SALADS. 609 
disintegrated by the stomach,) I have found it advantageous to 
throw half ateaspoontul of bicarbonate of potash into a tumblerful 
of water containing the fresh juice of a lemon, and have even 
added it to stewed, or baked rhubarb, and to stewed gooseberries ; 
in these latter it froths like whipped cream, and lessens the 
demand for sugar, any excess of which is harmful to goutily- 
disposed persons. But I must conclude my sermon on the 
potash text by adding that it is quite possible to take too much 
of this alkaline solvent, especially as a drug from the chemist, 
which is in any excess depressing to the vital powers ” (Thudicum). 
The Salad Oil must be thoroughly good, quite clear, and trans- 
parent, whilst entirely free from any rancid smell, and the paler 
this oil is the better. Such white deposit as is sometimes seen 
in Salad Oil is vegetable albumin, which ought to have been 
refined out, as it prevents the oil from keeping sweet. Lucca 
Oil, which has a peculiar “ nutty ” flavour, is the best. 
One of our historians tells us that in Old English days the 
life of our ancestors was coloured with a broad rosy English 
health; but this statement is open to question, since a large 
consumption of flesh meat, barely qualified by a scant supply 
of fruit, and vegetables, can scarcely have conduced them to a 
pure state of their bodily system. As a matter of fact, inflam- 
matory diseases, and skin diseases were tife at those times; there 
were yet lepers in the land; and, rightly or wrongly, the public 
generally believed in heroic treatment for warding off sickness ; 
so the barber-surgeon flourished then, and bleeding, blistering, 
and cupping were among the common experiences of everyday 
life. Before the introduction of the Potato, and the extended 
cultivation, and use, of other garden vegetables which are now 
common, the need of anti-scorbutics was very widely felt. Herb 
drinks were religiously taken in the spring to purify the system 
alter the salt meat of the long winter months. 
Those several vegetables which have just been particularized 
as commonly used in making a Salad, do not need to be taken 
again into detailed consideration, each being already described 
in its alphabetical place. Endive (Cichorium), and the Dandelion 
(Taraxacum) are subsidiary for persons disposed to sluggish 
action’ of the liver, each being a helpful solvent of bile. The 
former, a Succory, of two varieties (plain, and curled), is chiefly 
cultivated for Salad uses in the winter, and spring, “ when, 
as being whited (bleached), they are the more tender, and 
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