670 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
be allowed, and properly assimilated, without any subsequent 
discomfort. As a general rule one may assume that a quarter 
of a pound can be taken daily without any bad results at all ; 
but the precise amount must depend mainly upon the muscular 
activity of the individual subject, for it is as a muscle-food that 
Sugar is of especial importance. Whilst a muscle is in active use, 
and a flow of blood is stimulated thereto by vigorous exercise, 
the Sugar in such blood is used up far more rapidly than when 
the muscle is at rest. On this principle depends the fact that 
in a person of active daily habits, if Sugar is taken early in the 
evening, it is capable of decreasing the fall of muscular power 
which ensues at that time, and of increasing the power of resistance 
to fatigue. Glycogen, or concentrated Sugar, stored in the 
liver from the blood, and transmitted therefrom to the different 
muscles of the body, becomes used up when these muscles are 
set to work, and it accumulates in them again when they resume 
an attitude of repose. Hence arises, as already explained, the’ 
constant love of active schoolboys for sweets, which is altogether 
a commendable instinct. Oribasius wrote (a.p. 370): ‘ Puer 
nuper in lucem editus melle primum nutriatur!” Can this be 
the authority for a custom still followed by so many old nurses, 
of thrusting a piece of butter with Sugar into the mouth of a 
newly-born infant ? 
Most remarkably, the flesh-eating animals who do not consume 
any starches, or carbohydrates in their natural food, nevertheless 
exhibit Sugar in their muscular structures; and this they must 
engender from the peptones of their flesh nutriment. It is, 
however, the omnivorous pig which produces by far the largest 
amount of Sugar, and on a lean, watery diet. 
To the Greeks and Romans of old, Sugar was only vaguely 
known: it seems to have been introduced into Europe during 
the times of the Crusaders. The Sugar Cane was grown In 
Cyprus about the middle of the twelfth century, from whence 
it was transplanted some time later into Madeira ; and about 
the beginning of the sixteenth century it was carried from ‘that 
island into the New World. Raw brown Sugar is Muscovado ; 
when clarified it is loaf Sugar, or lump Sugar. In the United 
States of America considerable quantities of Sugar are obtained 
from the sap of the Sugar Maple (Acer saccharinum). And, as 
Mr. Knickerbocker tells, “ Among the first Dutch settlers a large 
lump of this Sugar was always suspended by a string over the a 
