588 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
RICE. 
TuE Oryza sativa produces as a native cereal of India our familiar 
grain, Ryze, or Rice, which is composed almost entirely of starch, 
being poor in proteid (nitrogen), and phosphoric acid. It is 
therefore of value as a demulcent to palliate irritative diarrhea, 
and to allay intestinal distress. Chemically Rice consists of its 
abundant starch, with fat, fibrin, some phosphate of lime, 
cellulose, and water. 
Paddy is rice from which the husk has not been removed 
before crushing. 
Rice has been long held to exercise pectoral virtues, serving 
to check consumptive tendencies, and specially to prevent, as well 
as to arrest, spitting of blood from the lungs. The dry flour 
oi this grain, if dusted on a bleeding wound, or sore, will effectually 
stop the flux. A mucilage of rice, made by boiling the well- 
washed grain for some time in a moderate quantity of water, 
and then straining, will contain starch, and phosphate of lime 
in solution. Rice-gruel made spicy with Cinnamon, and given, 
not hot, but at about 95° Fahrt- is most useful in irritative 
bowel complaints. When Lord Clive was shut up in Arcot, and 
the fare was most scanty, the Sepoys told him they needed less 
food than the Europeans, and asked would he order that the 
English should have the rice grains, and the Sepoys would be 
content to have the water in which the grains were first cooked ; 
by getting this they had the best of the bargain. But when 
required as food, the grain should be steamed, because in 
boiling it loses the little nitrogen which is possessed, and the 
greater part of the lime phosphate. 
As an article of sustenance, Rice is not well suited for persons 
with whom fermentation in the stomach is habitual when provoked 
by starchy foods. Neither can it be properly substituted in place 
of succulent green vegetables, together with fish, or meat, for any 
length of time, else it will induce scurvy. Probably it is not a 
function of the stomach itself to aid in the digestion of such 
starch, or of sugar, and fat; but when reaching the intestines 
Rice is absorbed by them very completely, leaving but a small 
amount of residue ; its solid constituents are passed from thence 
into the blood almost as thoroughly as the juices of meat. Two 
factors determine the digestibility of vegetable foods in the 
intestines, the first being their bulk, and the second the amount 
