Food Remedies | Page 9

tender.
Grape.
The special value of the grape lies in the fact that it is a very quick
repairer of bodily waste, the grape sugar being taken immediately into
the circulation without previous digestion. For this reason is grape juice
the best possible food for fever patients, consumptives, and all who are
in a weak and debilitated condition. The grapes should be well chewed,
the juice and pulp swallowed, and the skin and stones rejected.
In countries where the grape cure is practised, consumptive patients are

fed on the sweeter varieties of grape, while those troubled with liver
complaints, acid gout, or other effects of over-feeding, take the less
sweet kinds.
Dr. Fernie deprecates the use of grapes for the ordinary gouty or
rheumatic patient, but with all due deference to that learned authority, I
do not believe the fruit exists that is not beneficial to the gouty person.
One of the most gouty and rheumatic people I know, a vegetarian who
certainly never over-feeds himself, derives great benefit from a few
days' almost exclusive diet of grapes.
Cream of tartar, a potash salt obtained from the crust formed upon
bottles and casks by grape juice when it is undergoing fermentation in
the process of becoming wine, is often used as a medicine. It has been
cited as an infallible specific in cases of smallpox, but I do not
recommend its use, as it probably gets contaminated with other
substances during the process of manufacture. In any case its value
cannot be compared with the fresh, ripe fruit. I have little doubt but that
an exclusive diet of grapes, combined with warmth, proper bathing, and
the absence of drugs, would suffice to cure the most malignant case of
smallpox.
Sufferers from malaria may use grapes with great benefit. For this
purpose the grapes, with the skins and stones, should be well pounded
in a mortar and allowed to stand for three hours. The juice should then
be strained off and taken. Or persons with good teeth may eat the
grapes, including the skins and stones, if they thoroughly macerate the
latter.
In the absence of fresh grapes raisin-tea is a restoring and nourishing
drink. Dr. Fernie notes that it is of the same proteid value as milk, if
made in the proportions given below. It is much more easily digested
than milk, and therefore of great use in gastric complaints. Sufferers
from chronic gastritis could not do better than make raisin-tea their sole
drink, and bananas their only food for a time.
Raisin Tea.

To make raisin-tea, take half a pound of good raisins and wash well,
but quickly, in lukewarm water. Cut up roughly and put into the
old-fashioned beef-tea jar with a quart of distilled or boiled and filtered
rain water. Cook for four hours, or until the liquid is reduced to 1 pint.
Scald a fine hair sieve and press through it all except the skins and
stones. If desired a little lemon juice may be added.
Gooseberry.
The juice of green gooseberries "cureth all inflammations," while the
red gooseberry is good for bilious subjects. But it has been said that
gooseberries are not good for melancholy persons.
Gooseberries are an excellent "spring medicine."
Lavender.
It is very much to be regretted that the nerve-soothing vegetable
perfumes of our grandmothers have been superseded, for the most part,
by the cheap mineral products of the laboratory. Scents really prepared
from the flowers that give them their names are expensive to make, and
consequently high-priced. The cheap scents are all mineral concoctions,
and their use is more or less injurious. A penny-worth of dried lavender
flowers in a muslin bag is even cheaper to buy, inoffensive to
smell--which is more than can be said of cheap manufactured
scents--and possesses medicinal properties.
Lavender flowers were formerly used for their curative virtues in all
disorders of the head and nerves.
An oil, prepared by infusing the crushed lavender flowers in olive oil,
is recommended for anointing palsied limbs, and at one time a spirit
was prepared from lavender flowers which was known as "palsy
drops."
A tea made with hot water and lavender tops will relieve the headache
that comes from fatigue.

Dr. Fernie advises 1 dessertspoonful per day of pure lavender water for
eczema.
The scent of lavender will keep away flies, fleas, and moths.
Lemon.
Lemons are invaluable in cases of gout, malaria, rheumatism, and
scurvy. They are also useful in fevers and liver complaints.
I have found the juice of one lemon taken in a little hot water remove
dizzy feelings in the head, accompanied by specks and lights dancing
before the eyes, consequent upon the liver being out of order, in half an
hour.
The juice of a lemon in hot water may be taken night and morning with
advantage