sugar. 259 



used sugar to a great degree in all his food, 

 vegetable and animal; and delighted in all 

 manner of sweetmeats. He says, he followed 

 the practice of his grandfather, and used 

 sugar in every thing he ate and drank ; and 

 in the sixty-seventh year of his age all his 

 teeth were sound and firm, and in their full 

 number. 



" I know a person at this time, about eighty 

 years old, who has lived for several years al- 

 most on sugar; and is healthy and strong, 

 and as youthful in appearance, as most peo- 

 ple at fifty. The cause of this fondness for 

 sugar was a paralytic affection, with which 

 she was attacked nearly twenty years ago, 

 which prevented her, for a considerable time, 

 swallowing any thing but fluids, in which a 

 portion of sugar was dissolved. Her diet 

 now consists of sugar, and the simple vehicles 

 in which it is taken ; these are, tea, milk, 

 gruel, barley-water, roasted and boiled ap- 

 ples, and beer generally for supper." 



Mr. Edwards, in his History of the West 

 Indies, has very justly observed, that, " The 

 time of crop in the sugar islands is the sea- 

 son of gladness and festivity to man and 

 beast. So palatable, salutary, and nourish- 

 ing is the juice of the cane, that every indi- 



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