GELATIN. 331 
a delicious haut godt to most meats they eat, as tasted, and smelt 
in their sauce, though not seen therein.” The old Greeks, in 
their fastidious refinement detested garlic. It is true the Attic 
husbandmen ate it from remote times, probably in part to drive 
away by its odour venomous creatures from assailing them; but 
persons who partook of it were not allowed to enter the temples 
of Cybele. Horace, among the Romans, was made ill by eating 
garlic at the table of Meecenas, and he afterwards (Epode the 
third) reviled the plant as ‘‘ Cicutis allium nocentius,” garlic 
more poisonous than hemlock. 
“ Tf his old father’s throat any impious sinner 
Has cut with unnatural hand to the bone, 
Give him garlic—more noxious than hemlock—at dinner. 
Ye Gods! what strong stomachs the reapers must own.” 
Translation by Sir THEopoRE MarrTIN. 
When leprosy formerly prevailed in this country, garlic (most 
acrimonious of odour) was a prime specific for its relief, and as 
the victims had to “ pil” (or peel) their own garlic, they got the 
nickname of Pilgarlics; hence too it came about that any one 
shunned like a leper had this epithet applied to him, or her. 
Durand, the gallstone specialist, advised the free use of garlic to 
his patients. A garlic clove, when introduced into the lower 
bowel, will destroy thread worms, and. if eaten, will abolish 
round worms. 
GELATIN. 
JELLIES for the convalescent give benefit chiefly by the gelatin 
which is their basis. It is a leading constituent of young animal 
flesh, veal, calf’s foot, trotter, etc., in its connective tissue. 
Likewise it occurs purely in isinglass from the swimming bladder 
of fish, especially the sturgeon. Gelatin is soluble in boiling 
water, easily digested, and has the advantage of fixing the acids 
during digestion, being thus of service in cases with an excess 
of gastric juice. But the main value of gelatin is as an 
economiser of primitive food-substance (proteid). Whilst not 
a food of itself, it materially enhances the nutritiveness of other 
products with which its combination occurs. J ellies are thereby | 
fundamentally improved, so that the old-fashioned notion of 
calf’s foot jelly is founded on a substantially useful fact, as regards 
its sustaining properties. Such jelly also supplies sustenance 
