634 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
as prepared by the chemist in a concentrated form, is not proper 
for aged persons with feeble heart. Obesity in persons of 
sedentary habits who take freely of carbohydrates in their meals, 
such as fatty things, starchy preparations, and sweet dishes, 
must be met by cutting off these matters, which are but incom- 
pletely used up under such conditions, and serve to encumber 
the system with excess of uric acid, so that rheumatic troubles 
are the result. Such patients should be kept almost exclusively 
on lean meat, with those vegetables which contain the least 
starch, and plenty of hot water between meals. In this way 
their system will be flushed, and further urates will be prevented : 
at the same time the excess of fat will be materially reduced. 
But, on the other hand, lean, spare persons of poor digestive 
powers, insomuch that animal food, being imperfectly, and 
incompletely appropriated, clogs the body with an excess of the 
meat elements as refuse urates, need an altogether opposite 
treatment for the rheumatic troubles which ensue. Under these 
conditions animal food is only to be allowed very sparingly, 
if at all, whilst light forms of carbohydrate nourishment should 
be liberally given. The paradox of a different line of treatment 
for rheumatism, apparently the same in both cases, but actually 
diametrically distinct, is thus explained. In the British Medical 
Journal (1901) mention has been made of a case of ‘“ desperate 
cancer, internal, in a woman, for which the Sheep’s throat gland, 
in extract, was steadily administered, beginning with a dose 
of five grains daily, and soon increasing this daily dose to twenty 
grains. The result was little short of marvellous, seeing that 
a complete cure was thereby effected.” 
Arabs often eat raw Sheep’s liver, or kidneys, seasoned only 
with salt. In Holland, and Germany, Mutton is held in disrepute. 
Remarkably enough, when considered in relation to the modern 
approved method of cure by fresh animal extracts, is the circum- 
stance that Jesner, in the sixteenth century, prescribed as 
follows “for dotage, and diseases of the brain”: ‘ Cut off at a 
blew a young ram’s head, and after removing the horns, boil it 
with the skin, and wool entire; and when it is well sodden, take 
out the brains, and mix them with a powder of cinnamon, ginger, 
nutmeg, mace, and cloves, heating them over a chafing dish, 
and stirring them so that they do not burn. This must be 
given to the patient, with bread, in an egg, or broth, for fourteen 
_ days, fasting being necessary both before, and after.” Soup 
