236 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
an ounce to the pound), which is readily digested, and which 
freely furnishes bodily warmth, and fat. With such a view 
doctors now likewise advise Dates for consumptive patients ; 
moreover, by their mucilage these serve to soothe an irritable 
chest, and to promote expectoration ; again, they tend to obviate 
a costive state of the bowels. The Arabs say that Adam, when 
expelled from Paradise, took with him three things—the Date 
(chief of all fruits), the Myrtle, and an ear of Wheat for seed. 
Those Dates which surpass all others in general excellence, are 
grown with much care at Tafilat, inland from Morocco. Dates 
of a second quality are brought from Tunis, intermixed with 
fragments of stalk, and branch; whilst the inferior sorts come 
in the form of a cake, or paste, being pressed into baskets. 
Dates will as a food prevent exhaustion, and will help to keep 
active the energies of mind, and body. The fruit should be 
selected when large and soft, being moist, and of a reddish- 
yellow colour outside, and not much wrinkled, whilst having 
within a white membrane between the flesh and the stone. 
In a clever parody on Bret Harte’s ‘“ Heathen Chinee,” an 
undergraduate at one of the Universities is detected in having 
surreptitiously primed himself before examination thus :— 
* Inscribed on his cuffs were the Furies and Fates, 
With a delicate map of the Dorian States ; 
Whilst they found in his palms, which were hollow, 
What are common in Palms, namely, dates.” 
A conserve is prepared by the Egyptians from unripe Dates, 
whole, with sugar; the soft stones, being then edible, are 
included ; and this jam, though comparatively tasteless, is very 
nourishing. Oriental writers have attributed to the Date Palm 
a certain semi-human consciousness. The carbohydrate of 
Dates is almost solely sugar. Half a pound of the fruit, and 
half a pint of new milk, will make an ample satisfying repast for 
a person engaged in sedentary work. An ounce of Dates 
contains twenty-seven grains of proteid (primary food-elements). 
In Arabia milch cows, and donkeys, are fed with unripe Dates 
boiled down with the ground stones, and with fish-bones. For 
Date-bread, which is nutritious, and gently laxative: ‘* Break 
the Dates apart, wash, and drain them in a colander; shake 
them well, and set them in a warm place to dry. Stone, and 
chop enough to make a cupful, and knead into a loaf of white, 
or brown bread, just before setting it to rise for the last time.” 
