672 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
nor as a crystallizable substance, though they had perhaps noticed 
a sweet extractive part in certain reeds. Lucian says :— 
ique bibu enera dulces ab arundine succos.”’ 
** Quique bibunt tenera 
When Sugar was first introduced into England is a matter 
of uncertainty. It was evidently scarce, and doubtless dear, 
when in 1226 “ Henry the Third asked the Mayor of Winchester 
to procure for him three pounds of Alexandria Sugar, ‘if so 
much could be got;’ also some rose-, and violet-coloured Sugar.” 
The Pharmacopeia of the London Colleges first claimed Sugar 
for medicinal uses, and therein it must have played an important 
part, judging by the well-known proverb that a person standing 
in need of some essential possession which he lacks is “ like an 
apothecary without Sugar.” But because of its coming in as 
a medicament it was received with disfavour by some, who 
pronounced it to be heating ; others declared it assails the lungs; 
and, again, others that it predisposes to apoplexy. But calumny 
has been compelled to recede before truth, and half a century 
ago it became told in a memorable apothegm that “Sugar does no 
harm except to the purse.”” Its present use gets daily more and 
more general; and now there is no alimentary substance which 
has undergone more processes of admixture, and transformation. 
The fact has become firmly established by experiments in the 
German Army, that a Sugar diet not only supplies men with greater 
energy than albuminous foods convey, but does this much more 
rapidly (which is very important when troops are on active 
service); so that in order to keep up a due effect the Sugar must 
be eaten frequently when on the march, which is not difficult to 
do, seeing the multiform preparations of portable Sugar. When 
Mr. Montagu Holbein practically succeeded in swimming across 
the English Channel from Dover to Calais (September, 1903) 
his food throughout the transit consisted chiefly of prepared 
milk, eggs, and brown Sugar sandwiches; which last he had 
always found very sustaining, either in long-distance cycling, 
such as when he made his twenty-four hours’ record, or in his 
prolonged swims. 
For preserving meat, as in making hams, Sugar is a better 
material to use than salt, seeing that it withdraws less of the — 
nutritive constituents into the brine, and forms a crust round 
the meat which helps to keep in the juices; only, before the — 
ham (when treated thus) is used for cooking, it must first be 
