114 ALIMENTATION. 



Light and agreeable beverages made from the juice of 

 apples or of pears are in common use. "When first made, cider 

 contains the organic acids and salts of the fruit, with a large 

 quantity of sugar. It is then called sweet cider, and con- 

 tains little or no alcohol. After it has fermented, the sugar 

 in part or entirely disappears, alcohol is formed in consider- 

 able quantity (from 5*21 to 9*87 per cent.), 1 and the liquor 

 is then called hard cider. Under proper conditions, ace- 

 tous fermentation soon converts the liquid into vinegar. 

 During the process of fermentation, carbonic acid is produced 

 in large quantity, and if the liquor be made of good apples 

 and be bottled at the proper time, its flavor is little inferior 

 to that of ordinary champagne. The effects of cider upon 

 the system are substantially those of the light white wines. 



Perry, a beverage manufactured to a considerable extent in 

 England from pears, is little used in this country. When new 

 it is sweeter than cider, and possesses the flavor of the pear. 

 By fermentation a liquor is produced, resembling cider in most 

 regards, but containing about fifty per cent, more alcohol. 



Coffee. 



Coffee is an article consumed daily by many millions 

 of human beings, in all quarters of the globe. In armies 

 it has been found indispensable, enabling men on mod- 

 erate rations to perform an amount of labor which would 

 otherwise be impossible. After exhausting efforts of any 

 kind there is no article which relieves the overpowering 

 sense of fatigue so completely as coffee. Army-surgeons say 

 that at night, after a severe march, the first desire of the sol- 

 dier is for coffee, hot or cold, with or without sugar, the only 

 essential being a sufficient quantity of the pure article. This 

 has been the universal experience in the late civil war ; the 

 rations of coffee issued by the United States Government be- 



1865, p. 462. In copying this table an evident error (957 instead of 947 of wa- 

 ter) has been corrected. 



1 DUNGLISON, Medical Lexicon, Philadelphia, 1857, p. 984. 



