510 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
and boil for one quarter of an hour. Strain through a sieve, 
and return into the saucepan, with a little lemon-peel, half a 
vanilla-pod, and a few shredded almonds, and sugar to taste. 
Add eight ounces of fine sago which has been well soaked in cold 
water, and stir all together over the fire until the sago is dissolved. 
Pour into a wetted mould, or glass dish, and serve with cream.” 
Oat-cake (cooked without butter in it) contains rather more 
than twice as much building material] for the bodily repair as 
an equal quantity of wheaten bread, and has almost twice as 
great a fuel value. But the Oatmeal for cooking requires to 
be very thoroughly boiled, so as to sufficiently soften the cellulose. 
“ Brose,” which is prepared by merely stirring Oatmeal into 
boiling water, is not a proper food for delicate stomachs. The 
“Stir-about”” of former English times was Oatmeal, and 
dripping, or bacon fat, mixed together, and stirred about in a 
frying-pan. With ourselves Oatmeal is frequently heating, 
and apt to provoke skin eruptions by its “ avenin” principle, 
which is found not seldom to similarly affect horses when 
liberally supplied with Oats. Whereas porridge, though carefully 
prepared, disagrees with the digestion pretty often, yet it can 
be modified to prevent this: “ Make a porridge of Oatmeal in 
the usual manner, but particularly thick, indeed, a pudding 
rather than a porridge; then, while it is still hot (at 150° 
Fahrenheit, or thereabout) in the saucepan, add some dry malt- 
flour (equal to from an eighth part to a quarter of the Oatmeal 
used) ; stir this dry flour into it, when a curious transformation 
will occur; the dry flour, instead of thickening the mixture, 
then acts like added water, and converts the pudding-mess into 
a thin porridge, much to the cook’s astonishment.” 
When the husk has been entirely removed from Oats, then 
the result goes by the name of “ groats”’; or, if the grain has 
been crushed, Emden groats are thus obtained. Oatmeal will 
often make the bladder irritable, and urination frequent, with 
a copious deposit of phosphates in the urine on cooling; a¢ 
indigestion is further provoked, with disquieting fermentation 
of the food. As an offset, Oatmeal tea, given in small quantities, 
will sometimes counteract these troubles when occurring 
spontaneously. American doctors prescribe a tincture made from 
Oats with spirit of wine, as a remarkable nervine restorative, 
this being particularly helpful where a deficiency of nervous — 
energy is the result of exhaustion, and is denoted by restlessness, — 
