Celery is almost a specific for rheumatism, gout, and nervous indigestion. The most useful plants for this purpose are small, not too rapidly grown nor very highly manured.
It may be eaten raw, or steamed, or in soup. Strong celery broth flavoured with parsley is excellent.
Cresses.
All the cresses are anti-scorbutic, that is, useful against the scurvy. The ancient Greeks also believed them to be good for the brain.
The ordinary "mustard and cress" of our salads is good for rheumatic patients, while the water-cress is valuable in cases of tubercular disease. Anæmic patients may also eat freely of it on account of the iron it contains. Care should be taken, however, from whence it is procured, as a disease peculiar to sheep but communicable to man may be carried by it. It should not be gathered from streams running through meadows inhabited by sheep.
Chestnut.
Chestnuts, when cooked, are valuable food for persons with weak digestive powers. They should be put on the fire in a saucepan of cold water and cooked for twenty minutes from the time the water first boils. John Evelyn, F.R.S., a seventeenth century writer, says of them: "They are a lusty and masculine food for rustics at all times, and of better nourishment for husbandmen than cole and rusty bacon, yea, or beans to boot."
Cinnamon.
Cinnamon is a very old-fashioned remedy for soothing the pain of internal or unbroken cancer. One prescription is the following: Take 1 lb. of Ceylon sticks. Simmer in a closed vessel with 1 quart of water until the liquid is reduced to 1 pint. Pour off without straining, and shake or stir well before taking. Take half a pint every twenty-four hours. Divide into small doses and take regularly.
Cinnamon has a powerful influence over disease germs, but care must be taken to obtain it pure. It is often adulterated with cassia.