604 MEALS MEDICINAL 
of the dark, sour breads of Northern Europe, and Holland, is 
of nearly the same chemical composition as barley meal. Rye 
grain is subject to a fungus producing “ergot,” and which 
makes it poisonous. 
SAFFRON. 
Tue dried stigmata of our cultivated Crocus sativus furnish 
what is known as Saffron, this being put by the cook to various 
culinary uses. It should consist of the loose stigmata (uncaked), 
being thus known as true “hay Saffron.” From olden times 
this has been esteemed as highly cordial, and salutary, with 
anti-spasmodic, and some sedative effects. A narcotic oil may 
be extracted from the stigmata. Most of the commercial 
Saffron is had from Greece, and Asia Minor. In England it was 
fashionable during the seventh century to make use for laundry 
purposes of starch stained yellow with Saffron. 
“* Give us bacon, rinds of wallnuts, 
Shells of cockels, and of small nuts, 
Ribonds, bells, and Saffroned linnen.”’ 
1654. 
And in an old cookery book of that period it is directed that 
“ Saffron should be put into all Lenten sauces, soups, and other 
such dishes; also that without Saffron we cannot have well- 
cooked peas.” Lord Bacon taught that “Saffron conveys 
medicine to the heart, cures its palpitation, removes melancholy, 
and uneasiness, revives the brain, renders the mind cheerful, 
and generates boldness.” The name Crocus is taken from the 
Greek krokee, a thread, in allusion to the thin, elongated stigmata 
of;the flower. Old Fuller has quaintly expounded his notion 
that “the Crocodile’s tears are never true save when he is 
forced where Saffron groweth; whence he hath his name 
Croco-deilos, or the Saftron fearer, knowing himself to be all 
poison, and it all antidote.” The colouring matter of Saffron 
is a substance called polychroite, or crocin, and the mildly 
stimulating properties of the stigmata depend upon a volatile oil. 
“Saffron is a special temedy for those that have consumption 
of the lungs, and are, as we term it, at death’s door, and almost 
past breathing, so that it bringeth breath again, and prolongeth 
‘life for certain days, if ten, or twenty grains at most, be 
_ given in new, or sweet wine. It presently, and in a moment 
