THE CHEMISTRY OF COOKERY. 371 



however, one class of such remedies which are directly connected with 

 the chemistry of cookery. I refer to the condiments that act as " ton- 

 ics," excluding common salt, which is an article of food, though often 

 miscalled a condiment. It is food simply because it supplies the blood 

 "with one of its normal and necessary constituents, chloride of sodium, 

 without which we can not live. A certain quantity of it exists in most 

 of our ordinary food, but not always sufficient. 



Cayenne pepper may be selected as a typical example of a condi- 

 ment properly so called. Mustard is a food and condiment combined ; 

 this is the case with some others. Curry-powders are mixtures of very 

 potent condiments with more or less of farinaceous materials, and 

 sulphur compounds, which, like the oil of mustard, of onions, garlic, 

 etc., may have a certain amount of nutritive value. 



The mere condiment is a stimulating drug that does its work di- 

 rectly upon the inner lining of the stomach, by exciting it to increased 

 and abnormal activity. A dyspeptic may obtain immediate relief by 

 using cayenne pepper. Among the advertised patent medicines is a 

 pill bearing the very ominous name of its compounder, the active con- 

 stituent of which is cayenne. Great relief and temporary comfort are 

 commonly obtained by using it as a " dinner-pill." If thus used only 

 as a temporary remedy for an acute and temporary, or exceptional, 

 attack of indigestion, all is well, but the cayenne, whether taken in pills 

 or dusted over the food or stewed with it in curries or any otherwise, 

 is one of the most cruel of slow poisons when taken habitually. Thou- 

 sands of poor wretches are crawling miserably toward their graves, 

 the victims of the multitude of maladies of both mind and body that 

 are connected with chronic, incurable dyspepsia, all brought about by 

 the habitual use of cayenne and its condimental cousins. 



The usual history of these victims is that they began by overfeed- 

 ing, took the condiment to force the stomach to do more than its 

 healthful amount of work, using but a little at first. Then the stomach 

 became tolerant of this little, and demanded more ; then more, and 

 more, and more, until at last inflammation, ulceration, torpidity, and 

 finally the death of the digestive powers, accompanied with all that 

 long train of miseries to which I have referred. India is their special 

 fatherland. Englishmen, accustomed to an active life at home, and a 

 climate demanding much food-fuel for the maintenance of animal heat, 

 go to India, crammed, may be, with Latin, but ignorant of the laws 

 of health ; cheap servants promote indolence, tropical heat diminishes 

 respiratory oxidation, and the appetite naturally fails. Instead of 

 understanding this failure as an admonition to take smaller quantities 

 of food, or food of less nutritive value, they regard it as a symptom 

 of ill-health, and take curries, bitter ale, and other tonics or appetizing 

 condiments, which, however mischievous in England, are far more so 

 there, 



I know several men who have lived rationally in India, and they all 



