Fruits, which are so salutary in acute and inflammatory distempers, in obstructions, especially those of the liver, and in several other disorders, are never proper in this case; they weaken, relax, and enervate the strength of the stomach; they augment the attenuation of the blood, already too aqueous; and ill digested, they ferment in the stomach and intestines, and this fermentation sets free an astonishing quantity of air, which produces enormous distensions, that absolutely disturb the course of the circulation. I have, in a woman, seen this effect: so considerable, for her having eaten too many cherries and currants, four and twenty hours after a very easy delivery, that her belly was stretched to such a degree as to become livid; she appeared lethargically dozing, and her pulse was almost imperceptible. Fruits also leave, in the first passages, a principle of acidity, apt to occasion several dangerous symptoms, so that it is necessary to abstain almost totally from them. Crude garden-stuff, vinegar, verjuice, have the like inconveniences, and deserve the like exclusion.
But though the catalogue of prohibited articles of food be a long one, that of the allowable ones is still longer. It comprehends the flesh of all young animals, fed in healthy places, and wholesomely fed; such especially is that of veal, lamb, or young mutton, young beef, fowl, pigeon, turkey, partridge. Lark, thrushes, quails, and other wild fowl, without being absolutely forbidden, are, however, attended with such inconveniences, as not to allow of their entering into daily food. Fish is under the same restriction.
But it is not enough only to chuse your flesh-meats with due discernment, but they must also be properly prepared. The best way is to roast them by a gentle fire, so as to preserve their gravy, and not dry them up too much; or to stew them slowly in their own juices. The flesh-meats that are boiled in too much water, give out to it all that they have of juiciness, and remain incapable of nourishing: thus they often become nothing but fleshy fibres deprived of their nutritious juice, and equally insipid to the taste, and indigestible to the stomach. It is common for weak persons, and even for such of them as are above all suspicions of being too nice, not to be able to eat of them without their stomach being disordered by them. The more tender flesh meats are, the less they can bear this preparation, which, in the case of sick people, ought to be reserved for extracting by it from hard or tough meats whatever nourishment they may contain.
Yet whatever preparation may be carefully employed upon the flesh meats, there are persons who cannot digest them: and to them it becomes as necessary to give them the broth, extracted by a gentle boiling; but as that has too great a tendency to putrefaction, it must be accompanied with some bread, and a dash of lemon juice, or a little wine: such a mixture is of the most desirable, in that case, for nourishment. Some lobsters boiled, and crushed in the broth, heighten its relish, and make it perhaps more strengthening; but they have the double inconvenience, of being somewhat heating, and of rendering the broth more susceptible of a quick corruption; so that on these two accounts it is good to be on one’s guard.
Bread and garden-stuff have not the advantage of containing at once a great deal of nourishment in a small quantity; but the use of them, especially of bread, is indispensably necessary, to prevent, not only the distaste which the use of a regimen consisting totally of animal meats would not fail of producing, but also that putridity which would be the consequence of them, if not mixed with vegetables. Without this precaution, there would soon a spontaneous alkali disclose itself in the first passages, with all the disorders consequential thereto. I have seen terrible accidents produced by this regimen, in weak persons, to whom it had been prescribed. One of the commonest symptoms is, thirst; they are obliged to drink, and drink weakens them: besides, the liquid they drink does not easily mix with the humors of the body, as that mixture depends on the action of the vessels, which is very languid; and if, unfortunately, as is not unfrequent with those who do not use much motion, the action of the kidneys diminishes, the liquids pass into the cellular membrane, and immediately form œdematous swellings there, and, at length, dropsies of all kinds.
These dangers are prevented by a due alliance of the vegetable regimen with the animal. The best garden-ware are, the tender roots, herbs of the endive kind, artichoaks, asparagus. There are some others, which, though tender, are of disservice; being too cooling, they deaden the strength of the stomach.
Farinaceous grains, prepared and boiled in cream, with flesh broth, are an aliment not to be slighted, as it combines every thing that is nourishing in the two kingdoms animal and vegetable, while their mixture prevents the danger from each aliment given single; the broth hinders the meal from turning sour, the meat the broth from putrefying. By reading, with a little reflexion, observant Naturalists, it may easily be perceived, that distempers are more malignant in the north of Europe than in its middle regions: may not that be owing to more flesh meats being eaten in proportion than vegetables?
What I have above said of fruits, need not, however, hinder, where the stomach still preserves something of its strength, one’s indulging one’s self, now and then, with a small quantity of the best chosen for the sort, and for ripeness; the most watery are those which are the least proper.
Eggs are an aliment of the animal kind, and an aliment extremely useful; they strengthen greatly, and are easy of digestion, provided that they have but little or even no preparation by fire, for if the white is once hardened it does not dissolve again; it becomes heavy, indigest, and unnutritious: it might then be the aliment of those who digest too quickly, and not of those who have rather no digestion. The best way of eating them, is just as they are new laid from the fowl, without any preparation, or in the shell, after only three or four dips in boiling water, or stirred into warm, and not boiling broth.
Conclusively; there remains to mention the aliment from milk; which unites all the qualities that can be desired, without having any of the inconveniences that are to be dreaded. It is the most simple, the most easily assimilable, and the quickest restorative: all prepared as it is by nature, it needs no risk of spoiling it by an artificial preparation: like the broth of flesh meats it nourishes, but is not susceptible of putridity; it prevents thirst, it supplies the place of meat and drink; it keeps up all the secretions; it disposes for tranquil sleep; in short, it fulfils all the indications that present themselves in this case. M. Lewis attests its having produced the best effects[106]. Why then is not it always employed, always substituted to the other aliments? Answer. For a reason which is peculiar to it, which unnaturalises its effect, and which makes it sometimes produce a very different one, from that which might be hoped from it, or reasonably expected.