SHEEP. 633 
iodine is very large, whereby this weed exercises remarkable 
virtues against the various forms of scrofulous disease, and 
signally relieves chronic rheumatism. 
Again, Sea Spinach (Salsolacca spirolobea) is a salt-wort found 
growing on the Hampshire coast, and on other English shores, 
being the best of all wild vegetables for cooking as a dish, with 
succulent leaves shaped like worms, and possessing marked 
anti-scorbutic properties. Sea Kale, or Sea Colewort, was 
formerly thought to be injurious to the sight. 
Another marine substance recently acquired for culinary uses 
is “‘ Agar-agar,” or Japanese Isinglass, as prepared from an East 
Indian Seaweed. Its gelatinizing power is double that of animal 
gelatine. To prepare this agar for use it is allowed to swell in 
cold water, and is then cut into small pieces, and dissolved in 
the liquid to be set, whether water, wine, broth, or milk. 
Seaweed is widely used for food in Japan; it being a remark- 
able fact that the Japanese army subsists mainly upon a 
combination of Seaweed with rice. 
At Berek, a watering-place in the Somme Department of 
France, the sand of the sea-shore is found to be highly remedial in 
‘spinal diseases, and kindred affections, principally for children ; 
they are buried up to their necks in a mound of the sand which 
has been washed by the waves at high tide. With characteristic 
national feeling a tri-coloured flag is planted on the top of the 
mound. 
SHEEP. (See Meats: Murron). 
Tue flesh of Sheep is less stimulating, and less nutritious than 
beef, and in general not so easily digested. Mutton fat often 
provokes indigestion because of its hircic acid. The remarkable 
alterative efficacy of the Sheep’s throat gland (thyroid) when 
given as a medicinal food, on the recently discovered curative 
principle of healthy animal substances, corresponding to the 
same parts when morbidly affected in the human body, has been 
already explained. It is strikingly shown also in the reduction 
of excessive fatness, the vital energy being at the same time low, 
and mental sluggishness being a prominent symptom. One may 
note as a suggestive fact that this throat gland is often concerned 
in producing just such obesity, as, when dependent on other causes, 
this gland, if given as a medicine, will reduce ; but its extract, 
