HYDATED DISEASE OF ICELAND. 239 



drinking-water most proper for the prevention of this trans- 

 portation would certainly be the cooled thermal water mentioned 

 under 6, or other water boiled and cooled in imitation of this 

 process. 



Artificial beverages. — The commonest beverage is acid ivhey 

 (Blanda), which is mixed with the ordinary drinking-water. As 

 a matter of course the same may apply to this, that we have 

 said of the natural drinking-waters just referred to. I 

 cannot omit to remark, also, what a necessary dietetic, or popu- 

 larly medicinal beverage the acid wheys are in Iceland, as they 

 are proper to neutralize the too energetic action of the styptic 

 waters to a certain extent, in the same way as their substitute, — 



Sorrel water. — In the summer the leaves of Rumex acetosa are 

 laid in the water and left there until all the juice is extracted. 

 This beverage is employed for some time during the summer, 

 but not freely until the winter. What we have said of the 

 dilute wheys applies also to this. All depends upon the water 

 added to it. Water with one twelfth of old whey (Syre), forming 

 a sort of intoxicating beverage, is also drunk. I do not know 

 its amount of alcohol, and have, therefore, no means of judging 

 whether the embryo Tcenice are capable of living in this beverage. 



Raiv food. — The Icelander, belonging to a race of people 

 amongst whom the sciences still flourished in the sixteenth 

 century, and who had already their own printing establishments 

 in 1522, never eat raw flesh; even edible mussels and oysters 

 are used by him only as baits in his fisheries, but not for eating, 

 except in seasons of the greatest scarcity. 



Vegetables are rare upon this island, although the Government 

 has taken the greatest trouble to introduce at least the oleraceous 

 vegetables. Our green salad is only cultivated in the kitchen- 

 gardens of certain personages, and a few of the higher people. 

 This, therefore, can hardly come into consideration. Instead of 

 this, however, we may lay a suspicion of transferring the eggs of 

 tape-worms into the human subject upon — 



1. The herb of Rumex acetosa, the common sorrel, the raw 

 leaves of which the Icelanders are fond of eating. 



2. Bilberries, the fruits of which they employ in the pre- 

 paration of bilberry jell}', with cold milk, and the herb of which 

 they use in various ways, without eating it, as they collect it for 

 the purpose of dyeing. 



3. Strawberries. 



