234 MEDICINAL PLANTS OF JAMAICA. 



cast into broad flat troughs to cool. The sugar next day is 

 put into conical pots to drain, and afterwards into hogsheads 

 for the European market. 



The skimmings from the coppers and drainings from the 

 pots and hogsheads run in gutterings to the still-house, where, 

 after being fermented in cisterns, they are distilled into rum. 



Nor is any part of this plant useless. The tops are fine 

 food for cattle, or, when dry, an excellent thatch for houses. 

 Even the refuse from the mill is dried, and makes good fuel 

 for boiling sugar. The ashes taste very strong, and with 

 little trouble might produce a great deal of fixed salt.) 



Sugar, formerly a luxury, is now become one of the neces- 

 saries of life. In crop time every Negro on the plantations, 

 and every animal, even the dogs, grow fat. This sufficiently 

 points out the nourishing and healthy qualities of sugar. It 

 has been alleged that the eating of sugar spoils the colour of, 

 and corrupts, the teeth : this, however, proves to be a mistake, 

 for no people on the earth have finer teeth than the Negroes 

 in Jamaica. 



Dr Alston, formerly professor of botany and materia 

 medica at Edinburgh, endeavoured to obviate this vulgar 

 opinion : he had a fine set of teeth, which he ascribed solely 

 to his eating great quantities of sugar. 



In medicine I need say little of the use of sugar. Ex- 

 ternally it is often useful : mixed with the pulp of roasted 

 oranges *, and applied to putrid or ill-disposed ulcers, it 

 proves a powerful corrector. 



(The culm or stalk is of the gramineous kind, and from 

 fifteen to sixteen feet high ; the joints are two or three inches 

 apart, and the trunk is thicker than a walking stick. 



• Vide Citrus. 



