GALLUS SONNERATI. 47 



domestic fowl, and the pheasant, are universally preferred for the 

 delicacy of their flavour. Eggs contain much nourishment in a 

 small bulk, and, as Dr. Cullen justly remarks, a smaller quantity 

 of this than any other food will satisfy and occupy the digestive 

 powers of most men. According to Lieutaud, and other writers, 

 they are well adapted to those who are subject to acidities of the 

 primae via? : but they arc said to favour the secretion of bile, and 

 so to disagree with those of a bilious temperament. The solubility 

 of eggs depends much on their mode of preparation. To weak 

 stomachs, they should only be immersed in boiling water a few 

 minutes, so that the albumen be kept soft. Both the white 

 and yolk of egg are rendered less digestible to the generality of 

 stomachs when boiled to hardness. Eggs are distinguished by the 

 peculiar quality of singularly affecting some persons ; even the 

 smallestquantity occasioning colic, febricula, heat, itching, and efflo- 

 rescence of the skin. Eggs should be eaten when quite fresh, for 

 when they approach to a putrescent state, they seem to be the 

 most active and noxious of all the putrid substances. Taken to 

 the quantity of even three or four grains, putrid egg has been 

 known to occasion violent diarrhoea and dysentery. The flesh of 

 the common domestic fowl affords a well known delicate and 

 wholesome food. It is less stimulating and more easy of 

 digestion than almost all animal substances ; but it affords at the 

 same time a less proportion of real nourishment. Broth made of 

 the young fowl or chicken is diluent and restorative, and affords a 

 very useful drink in cholera, diarrhoea, and other disorders of the 

 stomach and bowels. 



The flesh of birds is in general wholesome, but the Pheasant of 

 the United States of America, is sometimes found to be poisonous, 

 during the winter and spring. The cause assigned for this noxious 

 quality is its feeding on the buds of the Kalmia lal'ifolia, which is 

 one of the few shrubs that preserves its verdure throughout the 

 winter. Dr. Mease has published several cases which occurred 

 in 1701 and 1792, in Philadelphia, where individuals dining 

 on pheasants solely, were, in a few hours after, seized with giddi- 

 ness, violent flushings of heat and cold, sickness at stomach, and 

 repeated vomiting. These symptoms were soon succeeded by 



