298 VEGETABLE FOOD. 



laxative and may be eaten to counteract constipation. The skin and 

 core should be rejected. 



PEARS when ripe are more digestible than apples, but as they 

 decay sooner, they are more likely to produce derangement of the 

 bowels. If they are sound, juicy and soluble, they may generally 

 be taken without danger. 



ORANGES are among the most agreeable and useful fruits for 

 the sick-room; exceedingly grateful and refreshing, and less 

 likely to cause disorder than most other fruits. A heavy orange, 

 with a fine thin rind, is usually the most juicy and best adapted for 

 the invalid. Old oranges, with many seeds in them, are not so 

 valuable. 



The LEMON is too acid to be eaten alone, except that its juice is 

 grateful, refreshing and beneficial in rheumatic affections ; but in 

 the form of lemonade it makes a cooling and wholesome drink for 

 all occasions. Lemon-juice is very valuable as an anti-scorbutic; 

 so also is lime-juice. Lemon is elsewhere recommended as an ad- 

 dition to tea. 



PLUMS are less wholesome than most other fruits, though this 

 objection to them is lessened by cooking them. They produce colic 

 and diarrhea and are employed occasionally to promote relaxation 

 in cases of constipation of the bowels. 



CHERRIES also, when unripe or over-ripe, disorder the bowels. 



PEACHES, NECTARINES AND APRICOTS are luscious fruits, when 

 quite ripe, yielding a delicious pulp for the refreshment of the in- 

 valid; the skin should be rejected. 



GRAPES are most refreshing, wholesome and nutritious in the 

 sick-room, when ripe and not decayed, the skins and seeds being 

 rejected. They may be safely taken and if eaten freely are some- 

 what diuretic and laxative. 



RAISINS contain more sugar and less acid than ripe grapes; 

 they are consequently more nutritious, but less cooling to the 

 parched mouth of a feverish patient. If eaten too freely, especially 

 if the skins or seeds be swallowed, they are apt to disorder the 

 stomach. Those allowed to dry on the vine are the best, because 

 the quality of raisins is determined by their softness and plump- 

 ness and the absence of mites. If these be present, the quantity 

 of sugar, which constitutes the value of the fruit, is lessened, and 

 instead thereof, feculent remains and carbonic acid are present. 



GOOSEBERRIES and CURRANTS (red, black and white) are whole- 

 some, cooling, useful fruits, refreshing and laxative in the sick- 

 room; but together with raspberries are generally interdicted in 

 acute diseases. 



CRANBERRY, BARBERRY, BILBERRY and ELDER-BERRY are too 

 acrid to be eaten raw; the first three are made into preserves, the 

 last into wine. 



STRAWBERRIES constitute one of the most delicate, luscious 

 and refreshing of summer fruits and may as a rule be taken by 



