APPLE. 51 
neutralize acid products of indigestion, or gout. The common 
source of the term Apple in all its forms has been attributed to 
the Latin “* Abella,” a town in Campania, where fruit trees 
abound, and which is therefore styled “ malifera,” or apple- 
bearing, by Virgil. 
The acids of Apples (malic and tartaric) are of signal use for 
men of sedentary habits whose livers are torpid ; they serve to 
eliminate from the body noxious matters which would, if 
retained, make the brain heavy and dull, or would produce 
jaundice, or perhaps eruptions on the skin. Some such an 
experience has led to our taking Apple-sauce with roast pork, 
roast goose, and similar rich dishes. Two or three Apples eaten 
at night, either baked, or raw, or taken with breakfast, are useful 
against constipation. ‘‘ They do easily and speedily pass 
through the belly ; therefore they do mollify the belly.” A dish 
of stewed Apples eaten three times daily has worked wonders 
in cases of confirmed drunkenness, giving the person eventually 
an absolute distaste for alcohol, in whatever form. A certain 
aromatic principle is possessed by the Apple on which its particular 
flavour depends, this being a fragrant essential oil, the ‘“ valeri- 
anate of amyl,” which occurs in a small but appreciable quantity. 
The analysis of cider (fermented apple-juice) shows the presence 
therein of salicylic acid, formalin, malic acid, and other chemical 
constituents. 
The digestion of a ripe, raw Apple occupies only eighty-five 
minutes, whilst the malic acid of such fruit, cooked, or raw, will 
help to digest meat in the stomach, as likewise the casein of 
sound cheese. “ Bearing in mind our first Mother Eve, and the 
forbidden fruit as the beginning of all our mortal woes, the 
apple, according to the law of similars, ought homeopathically 
to be the cure for original sin” (Mark Guy Pearse). 
Sour Apples should be chosen for cooking, and must not be 
sliced too thin, else the juice runs out, and. they become 
tough. In not a few cases the dried apple-rings of to-day have 
been deprived beforehand of their fresh juices by immersion 
in a water-bath after paring, coring, and slicing the fruit. 
These juices are made into independent Apple jelly; and the 
“ snitz,” or pulp, into the evaporated “apple rings.” In Jane 
Austen’s novel, Emma (1816), we learn that it was customary 
then, as a social English refection, to serve baked Apples during 
afternoon calls by visitors in the country. ‘‘ Dear Jane,” said 
