636 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
through gradual length of wick, are almost beyond the memory 
of the present generation. C. S. Calverley humorously writes 
respecting :— 
“A patient of Skey’s 
Who is prone to catch chills like all old Bengalese ; 
But at bedtime I trust he’ll remember to grease 
The bridge of his nose; and preserve his rupees 
From the premature clutch of his fond legatees.”’ 
Among other uncouth habits, Dr. Johnson would turn over the 
lighted candles head downwards to make them burn more brightly; 
and the melted tallow, or wax, would drop over the carpet. 
On the third day of Dresden the energies of the Emperor 
Napoleon were impaired by the effects of a shoulder of Mutton 
stuffed with garlic, partaken of at dinner. The habit of eating 
fast, and carelessly, is believed to have incapacitated his judg- 
ment, and action, on two of the most critical occasions of his 
hife,—the battles of Borodino, and Leipsic. The general order 
to his household was to have cutlets, and roast chicken, always 
ready ; and this was observed to the letter by his Maitre @ hotel, 
Dumand, who had been a famous cook. 
In cases of extreme bodily exhaustion, as in an advanced 
stage of continued fever, and similar states of extreme illness, 
the reeking hot fleece from a newly-slaughtered Sheep has been 
savingly employed to restore vital warmth by enwrapping the 
sick person therein. This remedial method is practised through- 
out Afghanistan, and was told of by Homer. A Sheep is killed, 
and skinned ; then straightway a little oil of turmeric is rubbed 
over the inside of the fleece, within which, whilst it still steams 
with heat, the patient is enveloped. Childe, Lord of the Manor 
of Plymstock, when benighted on Dartmoor in a snowstorm, 
killed his horse, and got within the body to save his life, being 
presently found therein by the Benedictine Monks of Tavistock. 
Again, Sir Walter Scott, in his childhood, became lame from 
paralysis, and was ordered “as often as a Sheep was killed for 
the household use, to be stripped, and swathed up in the skin, 
warm as it was, just flayed from the animal’s carcase.” ‘In 
this Tartar-like habiliment I well remember lying on the floor 
of the little parlour in the farmhouse, while my grandfather, a 
fine old man with white hair, used every excitement to make 
me crawl.” In earlier times our English King, James the First, 
who was passionately fond of the chase (but suffered from those 
