Sept. 12, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



213 



I must not leave this subject -witliout a word or two in 

 reference to a widely prevailing and very mischievous 

 fallacy. Many argue and actually believe that because a 

 given drug has great efficiency in curing disease, it must do 

 good if taken under ordinary conditions of health. 



No high authorities are demanded for the refutation of 

 this. A little common sense properly used is quite 

 sufficient. It is evident that a medicine, properly so-called, 

 is something which is capable of producing a disturbing or 

 alterative effijct on the body generally or some particular 

 organ. The skill of the physician consists in so applying 

 this disturbing agency as to produce an alteration of the 

 state of disease, a direct conversion of the state of disease 

 to a state of health, if possible (which is rarely the case), or 

 more usually the conversion of one state of disease into 

 another of milder character. But, when we are in a state 

 of sound health, any such disturbance or alteration must 

 be a change for the worse, must throw us out of health to 

 an extent proportionate to the potency of the drug. 



I might illustrate this by a multitude of familiar ex- 

 amples, but they would carry me too far away from my proper 

 subject. There is, however, one class of such remedies 

 which are directly connected with the chemistry of cookery. 

 I refer to the condiments that act as " tonics," excluding 

 common salt, which is an article of food, though often mis- 

 called a condiment. It is food simply because it supplies 

 the blood with one of its normal and necessary consti- 

 tuents, chloride of sodium, without which we cannot live. 

 A certain quantity of it exists in most of our ordinary 

 food, but not always sufficient. 



Cayenne pepper may be selected as a typical example of 

 a condiment properly so called. Mustard is a food and 

 condiment combined ; this is the case with some others. 

 Curry powders are mixtures of very potent condiments 

 with more or less of farinaceous materials, and sulphur 

 compounds, which, like the oil of mustard, of onions, 

 garlic, itc, may have a certain amount of nutritive value. 



The mere condiment is a stimulating drug that does its 

 work directly upon the inner lining of the stomach, by 

 exciting it to increased and abnormal activity. A dyspep- 

 tic may obtain immediate relief by using cayenne pepper. 

 Among the advertised patent medicines is a pill bearing 

 the very ominous name of its compounder, the active con- 

 stituent of which is cayenne. Great relief and temporary 

 comfort is commonly obtained by using it as a " dinner 

 pill." If thus used only as a temporary remedy for an 

 acute and temporary, or exceptional, attack of indigestion 

 all is well, but the cayenne, whether taken in pills or 

 dusted over the food or stewed with it in curries or any other- 

 wise, is one of the most cruel of slow poisons when taken 

 liahituallij. Thousands of poor wretches are crawling 

 miserably towards their graves, the victims of the multi- 

 tude of maladies of both mind and body that are connected 

 with chronic, incurable dyspepsia, all brought about by the 

 habitual use of cayenne and its condimental cousins. 



The usual history of these victims is that they began by 

 over-feeding, took the condiment to force the stomach to 

 do more than its healthful amount of work, using but a 

 little at first. Then the stomach became tolerant of this 

 little, and demanded more ; then more, and more, and more, 

 until at last inHammation, ulceration, torpidity, and finally 

 the death of the digestive powers, accompanied with all 

 that long train of miseries to which I have referred. India 

 is their special fatherland. Englishmen, accustomed to an 

 active life at home, and a climate demanding much food 

 fuel for the maintenance of animal heat, go to India, 

 crammed, may be, with Latin, but ignorant of the laws of 

 health ; cheap servants promote indolence, tropical heat 

 diminishes respiratory oxidation, and the appetite naturally 



fails. Instead of understanding this failure as an admoni- 

 tion to take smaller quantities of food, or food of less 

 nutritive value, they regard it as a symptom of ill-health, 

 and take curries, bitter ale, and other tonics or appetising 

 condiments, which, however mischievous in England,^are 

 far more so there. 



I know several men who have lived rationally in India, 

 and they all agree that the climate is especially favourable 

 to longevity, provided bitter beer, and all other alcoholic 

 drinks, all peppery condiments, and flesh foods are avoided. 

 The most remarkable example of vigorous old age I have 

 ever met was a retired colonel eighty-two years of age, 

 who had risen from the ranks, and had been fifty-five years 

 in India without furlough ; drank no alcohol during that 

 period ; was a vegetarian in India, though not so in his 

 native land. I guessed his age to be somewhere about sixty. 

 He was a Scotchman, and an ardent student of the works of 

 both George and Dr. Andrew Combe. 



While still seasonable I add by way of postscript a 

 receipt for a dish lately invented by my wife. It is vege- 

 table marrow an gratin, prepared :by simply boiling the 

 vegetable as usual, sKcing it, placing the slices in a dish, 

 covering them with grated cheese, and then browning 

 slightly in an oven or before the fire, as in preparing the 

 well-known " cauliflower ait yratin." I have modified this 

 (with improvement, I believe) by mashing the boiled 

 marrow and stin-ing the grated cheese into the midst of it 

 whilst as hot as possible ; or, better still, by adding a little 

 milk, a pinch of bicarbonate of potash, mixing with the 

 cheese, and then returning this puree to the saucepan, 

 heating and stirring it there for a few minutes to effect the 

 complete solution of the cheese. This dish is not so 

 pretty as that au gratin browned in orthodox fashion, but 

 is more digestible. 



SHIPS' LIGHTS. 



THE following extract from the New Regidations for 

 Preventing Collisions at Sea, which came into force 

 on the 1st inst. (and for which we are indebted to Captain 

 D. Forbes, of Southampton), may be read in connection with 



letter 1375 (p. 185) :— 



A ship, whether a steam ship or a sailing ship, employed 

 in laying or in picking up a telegraph cable, shall at night 

 carry in the same position as the white light which steam 

 ships are required to carry, and, if a steam ship, in place of 

 that light, three lights in globular lanterns, each not less 

 than 10-in. in diameter, in a vertical line over one another, 

 not less than 6 ft. apart ; the highest and lowest of these 

 lights shall be red, and the middle light shall be white, and 

 they shall be of such a character that the red lights shall 

 be visible at the same distance as the white light. By day 

 she shall carry in a vertical line, one over the other, not 

 less than 6 ft. apart, in front of but not lower than her 

 foremast head, three shapes, not less than 2 ft. in diameter, 

 of which the top and bottom shall be globular in shape and 

 red in colour, and the middle-one diamond in shape and 

 white. 



The following portion of this article applies only to 

 fishing vessels and boats when in the sea ofi' the coast of 

 Europe lying north of Cape Finisterre : — 



(a) All fisMng vessels and fishing boats of 20 tons net registered 

 tonnage, or upwards, wlien under way and when not re- 

 quired by the following regulations in this article to carry 

 and show the lights therein named, shall carry and show 

 the same lights as other vessels under way. 



(h) All vessels when engaged in fishing with drift nets shall 

 exhibit two white lights from any part of the vessel where 

 they can be best seen. Such lights shall be placed so that 



