The Natural History of Chocolate / Being a Distinct and Particular Account of the Cocoa-Tree, its Growth and Culture, and the Preparation, Excellent Properties, and Medicinal Vertues of its Fruit

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BEING
A Distinct and Particular Account of the Cocoa-tree, its Growth and Culture, and the Preparation, Excellent Properties, and Medicinal Vertues of its Fruit.
Wherein the Errors of those who have wrote upon this Subject are discover’d; the Best Way of Making Chocolate is explain’d; and several Uncommon Medicines drawn from it, are communicated.
Translated from the last Edition of the French , By R. BROOKES, M. D.
The Second Edition.
LONDON:
Printed for J. Roberts, near the Oxford-Arms in Warwick-Lane . M dcc.xxx.
This small Treatise is nothing but the Substance and Result of the Observations that I made in the American Islands , during the fifteen Years which I was obliged to stay there, upon the account of his Majesty’s Service. The great Trade they drive there in Chocolate , excited my Curiosity to examine more strictly than ordinary into its Origin, Culture, Properties, and Uses. I was not a little surprized when I every day discover’d, as to the Nature of the Plant, and the Customs of the Country, a great Number of Facts contrary to the Ideas, and Prejudices, for which the Writers on this Subject have given room.
For this reason, I resolved to examine every thing myself, and to represent nothing but as it really was in Nature, to advance nothing but what I had experienced, and even to doubt of the Experiments themselves, till I had repeated them with the utmost Exactness. Without these Precautions, there can be no great Dependance on the greatest Part of the Facts, which are produced by those who write upon any Historical Matter from Memorandums; which, from the Nature of the Subject, they cannot fully comprehend.