THE BIOLOGY OF DAILY LIFE. 129 



reject Sydenham's use of it. Calomel, I need not 

 name, and I can think of no one remedy, that has 

 universal suffrage to boast for two centuries, but lemon 

 juice alone.* 



We have already explained this biologically, that 

 lemons are a veritable embodiment of sun and plant 

 power. It does not come within the scope of this 

 little work to go into any details about food or 

 medicine. I content myself now with the assertion 

 that the promise, made wrongly in the name of 

 Chemistry, will be found to be fully kept in Biology. 



And that, for a very small cost, far under the usual 

 butcher's bill alone, can be purchased all that is needed 

 to maintain a life of full mental and bodily vigour in 

 the healthiest and most active condition. Even now 

 Nature's abundant supply is brought to our very doors 

 by commerce, and is ready (though in nothing like the 

 quantity, and at far above the cost to which it must 

 be reduced, when rational living becomes the rule and 

 not the exception), for every one who knows what to 

 seek for, and where to seek for it. 



To show how much good food Nature may provide 

 for us when we are starving ourselves in, or by, imagina- 

 tion, the following remark from Thackeray's Irish 

 Sketch Book is instructive : 



fl Here we saw the first public evidence of the 

 distress of the country. There was no trade 

 in the little place, and but few people to be 



* In the year 1600, Commodore Lancaster sailed from England 

 for the Cape of Good Hope. His men were kept quite free from 

 scurvy by the administration of three table-spoonfuls of lemon 

 juice every morning. 



K 



