484 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
decoction over it. When stomach disorder is present, the milk 
should be skimmed. 
Dr. King Chambers has reminded us that, as to taking 
new milk for sedative effects, “‘ our senses tell us of a peculiar 
aroma given off by such new, milk, though this quickly 
exhales, whilst appearances seem to warrant the conclusion 
that the said aroma contributes to soothe the sensitive and 
wakeful nervous system, also assisting digestion.’ Again, 
the value of milk-sugar as a means of supplementing the 
carbohydrates of the diet must not be forgotten. If half 
an ounce of this sugar of milk be dissolved in five or six 
ounces of milk, the nutritive value thereof is materially increased. 
Likewise, a steady daily use of this milk sugar will frequently 
prevent constipation, and will obviate chronic rheumatism. 
On a milk diet the risk of intestinal decomposition within the 
body, as from animal food prolonged in its transit, is reduced to 
&@ minimum. It has been proved experimentally that milk 
when taken as food putrefies only with considerable difficulty, 
whereas meat decomposes very rapidly. Whilst standing also 
as new milk, this product is stable, because of its microbes, which 
cause it to presently turn sour with the formation of lactic acid, 
which is hostile to putrefaction. But if soda, as an alkali, be 
added to milk, then in spite of the said microbes, putrefaction 
takes place rapidly. These facts explain how it is that lactic 
acid will stop the diarrhcea due to corrupt matters within the 
bowels ; likewise they make intelligible the medicinal value of 
fermented milk. Govighi, an Italian physician, drank daily 
a litre and a half of milk subjected to the lactic acid, and alcoholic 
fermentations (kephir), finding that within a few days the products 
of intestinal putrefaction disappeared altogether from his urine. 
For such a reason soured milk is to be much commended. Sir 
Thomas Browne, in Religio Medici (1635), remarks, ‘* Some 
think there were few consumptions in the Old World, when 
men lived much upon milk; and that the ancient inhabitants 
of this island were less troubled with coughs when they 
went naked, and slept in caves and woods, than men now 
in chambers and feather beds. Plato will tell us that there was 
no such disease as catarrh in Homer’s time, and that it was but 
new in Greece in his age. Polydore Virgil delivereth that 
pleurisies were rare in England, who lived but in the days of 
Henry the Eighth.’”’ Now-a-days, animals treated by electricity 
