118 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
and presently the sugar grows darker and darker in colour until 
it is charred black, and becomes on the outside “ caramel,” 
which possesses disinfecting properties. Similarly, when bread 
is toasted, its starch is converted by the fire into dextrin, water 
being driven off, and the dextrin is carbonized, or burnt brown 
into “caramel,” nearly identical with that of sugar. The toast, 
therefore, has likewise disinfecting properties, and when soaked 
in water makes this toast-water antiseptic, so that its adminis- 
tration in fever, and other septic diseases is a practically scientific 
proceeding. ‘‘ Our forefathers and foremothers,” says Mattieu 
Williams, “probably made this discovery through empirical 
experience when living in country places where stagnant water 
was a common beverage, and various devices were tried for 
making it drinkable. When toast-water is prepared by toasting 
a small piece of bread to blackness, and letting this float on water 
in a glass vessel, an observer can notice that little thread-like 
streams of brown liquid are descending from the bread into the 
water. They denote a solution of the caramel substance, which 
ultimately proceeds to tinge all the water. It is in just the same 
way that meat, or game, which is high before being cooked, 
becomes, if roasted, or baked, similarly carbonized, and browned 
outside, and thus made sweet.” 
To cook food au gratin means that the substance is covered 
with fine bread-crumb, so as to absorb the gravy thereof. 
“ Gratins ” were originally the browned parts of cooked rice. 
The French dishes “ au gratin” signify soups, or sauces consoli- 
dated by dry heat round spongy objects, such as crusts of bread. 
When the great Duke of Wellington returned to Dover in 1814, 
after an absence abroad for six years, the first order he gave 
at the “Ship Inn” was for an unlimited supply of buttered 
toast. Moore’s pathetic lines, (in The Fire Worshippers, 1839)— 
‘* | never nursed a dear gazelle, 
To glad me with its soft black eye, 
But when it came to know me well, 
And love me, it was sure to die,” 
have been adroitly parodied thus— 
** T never took a piece of toast, 
Particularly long, and wide, 
But fell upon the sanded floor, 
And always on its buttered side.” 
_ It is aptly said, “‘ An epicure can breakfast well with fine bread 
