698 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 



it? Our boes are making- sugar yet; haven't g:ot 

 much honey this season, but lots of the sugar. The 

 way 1 g-ot it into a liquid form is to heat it, and the 

 wax rises on top. It is lig-ht colored and very good. 

 We have 42 colonies in good shape. 



Mary A. Sistrunk. 

 White Sulphur Springs. Ga., Sept. 33, 1884. 



Perliaps the above is as good a way as we 

 can get to manage this candied honey; but 

 I' should very much disUke to spoil new 

 combs to gel the honey out. 



IS HONEY POISONOUS? 



POME HINTS IN REGARD TO THE USE OF HONEY AND 

 OTHER KINDS OF FOOD. 



a EAR EDITOR:— Td an article in a I'ecent issue 

 oi the .-I merican Bee Jok/vio?, the writer ex- 

 pressed the opinion that honey was not poi- 

 sonous to some people, as has been alleged. 

 To this opinion. Prof. Cook, on page 661 of 

 Gr.KANiNGS, current volume, under the caption of 

 "Honey Colic," very courteously takes exception. 

 1 have very great esteem for the learning and abil- 

 ity of the professor, but think on this topic he has 

 got just a little "off." He states that honey, to his 

 father, was a " virulent poison." Now, we have 

 known potatoes to energetically disagree with some 

 persons, who, like the professor's father, " could 

 eat almost anj' thing at any time with impunity " — 

 but potatoes. 



In a medical practice of many years it has been 

 my lot to treat many cases of cholera infantum, 

 which is a disease of small children, the principal 

 feature being indigestion. Verj' often I have found 

 one who could not be induced to partake of any 

 of the much-vaunted prepared foods of which 

 so many kinds have been made to fill the great de- 

 mand for a more easily digestible food for these lit- 

 tle sufferers. Milk disagreed with them, or thej- 

 would not take it, and it became a question fre- 

 quently, whether the child was not in greater dan- 

 ger from starvation than from the disease. In 

 these cases I have inquired if the child would eat 

 any thing else. The answer has often been, " Oh, 

 yes I the baby wants potatoes, and cries for them all 

 the time." 



Now, the popular impression is, that since pota- 

 toes so often disagree with dyspeptics, that they are 

 very hard to digest, and would not be good, espe- 

 cially for a child suffering from cholera infantum, 

 hence they would be refused; but the fact remains, 

 that well-ripened potatoes are about the easiest of 

 digestion of all the known foods, as I have abun- 

 dantly seen in the treatment of these cases, in 

 which it has not been my misfortune to lose one in 

 the past six or seven years. 



The point conveyed in the above is this: If pota- 

 toes are among the mildest of all the known foods, 

 and yet are capable of causing such serious effects 

 to some people, are they poisonous? 



"Oh, well I" I imagine the professor would say, 

 "the cases in which potatoes disagree have an 

 idiosyncrasy against potatoes," and this is what he 

 would term it, I suppose, where honey disagrees. 

 We do not think he meant to convey the idea that 

 honey is a poison; but, what is an idiosyncras.y? 

 Well, it is a convenient term that some doctors often 

 apply to certain cases where, from causes not vm- 

 derstood to them, a food or medicine disagrees. It 



may signify almost any thing or nothing. It is like 

 a platitude that you may turn upside down, and it 

 reads this way; but down side up, so so. But as ap- 

 plied to foods after you have done and said all, it 

 simply means indigestion, which is always associat- 

 ed with some form of dyspepsia. Hence my ad- 

 vice in the article alluded to, to those with whom 

 honey disagrees, to go to some "good physician" 

 with such dyspepsia ; but I do not mean to convey by 

 this that these cases are all curable, for very many 

 are not. 



But the professor's father " could eat boiled or 

 granulated honey with perfect safety." The cause 

 of the disagreement is conveyed in the fact here 

 stated, and which was held by myself, to be an acid 

 which is secreted in the stomach of the bees, and is 

 said to be of a volatile nature, and therefore would 

 be dissipated by boiling. The acid, however, is 

 harmless to the vast majority of people, and we 

 shall be obliged to take issue with friend Cook, 

 without undertaking "to study up" the matter 

 further on the question of its poisonous nature In 

 the oi-dinary quantities taken. Dr. G. L. Tinker. 



New Phila., O., Oct. 8, 1884. 



Thanks for the facts you give, doctor ; but 

 I understood the professor to use the term 

 " poison " as a sort of pleasantry. Where 

 any kind of food very much disagrees with a 

 person, we often say it seems almost jjoison 

 to him. I know it is a fact, that an article 

 that seems to suit one exactly will not do at 

 all for the other ; hence the difficulty in lay- 

 ing down rules in regard to diet. Within 

 just a few days we have had trouble with 

 baby Iluber, aiid my wife made the remark 

 that it actually seemed as if milk were worse 

 for him than almost any thing else, even 

 when scalded. I told her we would begin 

 giving him other kinds of food very cau- 

 tiously, and note carefully the result. He is 

 now all right, and I think we who are older 

 might be profited by inquiring a little more 

 carefully as to Nature's needs in the way of 

 food. Now another item : 



AV'e can accustom ourselves — or, I should 

 like to say, acdimate ourselves, if that is the 

 proper word— to almost any kind of food. I 

 have noticed, a great many times, that when 

 we first begin to get new apples, I must be 

 very careful indeed about eating them until 

 Nature has got used to them, and learned 

 hon' to manage, as it were. After having 

 " increased the dose "' daily for a week or ten 

 days, I find I can fill my pockets, and eat 

 just as many as I choose, and just as I did in 

 the days of iny boyhood. I have noticed the 

 same thing with lioney. A heavy meal of it, 

 after I have taken none for a long while, 

 produces a very disagreeable feeling ; but by 

 eating it cautiously at first, and gradually 

 increasing the quantity, no amount will 

 make anv disturbance. 



A few days ago Iluber got into the pantry, 

 pulled off from tlie shelf a 2^-pound Jones 

 can. iiicked the lid off with his thumb-nails, 

 and drank a1)out a teacupful. It acted like 

 some i)()is()iis ; for after rubbing his little 



i stomach, and telling his mannna plaintively, 



! '■ Burnv, luirn." he vomited it all up. Now, 

 we didnot decide tliat the honey was poison- 



j ous on that account, but it surely acted like 

 poison to him when taken in such quantities. 



1 1 do not mean to insist that any one can ac- 



