The Funny Side of Physic Part 78

towards the sound of the instrument. They stopped and listened for a moment or two, and, as the music glided up and down, they would move to and fro some inches on the floor, reminding one of a Schottische. In various pa.s.sages of the music I saw one jump up two or three inches from the floor. Thus they manoeuvred till the music ceased, when they scampered away to their holes again."

MUSIC AND HEALTH.

Let patients amuse themselves by music. It is conducive to health. I cannot select music for you; choose for yourself, only don't get the "Hark! from the tombs a doleful sound" style. Get church music, if you like, but select a cheering cla.s.s. O, it is a very mistaken idea that all music and mirth must cease in a house because a member of the household is an invalid. Try my suggestion. Re-open the piano or organ; or, if you haven't an instrument, re-tune your voices, and let music again "flow joyfully along," and see if happy results do not follow.

Physicians, I pray you, if you have never investigated this matter personally, do so. It is not adopted by any particular school of physic.

It is not secured by letters patent. You will not be accounted outside of the Asclepiadae, nor sued for infringement, if you prescribe music for the despondent patient. You need not turn "minstrels," burnt-cork fellows, etc., nor make comic actors of yourselves by so doing.

Your judgment will suggest the kind of patient who most needs this sort of "soul and spirit" stimulus. It is better than slop porter; better than sulphuric acid brandy, or strychnine whiskey, and you well know the basis of those liquors. Don't think me officious in these strong suggestions.

Try my advice, and you will agree with me.

"PROVE ALL THINGS; HOLD FAST TO THAT WHICH IS GOOD."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XXIV.

ADULTERATIONS.

BREAD, b.u.t.tER, AND THE BIBLE.--"JACK ASh.o.r.e."--BUCKWHEAT CAKES ARE GOOD.--WHAT'S IN THE BREAD, AND HOW TO DETECT IT.--b.u.t.tER.--HOW TO TELL GOOD AND BAD.--MILK.--a.n.a.lYSIS OF GOOD AND "SWILL MILK."--WHAT'S IN THE MILK BESIDES MICE?--THE COW WITH ONE TEAT.--"LOUD" CHEESE.--TEA AND COFFEE.--TANNIN, SAWDUST, AND HORSES' LIVERS.--ALCOHOLIC DRINKS.--CHURCH WINE AND BREAD.--BEER AND BITTER HERBS.--SPANISH FLIES AND STRYCHNINE.--"NINE MEN STANDIN' AT THE DOOR."--BURTON'S ALE; AN ASTONISHING FACT.--FISHY.--"FISH ON A SPREE."--TO REMEDY IMPURE WATER.--CHARCOAL AND THE BISHOP.--HOG-ISH.--PORK AND SCROFULA.--NOTICES OF THE PRESS.

BREAD.

Bread and b.u.t.ter and the Bible are synonymous with civilization and Christianity. Bread and the Bible, civilization and Christianity, have kept step together since the history of each began.

Two shipwrecked sailors, floating on a spar, after long privation and suffering, were thrown upon an unknown land. After looking about very shyly,--for every thing looked wild and uncivilized,--they came suddenly upon a hut. Jack was afraid to advance, but his hungry companion cautiously approached, and finally entered the hut. In a moment he came rushing out, exclaiming,--

"Come on, Jack. It's all right. n.o.body at home; but it's civilized land we're grounded on. I found a loaf of bread."

This was conclusive evidence, next to finding a Bible, that it was a civilized country; and Jack waited for no further proof, but followed Captain Duncan into the cabin, where the two soon appeased their hunger.

Wheaten bread was never an article of diet amongst savages. "Take away wheat bread and b.u.t.ter from our families for a few generations, and who is prepared to say that civilization would not glide easily to a state of barbarism? There is sound philosophy in this suggestion, because there is no other kind of human food that is so admirably adapted to the development of the human frame, including a n.o.ble brain, as good wheat bread." It contains phosphates in just sufficient quant.i.ties to keep up a healthful supply for brain work. Fish contains more phosphorus; but are fish-eating Esquimaux,[10] or coast-men, the more intellectual for having made fish their princ.i.p.al diet?

In five hundred pounds of wheat, there are,--

Muscle material, 78 pounds.

Bone (and teeth) material, 85 "

Fat principle, 12 "

Ground to a fine flour:--

Muscle material, 65 "

Bone material, 30 "

Fat principle, 10 "

Cereal food will keep off hunger longer than animal food. By experience I have found that buckwheat will satisfy the cravings of hunger longer than wheat, rye, or corn. Dr. R. B. Welton, of Boston, says,--

"A lady of culture, refinement, and unusual powers of observation and comparison, became a widow. Reduced from affluence to poverty, with a large family of small children dependent on her manual labor for daily food, she made a variety of experiments to ascertain what articles could be purchased for the least money, and would, at the same time, "go the farthest," by keeping her children longest from crying for something to eat. She soon discovered that when they ate buckwheat cakes and mola.s.ses, they were quiet for a longer time than after eating any other kind of food.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SIGNS OF CIVILIZATION.]

"A distinguished judge of the United States District Court observed that when he took buckwheat cakes for breakfast, he could sit on the bench the whole day without being uncomfortably hungry. If the cakes were omitted, he felt obliged to take a lunch about noon. Buckwheat cakes are a universal favorite at the winter breakfast table, and scientific investigation and a.n.a.lysis have shown that they abound in the heat-forming principle; hence nature takes away our appet.i.te for them in summer."

Another writer says,--

"We find the lowest order of intelligences standing on a potato. Only one step above this cla.s.s, another order is found on a hoe-cake. One degree above this we meet with the cla.s.s that has risen in the scale of being as high as it is possible for mortals to rise on a pancake. Head and shoulders above all of these cla.s.ses we find the highest order of intelligences, with large and well-developed brains, and n.o.ble characters, standing securely on their wheaten loaf."

Since bread, then, is the "staff of life," the sin of its adulteration is the greatest of all wrongs to the human family.

Flour is often adulterated with plaster, white earth, alum, magnesia, etc.

To detect plaster, burn some of the bread to ashes, and the white grains will be discovered.

Alum is a very pernicious ingredient of adulteration, intended to make the bread white and light. It is often mixed in inferior flour. It is detected thus: Soak the loaf till soft in water, adding sufficient warm water to make it thin; stir it well, and set it a few hours; then strain it and boil it, to evaporate most of the water. After it stands a while, and cools, the crystals of alum will be precipitated. You may then tell it by taste.

Magnesia, so often mixed with inferior flour, to make the bread appear light, is injurious to children and invalids. You may detect it by burning the bread, and finding the magnesia in the ashes.

Soda, or potash. Much soda produces dyspepsia, sour stomach, and burning.

To find potash, or soda, break up the bread, and pour upon it sufficient hot water to cover it. When it is cool, take a piece of litmus paper (obtained at the apothecary's), wet it in vinegar, and put it into the dish with the bread and water. The potash will turn the litmus blue again.

The more potash, the sooner it changes. In some countries it is known that bread is adulterated by copper.

b.u.t.tER.

b.u.t.ter stands next to bread, as an article of diet. It is adulterated, with difficulty, with lard; but the usual way is to mix very cheap b.u.t.ter with a quant.i.ty of good b.u.t.ter. b.u.t.ter is colored by carrots, yellow ochre, and yolks of eggs, and "adulterated by sand and chalk." To detect all of these, melt the b.u.t.ter in hot water. The coloring will separate and join the water, and the other adulterations settle to the bottom.

MILK.

"There's chalk in the milk," is all nonsense. Chalk will not remain in solution, but will settle. Hence milk is not adulterated with chalk. Milk is reduced by water, and if the body is again made up which the water has reduced, it is done by adding corn starch, or calves' brains!

_Pure Milk contains_

Water, 862.8 Solid particles, 137.2 ----- To parts 1000

b.u.t.ter, 43.8 Sugar, 52.7 Caseine, 38.0 Saline, 2.7 ----- Solid matter, 137.2

_Gra.s.s-fed Cows' Milk._

Water, 868 Solid, 132 ---- To parts 1000

b.u.t.ter, 44 Sugar, 46 Caseine, 39 Salt, 3 --- Solid matter, 132

_Swill Milk of New York._