Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/697

Rh known as scurvy, the whole medical profession look upon fruit and fresh vegetables as the one and only known remedy. I believe the day will come when science will use it very much mere largely than it does now in the treatment of many of the everyday ailments. I have shown how it aids digestion. Observations in scurvy prove that it exerts a very powerful influence on the blood. But "the blood is the life": poor blood means poor spirits, poor strength, poor breath, and poor circulation. Impure blood means gout, rheumatism, skin diseases, rickets, and other troubles. As it is proved that fruit will purify and improve the quality of the blood, it must follow that fruit is both food and medicine combined. In fevers I use grapes and strawberries, giving them to my patients in small but frequent doses—oranges and baked apples, if the others are not obtainable. For rheumatism, plenty of lemons are invaluable. White girls with miserable, pallid complexions want a quart of strawberries a day; where these are not obtainable, bananas, which contain much iron, are a good substitute. Probably, of all fruits, the apple stands unrivaled for general purposes in the household; either raw or cooked it can be taken by nearly everybody, and it contains similar properties to the other more delicate fruits. To my mind the pear is more easily digested than the apple, and for eating uncooked is superior to it. In our climate we can have good dessert pears nine months in the year, and their culture should be much increased.

Dried fruits are now occupying more attention than perhaps they have ever done before. It has been proved in a large way by giving troops dried vegetables and fruits that the attack of scurvy could be warded off, but in curing scurvy they were nowhere alongside green. Still it teaches us that dried fruits should be used when green can not be obtained. If soaked for a few hours before cooking they make a capital substitute for fresh fruit, and they come cheaper to the consumer. I wonder that miners, sailors, and others do not use dried fruits very largely.

For preserving fruit I look upon bottling in glass bottles as the coming thing. Not by the use of chemicals, such as salicylic and boracic acids, and the various preservatives made from them, but simply by protecting it after cooking from the fermentative germs in the atmosphere. It keeps for years, turns out even more palatable than green fruit, is equally digestible, and contains all the virtues of freshly cooked fruit. When bottles are made in Australia at a cheap rate this will be a great industry. Canned fruit is not so good; the acid of the fruit dissolves up tin and lead from the tin, and I have seen very serious cases of illness as a result. Besides, fruit should be sold much cheaper in bottles than in tins, as the bottle can be returned and used again.