THE REMEDIES OF NATURE. 203 



but it will often protest its disability to retain the whole quantum. A 

 small but increasing percentage will be assimilated, and, if the cor- 

 responding enlargement of the rations is not overdone, the patient, at 

 the end of the third or fourth week, may be rewarded by the return of 

 something like positive appetite, i. e., a craving for more solid food. 

 Try a slice of rice-pudding and fruit-jelly, or a homoeopathic dose of 

 blanc-mange. Try a soft-boiled egg or a baked apple. Eschew cor- 

 dials. Avoid food-extracts, even strong beef -tea, which for a person 

 in such circumstances is a stimulant rather than a nourishment. In 

 the mean time watch the weather, and on the first clear day screen the 

 lower windows, open the upper sashes, and treat the patient to a sun^ 

 hath. Sunlight, applied for half an hour to the bare skin, is a better 

 tonic than cold water, which invigorates a healthy man, but exhausts 

 an asthenic invalid. In the form of tepid sponge-haths^ however, water 

 should be applied as soon as the patient can bear the fatigue of keeping 

 on his legs for a couple of minutes. The first decided gain in strength 

 employ in the preparatory exercises of pedestrianism. Carpet the 

 room, clear a track for a circular walk, provide supports at proper 

 intervals, a small table in one corner, a chair or a curtain-strap in 

 the other. Interest the patient in his progressive achievements, keep 

 a record-book, procure a boxful of chips and tally off each round. 

 Three miles a day mark the time when the sanitarium can be trans- 

 ferred to the out-door world. In a vineyard country devote the vint- 

 age season to a three weeks' grape-cure. The cure consists in dining 

 on bucketfuls of ripe grapes and transparent slices of wheat bread. 

 Grape-breakfasts, grape-luncheons, and grape-suppers, ad libitum, but 

 no bread, nor anything else that could interfere with the system-reno- 

 vating effect of the sweet abstersive, that has been ti*ied with signal 

 success in the treatment of bilious dyspepsia, gout, and cutaneous dis- 

 eases.* Extreme caution in the use of animal food, acids, and fer- 

 mented beverages, for the first six months at least, is as necessary as 

 after an attack of dysentery, which should be similarly treated, except 

 that a more rapid recovery of strength will permit a speedier return 

 to out-door and active exercise. 



Colic can generally be traced to the presence of fermenting fluids, 

 and is the penalty of excessive indulgence in such beverages as mush, new 

 beer, fresh cider, together with sour milk and watery vegetables, but 

 may in rarer cases indicate the agency of more dangerous substances, 



* The grape-cures of Thionville, Staremberg, Meran, Lintz, and the Bcrgstrasse, near 

 Mannheim, are yearly visited by thousands. In the United States the best facilities might 

 be found at Hammondsport, Flushing, and lona Island, New York ; Salem, Massachu. 

 setts ; Hagerstown, Maryland ; Lebanon, Columbia, and Eagleville, Pennsylvania ; Gol- 

 oonda, Illinois ; Hermann, Missouri ; Cincinnati, Delaware, and Kelly's Island, Ohio. All 

 Southern California is now studded with vineyards, and the Trauben-kur of 3Ieran hardly 

 excels the grapes of San Gabriel and Annaheim. Five cents a pound for the ripest 

 bunches is the average price on Kelly's Island ; in California from two to three cents a 

 pound ; in larger quantities perhaps even less. 



