
280 
fruit, or the indiscriminate use of unfipe or 
ill-preserved fruit. But I do contend, as the 
result of my own experience, that not only 
is a moderate quantity of well-ripened or 
well-preserved fruit harmless, but that it is 
highly conducive to “the health of people, 
and especially of children, and that it tends 
to prevent bilious diarrhoea and cholera. 
Tam inclined to view the abundant supply 
of fruit in hot climates, and during the 
summer and autumn, and the great longing 
of people, especially of children (in whom 
the biliary functions are very active), for 
fruit—to a wise provision of an overruling 
and ever-watchful Providence, which gene- 
rally plants the remedy side by side with 
the disease, at a time when the biliary 
system is in most danger of becoming dis- 
ordered. I have generally observed that 
children who are strictly, and I think 
injudiciously, debarred the use of fruit, have 
tender bowels; and | have noticed that they 
are almost universally pallid. While, on the 
other hand, children who are allowed a 
moderate daily proportion of sound fruit, are 
usually florid, especially among the poor. 
I therefore imagine that the use of fruit 
facilitates the introduction of iron—the 
colormg principle of the blood-—into the 
circulating system. When living in the 
country, with the.advantages of a large 
garden and plenty of fruit, I always allowed 
my children a liberal proportion ; and I never 
had oecasion to treat them either for 
diarrhoea or skin eruptions, though it is a very 
common opinion that cutaneous diseases are 
often brought on by the too free use of fruit. 
On first removing my family to town, the 
usual supply being cut off, two or three of 
the younger ones became affected with 
obstinate diarrhoea and dysentery, which 
resisted all the ordinary modes of medicinal 
treatment. My opinion on the subject, 
afterwards induced me to give them a good 
proportion of fruit every day, as grapes, 
oranges, ripe apples, &c.; when all. the 
symptoms presently subsided, and they have 
never since been troubled either with bowel 
complaints or skin eruptions to any notice- 
able extent. 
The editor of the Lancet, in animadverting 
on the “health of London ending August 
20,” makes the following remarks :—‘‘ The 
deaths ascribed to diarrhoea are 126, 
of which 115 occurred among children. 
The tender age of nearly all the sufferers, 
97 of them not having completed their first 
year, is sufficient to dispel the popular error 
that the use of fruit is the exciting cause.” 
Several years ago a serious and very fatal 
epidemic, then called “English Cholera,” 
prevailed then in the neighborhood where I 
was living. It chiefly attacked very young 
children and old people, and was aimost as 




KIDD’S OWN JOURNAL. 
rapid in its progress as the Asiatic form. 
This epidemic occurred in the autumn; and 
many people, influenced by the common 
prejudice, dug holes in their gardens and 
buried all their fruit; and some even went 
so far as to destroy the trees. I made many 
inquiries as to the previous habits of the 
victims of this epidemic ; and in almost every 
case, I learnt that fruit had not for some 
time previously formed any part of their 
diet. One writer in the Lancet has strongly 
recommended the use of baked fruit as 
a preventive of cholera; another has 
strenuously advocated the administration of 
diluted sulphuric acid during the actual 
attack ; and the proofs brought forward of 
their good effects correspond with my own 
experience. 
It is asserted that the cholera has never 
yet prevailed in the cider counties, nor in 
Birmingham, where acidulated treacle-beer 
and sulphuric acid lemonade are freely used 
to obviate the poisonous effects of white- 
lead in the manufactories. 
AN ODE TO WOMAN. 

Woman! of fair creation, fairest thou— 
Most loving and beloved. When chaos woke 
To life, light, order, beauty, thou didst grow 
From out thy Maker’s hands—a voice that 
spoke 
Unto the inmost soul—a tone which broke 
Most musical on man—a form array’d 
In greater charms than fancy could invoke,— 
Erewhile to him who first beheld thee made, 
Kind friend, companion sweet, his comforter, and 
aid. 
Woman! ’twas thy mild eye first beamed on me ; 
It was thy tender voice I then did hear; 
Thine was the smile which first those eyes did 
See ; 
Thine, too, the accents which still most do 
cheer 
Life’s varied scene—of blending hope and 
fear— 
Alternate joy and sorrow. Could this heart 
Unbare itself before thee—cause appear > 
Its deepest cherished feelings—’twould impart, 
More than this verse, the truth that there 
enshrined thou art. 
O, woman! sweetest flower of earth! bright sun, 
Diffusing joy and gladness all around! 
Man’s dearest friend! Blest time when first 
begun 
Thine offices of love. 
Heaven’s gifts to man with thee. 
sound 
Of thy sweet voice, which I delight in best, 
Dispel the gloom that round this soul hath 
wound, 
And when life’s sands are run, upon thy breast 
Let my head pillow fondly, and there sink to rest. 
Q. 
Blest hour that crown’d 
O! let the 


