184 OAK. 



the great dearth which prevailed in 1709, were driven to the 

 extremity of eating it as bread, and experienced very inju- 

 rious effects, such as obstinate constipation and destructive 

 cholera. In Norway and Smoland, however, the acorns, after 

 being deprived in some measure of their astringency and 

 bitterness, are mixed with half their quantity of wheaten flour, 

 and made into wholesome bread. Their way of preparing 

 is : — after selecting the ripe fruit only, they boil it in water, 

 that the integuments or skin may be separated, and then dry 

 the kernel and reduce it to powder ; it then undergoes pro- 

 tracted fermentation in a powerful heat, and is thoroughly 

 kneaded *. Parmentier f states, that by pressure alone the 

 acorn is deprived of its bitter and astringent juice, and when 

 dried and reduced to a fine powder, is pleasant and nutritious. 

 In this state it has been used as a substitute for coffee J. It is 

 probable that if acorns were allowed to germinate, and their 

 growth suddenly stopped by means of heat, as in the process of 

 malting, and then deprived of their remaining bitterness and 

 astringency by maceration in water, or some other method, 

 they would afford a nutritious food. When suffered to ger- 

 minate a chemical change is produced, and they yield by distil- 

 lation an ardent spirit. 



The galls or excrescences called oak-apples, produced on the 

 young branches of the Oak by the puncture of an insect, a spe- 

 cies of Cynips, are used as a substitute for galls §, in dyeing 

 black colours, with the addition of copperas, and the shades 

 are more beautiful than those produced by galls, but not near so 



# Murray, App. Med. vol. i. p. 98. 



t Mem. sur les vegetaux qui pourroient suppleer en terns de disette. 



J Murray, /. c. 



§ The true gall-nuts are the product of the Quercus infectoria, a native 

 of the East. They are excrescences of a similar nature to the common oak- 

 apple, but effected by a different insect, the diplolepis. The origin of galls 

 was very puzzling to the ancient philosophers. Matthiolus ascribes their 

 origin to spontaneous generation, and as Gerard tells us, " The oke-apples 

 being broken asunder do foreshew the sequell of the yeare, as the expert 

 Kentish husbandmen have obserued by the liuing things found in them : 

 as if they found an ant, they foretell plenty of graine to ensue ; if a white 

 worm or magot, murren of beasts and cattell ; if a spider, then, say they, 

 we shall have a pestilence or some such like sickness amongst men : These 

 things the learned also have observed and noted ; for Matthiolus, writing 

 upon Dioscorides saith," &.c.— Ger. Em. p. 1341. 



