632 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
internal use a decoction may be made with from two to four 
drachms of the weed to a pint of water, boiled together for a 
few minutes; and for external application, to enlarged or 
hardened glands, the bruised weed may be applied as a cold 
poultice. This Seaweed comes to perfection only during early, 
and middle summer. The kelp, or ash, of the weed is an impure 
carbonate of soda, containing sulphate, and chloride of sodium, 
with a little charcoal. Persons inclined to be inconveniently 
fat may at the same time profitably employ a partial; or modified 
Banting system of diet. Abstinence from sugar, a sparing use 
of bread (unless toasted, thin, and chippy), likewise of potatoes, 
and pastry, with a liberal supply of lean meat, whilst plenty of 
active outdoor exercise is taken, ought to sufficiently restrain 
the proportions of most individuals within comfortable limits. 
Of course the opposite plan should be adopted by lean subjects 
with a view to gaining fat. Such are the principles upon which 
_ animals also can be reduced in bulk, or fattened ; but with 
respect to ourselves there are certain human beings who will 
always be lean, and anxious-looking, because of their peculiarly 
irritable, nervous organization, such as makes cellular changes 
in their tissues prejudicially active. Tennyson, in his Vision 
of Sin, points a gruesome moral as to these matters :— 
“Every face, however full, 
Padded round with flesh, and fat, 
Is but modell’d on a skull! ” 
Darwin has related, as illustrating how the quality of food can 
affect the nutrition of an animal, that the natives of the Amazon 
region feed the common green parrot with the fat of siluroid 
fishes, and the birds thus treated become of a plumage beautifully 
variegated with red, and yellow feathers. 
The Sea-tang, known familiarly at the seaside as Tangle, 
Sea-girdles, or Cows’ Tails, is of common marine growth, 
consisting of a wide, smooth, brown frond, with a thick, round 
stem, and broad, brown ribbons at the end of it. 
“ Health is in the freshness of its savour; and it cumbereth the beach 
with wealth, 
Comforting the tossings of pain with its violet-tinctured essence.” 
When bruised, and applied by way of a poultice to scrofulous 
swellings, and glandular tumours, the Sea-tang ‘has been found 
of valuable service. Its absorbent stem-power for taking up 
