APKIL 61 



that work he gave a woodcut representing rhubarb, 

 with the following explanation : 



' I have a kind of round-leafed dock growing in my garden, 

 which was sent to me from beyond sea by a worthy gentle- 

 man, Mr. Dr. Matth. Lister, 1 one of the King's physitians, 

 with this title Rhaponticum verum and first grew with me 

 before it was ever seen or known elsewhere in England . . . 

 the leaves have a fine acid taste. A syrrupe thereof made 

 with the juice and sugar cannot but be very efFectuall in 

 dejected appetites and hot fits of ague.' 



It may be assumed that Parkinson meant the stalks 

 when he wrote of the leaves. Anyhow, he considered 

 them only as medicinal a kind of cocktail for 

 ' dejected appetites.' It was long before the plant carne to 

 be grown and cooked as an esculent; but now it covers 

 hundreds of acres in the market-gardens of all our 

 great towns. Although it is true that the leaf-stalks, 

 before they turn green, may be eaten by most persons 

 without detriment, yet it is well to remember that 

 what gives flavour to the cooked stalks is a strong 

 irritant poison, for the leaves contain large quantities 

 of oxalic and nitric acid, which must be saturated with 

 sugar before the dish is palatable. Perhaps I am pre- 

 judiced against it, remembering that, in old fox-hunting 

 days, my boot-tops were cleaned with oxalic acid. 

 While these poisons may be consumed in small 

 quantities by persons of normal digestive power, they 

 certainly disagree with some constitutions, and it never 

 can be prudent to partake of cooked rhubarb as liberally 



1 A name that was to be brought to high lustre nearly three hundred 

 years later. 



