LIFE AT STOCKHOLM 87 



rest of the world. In his practice as a physician, it was 

 palpable to him, going from his fine rooms at Count 

 Tessin's, that in the small rooms of his patients, if the 

 window were open they smelt of the quay, if shut, they 

 smelt of indoors. No one else attended to the subject of 

 ventilation at all. He occupied himself too in consider- 

 ing the best dietetic bread for the navy, in which he was 

 in advance of ourselves even at the present day. We still 

 adhere to the antiquated practice of supplying the navy 

 with the hardest biscuit, notwithstanding that in these 

 days it is as easy to bake fresh bread on board ship as 

 it is to get up steam ; and the French and American 

 navies have used fresh bread for years past. We admit 

 no men into our service who have not perfect teeth ; we 

 at once proceed to destroy those teeth by grinding them 

 down upon ship biscuit. This is a recognised medical 

 fact. The dietary in Sweden generally is singularly 

 deficient in the point of fresh bread. I delight in their 

 hard rye-biscuit of daily life ; but it must be a hardship 

 to many persons to meet so seldom with soft bread. 



Linnaeus gave especial consideration to salads, which 

 are still almost ignored in the Swedish bill of fare. To 

 the dietetic part of medicine he paid deep attention, as 

 well as to the diseases of Sweden and their remedies, 

 considering particularly the chalybeates of Sweden, and 

 its wild plants, and fruits, as well as to the Flora 

 CEconomica, domestic and exotic. His remarks on tea, 

 coffee, and brandy were written popularly for the 

 Swedish almanacs. He looked upon nothing as more 



