STATE POMOLOGICAh SOCIETY. 77 



must be carefull}' selected. Suppose we have a patient with one of 

 the diseases characterized by a sharp burning fever ; the throat is 

 dry, thirst is urgent. Now we can afford relief by frequent draughts 

 of apple water, tamarind water, drinks made from the currant, 

 raspberry, the lemon or lime. All soits of preserved sub-acid fruits, 

 grapes, or other easily masticated fruit, may be included in the diet. 



Fruit both raw and cooked, lends valuable assistance in regulating 

 functional disorders of the intestinal tract characterized by deficient 

 secretion, a few figs daily, stewed prunes or apples with the other 

 food will obviate the frequent recourse to pills or other drastics, the 

 demand for which often grows with their use. Sometimes fruit will 

 relieve an undue looseness of the bowels. A quantity of apples 

 consumed peel and all has often checked a billions diarrho-a. All 

 vegetables and fruits which contain tannic acid or other astringents 

 are useful in these affections. The juice of cranberries or the pome- 

 granate and various other plums as well as the juice of cherries and 

 the astringent wines are all valuable to aid in checking over action 

 of the bowels. There is one disease in which almost everything that 

 can be done must be accomplished by management of the diet, from 

 which fruit fresh and preserved mu!^t be rigidly excluded, that is 

 diabetes, characterized by an excess of sugar in the blood, hence 

 everything which will contribute to the formation ot sugar in the 

 body must be avoided. The gouty and rheumatic, as has already 

 been intimated, need acid fruits in large amcunt both raw and 

 cooked. 



Knowing what fruits contain, knowing what in their composition 

 is appreciated by the body, the question assumes relatively the same 

 position as that of preparing animal food for consumption Nature 

 is always ready to meet us half way and if we want fruit abounding 

 in healthful properties, loaded with a maximum of useful sugars and 

 acids and a minimum of hard, indigestible, useless vegetable fibre, 

 let us feed the trees with those substances which are necessary for 

 their nutrition and which will be returned to us in the form of the 

 fruit. We shall then feel the satisfaction of having contributed to- 

 human food one of its most valuable, healthful and economical ele- 

 ments, and can heartily agree with that old writer who characterized 

 fruit as ''the most perfect union of the useful and beautiful that the 

 earth has known." 



