64 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
chemical properties of asparagus are acetate of potash, phosphate 
of potash, and mannite, with wax, and the green resinous 
asparagin. The shrubby stalks of the plant bear red, coral-like 
berries, which yield when ripe, grape-sugar, and spargancin. 
At Aix-les-Bains the eating of Asparagus forms part of the 
curative treatment for rheumatic gout. This vegetable was 
formerly known in England as “ paddock cheese ?—A syrup 
thereof is employed medicinally in France; taken at the evening 
meal asparagus conduces to sleep. 
“Your infant pease t’ asparagus prefer, 
Which to the supper you may best defer.” 
The water in which Asparagus is cooked will serve to do good 
against rheumatism, though somewhat disagreeable to drink. 
Asparagin, which is technically amido-succinamic acid (being 
contained likewise in the potato) is of no direct nutritive value, 
but it plays a useful part, when taken dietetically, v-ithin the 
intestines, by limiting putrescent changes, and so promoting 
fuller digestion. 
“ Nothing,” writes John Evelyn in his Book of Salads, “ next 
to flesh is more nourishing than Asparagus, but in this country 
we overboil them, and dispel their volatile salts ; the water should 
boil before they are put in.” A salad of cold boiled Asparagus 
was an early English way of serving this vegetable. Gerarde 
advised that “Asparagus should be sodden in flesh broth, 
and eaten, or boiled in fair water, then seasoned with oil, 
pepper, and vinegar, being served up as a salad.” This 
vegetable may fairly be given in diabetes, with a hope of its 
doing specific good. Though not producing actual sucrose in 
the urine when eaten freely by a healthy person, yet it forms, 
and excretes therein a substance which answers to the 
reactions observed by physicians if testing for sugar (except 
as to the fermentation test). The peculiar fixed principle 
asparagin, whilst stimulating the kidneys, and imparting a 
particular strong smell to the urine, after partaking of the shoots, 
exercises at the same time by the green resin with which it is 
combined, gentle sedative effects on the heart, becalming nervous 
palpitation of that organ. This asparagin occurs in crystals 
which may be reduced to powder, one grain whereof, when given 
three times a day, proves useful for relieving dropsy from diffi- 
culties of the heart. The same can be got likewise from the 
Toots of liquorice, and marsh-mallow. Asparagus grows wild 
