit early in the market, and the discoveries of 

 chemistry have done away with the necessity of resorting to 

 spices for preservatives, benzoic acid alone supplanting most of 

 them in the keeping of vegetable products. Thus geographical 

 and chemical sciences have brought about changes in national 

 policy. 



While no future administrator is likely to repeat the experience 

 of a Raffles in giving excuse for European control of the Spice 

 Islands, the role that he played was one but little less in impor- 

 tance to the East (especially in Java) than that of the Dutch 

 administrators who preceded and followed him. 



Raffles secured Singapore in 1818, and thus transferred to Brit- 

 ish interests the waters by which the best passage from the Indian 

 seas to the Pacific Ocean is possible. His opportunity came with 

 the Napoleonic wars, by which the loss of Holland to the French 



