Part 34

WHEN TO EAT FRUIT AND WHY

If people ate more fruit they would take less medicine and have much better health. There is an old saying that fruit is gold in the morning and lead at night. As a matter of fact, it may be gold at both times, but it should be eaten on an empty stomach, and not as a dessert, when the appetite is satisfied and the digestion is already sufficiently taxed. Fruit taken in the morning before the fast of the night has been broken is very refreshing, and it serves as a stimulus to the digestive organs. A ripe apple or an orange may be taken at this time with good effect. Fruit to be really valuable as an article of diet should be ripe, sound and in every way of good quality, and if possible it should be eaten raw. Instead of eating a plate of ham and eggs and bacon for breakfast, most people would do far better if they took some grapes, pears or apples—fresh fruit as long as it is to be had, and after that they can fall back on stewed prunes, figs, etc. If only fruit of some sort formed an important item in their breakfast women would generally feel brighter and stronger, and would have far better complexions than is the rule at present.

FOR FEVER OR SORE THROAT PATIENTS

Put some ice in a towel and crush it until it is as fine as snow and of an even fineness. Then squeeze on it the juice of an orange or lemon, and sprinkle over it a little sugar. It is a very pleasant food for persons suffering with sore throat.

WAKEFULNESS CURED BY LEMON JUICE

The wakefulness that comes from drinking too strong tea or coffee can be conquered, says a household informant, by swallowing a dash of fresh lemon juice from a quartered lemon, placed in readiness on the bedside table, and taken at the time you discover that sleep will not come.

FRUIT AS AN ANTIDOTE FOR INTEMPERANCE

A writer in a European temperance journal calls attention to the value of fruit as an antidote to the craving for liquor. He says: “In Germany, a nation greatly in advance of other countries in matters relative to hygiene, alcoholic disease has been successfully coped with by dieting and natural curative agencies. I have said that the use of fresh fruit is an antidote for drink craving, and this is true.

“The explanation is simple. Fruit may be called nature’s medicine. Every apple, every orange, every plum and every grape is a bottle of medicine. An orange is three parts water—distilled in nature’s laboratory—but this water is rich in peculiar fruit acids medicinally balanced, which are specially cooling to the thirst of the drunkard and soothing to the diseased state of his stomach. An apple or an orange, eaten when the desire for ‘a glass’ arises, would generally take it away, and every victory would make less strong each recurring temptation.

“The function of fresh fruit and succulent vegetables is not so much to provide solid nourishment as to supply the needful acids of the blood. Once get the blood pure and every time its pure nutrient stream bathes the several tissues of the body it will bring away some impurity and leave behind an atom of healthy tissue, until, in time, the drunkard shall stand up purified—in his right mind.”

HOME REMEDY FOR CONSUMPTION

Dr. B. J. Kendall, of Saratoga Springs, New York, urges the use of milk strippings in curing consumption. He says that milk strippings taken in large quantities immediately after milking, before the animal heat has departed, are the most potent remedy known for building up a poor, debilitated person who is suffering with consumption. “This was only a theory of mine years ago,” he says, “but now I know it to be a fact, for I have demonstrated it to be so. I wish to say it emphatically. If you want to get well drink a quart of strippings. I do not mean any milk from any cow, however poor milk she may give, nor do I mean to take it in a haphazard sort of a way, cold or warmed up or just as it may best suit your convenience; but take it regularly, at the proper time, and in the proper manner, and have all your diet and habits regulated by proper hygienic laws.”

STAMMERING CURED AT HOME

It is said that stammering can be cured by this plan: Go into a room alone with a book and read aloud to yourself for two hours, keeping your teeth tightly shut together. Do this every two or three days, or once a week if very tiresome, always taking care to read slowly and distinctly, moving the lips, but not the teeth. Then when conversing with others try to speak as slowly as possible, keeping your mind made up not to stammer. Undoubtedly your teeth and jaws will ache while you are doing it, but the result will be good enough to pay for the discomfort.

Sixty-four pages are here added to the folios to include full-page illustrations not before numbered, making a total of 490 pages.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 297, changed “The time and consideration which this board of conscientious business men and ministers devote to the management of the affairs of the school under their care are” to “The time and consideration which this board of conscientious business men and ministers devote to the management of the affairs of the school under their care are....”. The sentence was not completed in the original. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 4. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 5. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.