202 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
of food may be compared to feeding a fire with straw, instead of 
with slower burning coal. Thus is it also with human digestion, 
our highly-prepared and highly-cooked food requires in those per- 
sons who are healthy, and vigorous, that the digestive fires shall 
be damped down in order to ensure the economical use of food ; 
a slow digestion being quite a different thing from an imperfect 
digestion. The practice of the Irish peasant to underboil his 
potato so as to ‘ leave a stone,’ as it is said, ‘ in the middle of it,’ 
and the practice of the Scotch peasant to underboil his oatmeal, 
making his brose by simply pouring boiling water on the meal— 
both these processes are designed to enable the meal to stay 
the stomach for a sufficiently long period.” 
Admirers of the Jewish mode of cooking claim for this a great 
wholesomeness, and adaptability to a weak digestion; and it 
is certainly worthy of note that Christian children do not 
compare favourably with the Jewish in healthiness, longevity, 
and the power to resist disease. Their (Jewish) meat is most 
minutely inspected to ensure its cleanliness, and healthiness ; 
its slaughterer must be a practised hand, and make use only of 
the keenest weapons, as any bruising, or lacerating of the wound 
inflicted, renders the meat unfit for consumption. When forming 
combinations of their food they never mix milk, or its products, 
with meat; to do which would be regarded by them as a breach 
of the precept, ‘‘ Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s 
milk ;” the principle being that food killed by violence shall 
not be mixed with that which is rendered up peaceably ; such 
a mixture is an abomination! Some persons who suffer from 
faulty digestion, having tried the Jewish system, affirm that it 
suits them much better, because mixed foods are disallowed ; 
so that healthier blood is made, and the whole vital system is 
purer (A. Blyth, 1884). Also, by the Jews a strict examination 
of the animal slaughtered for food is made straightway after its 
death, with the view of discovering whether anything was amiss 
with its condition of health before it was killed ; and many are 
the laws, and tests laid down by the Rabbis to this end, which 
is not by any means a mere formality. Thus, of the 21,000 
sheep which were slain in the second half year of 1900, no 
fewer than 6,000 were rejected as not wholly sound. and there- 
fore not “kosher” ; and the same strict precautions are taken 
with respect to other animals. ‘‘ But what becomes of all 
these rejected animals?” asked a representative of Cassell's 
