130 MEALS’ MEDICINAL. 
' Bread-and-Butter is the reputed food of adolescence. ‘“‘ She’s 
but a bread-and-butter Miss.”” Anthony Trollope, in Barchester 
- Towers, talks of the “ wishy-washy bread and butter period of 
life.’ ‘‘ Crawling at your feet,” said the Gnat to Alice (Through 
the Looking Glass), “‘ you may observe a Bread and Butter Fly ; 
its wings are thin slices of bread and butter, its body is crust, 
and its head is a lump of sugar ; it lives on weak tea, with cream 
in it.’— 
“ The fav’rite child that just begins to prattle, 
And throws away his silver bells, and rattle, | 
Is very humoursome, and makes great clutter! 
Unless appeased with frequent bread and butter.” 
A curious piece of folk-lore finds credence in South Maryland. 
It is gravely stated there, that if the mother of twin children will 
spread with Butter a piece of bread for a boy, or girl suffering 
from whooping cough, the little one, on eating this specially 
endowed food, will be speedily cured. Two sons of the State 
Governor’s wife are twins, and recently various anxious mothers 
have been appealing to the lady of the Executive Mansion, 
both in season and out of season, for her good offices in this 
direction. No social function is too important for the applicants 
to forego their importunities. The doorkeeper is continually 
bringing in solicitations for pieces of bread buttered by the said 
lady. She is too kind-hearted to refuse; so the Ggvernor’s 
wife, after the fashion of Charlotte in Thackeray’s version of 
the Sorrows of Werther :— 
“ Like a well-conducted person 
Goes on cutting bread and butter.” 
Not a few invalids of sensitive digestion find they cannot eat 
ordinary shop Butter without subsequent disturbance of the liver ; 
and the probable reason is that microbes have become developed 
therein, or their mischievous toxins are engendered ; whereas 
the same delicate persons can eat a fair quantity of the day’s 
dairy Butter, absolutely fresh, without incurring a disturbed 
digestion some eight or ten hours afterwards. 
_ Professor Koch, of Berlin, has sagaciously told people, as a 
point worthy of thoughtful notice, that whilst being so nervous 
about milk, they forget Butter, in which bacilli (of fever, con- 
sumption, and other diseases) are equally likely to be nurtured. 
Nevertheless, so commonly given to the consumption of bread and 
