DOCTORS DIFFER. 147 



not only lessened the quantity of milk yielded, but actually vitiated 

 the milk itself, giving it a disagreeable taste, and making it decidedly 

 unwholesome. All we could answer was that we had known potato 

 shaws given to milch cows all over the Highlands since ever we 

 could remember, and that we had never known or heard any of 

 the evils stated to result from the use of them. What says the 

 reader? It is true, no doubt, that the potato belongs botanically 

 to a family of plants many of whom are highly poisonous such as 

 the common deadly nightshade of our lanes and roadsides, for 

 example and it is averred that, although the tuber of the potato 

 is healthy and nutritious when cooked, it is a poison in its raw 

 state, and that its stem, leaves, flower, and " apple " are all more or 

 less poisonous ; and yet we have known boys, while the blight was 

 yet unheard of, and when potatoes were more prolific of apples or 

 plums than they have ever been since, eat the large, soft, full, ripe 

 apples with relish, and they never suffered the slightest incon- 

 venience in consequence that ever we heard of. As a boy we 

 have often ate them ourselves, and very saccharine, juicy, and 

 pleasant flavoured we recollect they were, not at all unlike the 

 purple plum of our gardens in taste and flavour, and hardly inferior 

 to it as a pleasant succulent bonne bouche. Cattle, as we know, 

 will greedily eat the fresh shaws, as they will a decidedly poisonous 

 plant, the hemlock (Celtic^, Iteotha) ; and it is a well-known fact 

 that in severe cases of scurvy on board ships that have to go long 

 voyages a feast of raw potatoes is an immediate and certain cure ; 

 so that after all it would seem that if the potato is originally a 

 poisonous plant, cultivation has eradicated all, or almost all, traces 

 of the evil. As to the deleterious effects of the shaws on the 

 milk of cattle we have our doubts, our amiable and learned friend 

 above mentioned to the contrary notwithstanding. And while on 

 such subjects let us record a piece of information received from an 

 old woman in our neighbourhood a few days ago. We were 



