402 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNN0 1778. 



used in our kitchens are much more antiscorbutic when they are raw than after 

 they have been boiled in water,* or have gone through any other preparation 

 by fire. He grounds his opinion on experience, the safest of all guides, and 

 therefore relates the following facts. 



He was surprised to find, during an abode of many years at Moscow, that 



many gentlemen, merchants, and strangers were attacked by a slow scurvy, 



having their gums soft, swollen, and blueish, the breath strong, and many 



scorbutic spots on the legs, while it was rare to find among the lower people, 



either of town or country, a single person with these marks. The nourishment 



of the former consists of a great deal of meat and fish, both salt and fresh ; 



they seldom eat any greens, except now and then a soup made of sour cabbage, 



exactly resembling the German sour krout in every thing, save that this cabbage 



is chopped small, whereas the sour krout is cut according to the length of the 



cabbage. Their common drink is very sour small beer, called quas, besides 



which they drink wine, the beer of the country, English beer, and a small glass 



of brandy at least before every meal. They eat very little bread. The common 



people live all the year on this sour cabbage soup, in which they boil salt meat 



on common days, and salt or dried fish on meagre days and during their 4 Lents 



(which are more than a 3d of the year) when they add to it very stinking 



linseed oil instead of grease or butter. In this soup, which is called schsti, 



both in the meagre and other seasons, they boil meal, principally that of Saracen 



wheat. They eat cucumbers like the others in summer, and salt them for the 



winter. They also feed very much on oaten bread. The common people live in 



small wooden houses, generally very low, in which they get together both night 



and day during three parts of the year, on account of the great cold. There is 



little air in the room, the windows of which are very small. Here they stew 



together in humidity and nastiness ; for, except the bath, which, as well as 



those mentioned first, they use once a week, they are extremely nasty. Here 



then are many reasons, all of wliich (except tlie constant use of sour cabbage 



and bread) should make them more subject to the scurvy than the people of 



fashion, or those who live at their ease ; a constant use of salt meat or fish (for 



they esteem neither so much when they are fresh) much more brandy, filth and 



damp in their house, less change of clothes or linen. It appeared to him that, 



exclusive of the daily use of the sour cabbage, which he considers as the most 



powerful of all preservatives, they were indebted for their safety to the great 



quantity of raw greens, such as onions, leeks, radishes, turnips, peas in the 



pod, and others, which they eat. The berries of vaccinium, with others much 



resembling them, called kloukna, which are of the size of a small cherry and 



* Perhaps it is because they lose a great deal of fixed air by ebullition —Orig. , 



