BEAN. 83 
if properly managed, there will be just sufficient to moisten the 
bread crumbs. The sugar contained in Haricot Beans is phasio- 
mannite, identical with sugar as found in flesh-meat, and in 
brain tissue; in the presence of salt this develops lactic acid, 
as in sour milk, or meat which has been hung. It is termed 
““inosite,”” such as abounds regularly in the human brain. Un- 
questionably, therefore, this is a food for the brain, and should be 
conserved in the bean food by preventing its loss in cooking ; for 
which reason green beans should never be boiled, but stewed, so 
as to retain all their immediate principles chemically available. 
Dr. Krost, of Cleveland, U.S., tells about a case which troubled 
him much, of an elderly steamboat Captain, who had greatly 
exceeded with tobacco, mainly in chewing, and had been under 
medical treatment in a sanatorium, for rheumatism, but had lately 
suffered many a bad quarter of an hour through heart distress. 
Dr. Cushing, of Massachusetts, on being consulted, said, instantly, 
* T will give him a graft of my Phaseolus nanus, and if that doesn’t 
help him I am very much mistaken.”” When Dr. Krost returned 
with the wonderful remedy, it had happened that meanwhile 
the old Captain had been attacked with several smothering 
spells, and was once given up for lost. The Doctor hurried to 
his side with the nostrum, and became astonished to find that 
within a few hours the sick man was able to get about again 
comfortably, declaring that he could now “ lie on either side” 
(like an expert attorney). And what was this Phaseolus nanus ? 
Dr. Cushing had been experimenting as to the medicinal effects 
of the common white kidney Bean. In his trial with it on 
himself, he had become nearly suffocated, and his heart gave 
him all forms of anxiety. These were the leading symptoms, 
upon the strength of which some pellets prepared from the said 
Bean were administered thus successfully to the Captain. 
A dish of dry Beans, soaked overnight, then boiled, and served 
with hot olive oil poured over them, is the regular main meal of 
many a poor family in Southern Italy. Our English Cottager 
teaches to “‘ gather your runner Beans whilst they be straight,” 
which is an old piece of rustic wisdom, founded on the fact learnt 
by experience, that as the pods become large, and old, they grow 
curly in shape, and tough. Beans, when bruised, and boiled 
with garlic, have been known to cure obstinate coughs which 
had defied other remedies. In Adam Bede, by George Eliot, 
we read of Alec eating broad Beans with his penknife, and finding 
