706 MEALS MEDICINAL. 
TURPENTINE (Sve ARTICHOKE). 
Pepys (in his Diary, July 17th, 1664) wrote: “ Dr. Burnett has 
showed me the manner of eating Turpentine, which pleases me 
well, for it is with great ease.” Again, on December 31st: 
“So ends the old year ; I bless God, with great joy to me. I have 
never been in so good a plight as to my health these ten years 
as I am at this day, and have been these four, or five months. 
But I am at a great loss to know whether it be my hare’s foote, 
or taking every morning of a pill of Turpentine, or my having 
left off the wearing of a gowne.” 
VEAL. (See Mzats.) 
VEGETABLES. 
In ancient Rome (as Cato records) the principal citizens had 
their large vegetable gardens near the city, the same being 
cultivated by the owners themselves, some among whom derived 
their family names in this way as successful specialists ; such as 
Piso from the Pea, Cicero from the Vetch, Fabius from the Bean, 
and Lentulus from the Lentil. The chief value of vegetables 
as food lies in the mineral salts which they contain abundantly ; 
these are combined with much water, but quite sparingly with 
proteid nourishment available for bodily repair; their frame- 
work consists altogether of cellulose. Greens, and Savoys 
afford most nitrogenous matter : whilst, together with Leeks, 
Cabbage, Turnips, Salsify, and Carrots, they are endowed with 
carbohydrates, and mineral salts. But the effect of cooking 
upon green vegetables, as it is generally practised, serves only 
to reduce their already poor stock of nutrients. As a whole 
such vegetables are not readily digested by the stomach, and 
when reaching the intestines their bulk makes them difficult 
to be assimilated; if they are at all stale, then discomfiting 
fermentation takes place, engendering noxious gases, and 
provoking troublesome flatulence, with distension. To be 
wholesome vegetables should always be eaten as fresh as possible ; 
their main use is as a source of mineral salts, particularly those 
of potash, which keep the blood supplied with alkaline elements, 
_ and thus lower the acidity of the urine; so that vegetable foods 
_ ate to be especiaily advised for persons liable to gravel, (except 
