the sick-room, such as beef-tea, mutton broth, flaxseed tea, etc.; and he should also be able to suggest, in con valescence, the use of other substances, that may form an essential feature in the recovery of his patient.

With the view of assisting the practitioner in this channel, which is too frequently left to the unskilled and uninstructed, the following useful recipes and suggestions are offered. An alphabetical arrangement is adopted, rather than any systematic attempt at classification, so that the practitioner may at once find the article when most needed. It will be, of course, his duty to decide which of these articles are adapted for patients. who may be seriously sick, as distinguished from those which may be taken, almost with impunity, by convalescents.

Almond Emulsion.

Beat an ounce and a quarter of blanched sweet almonds with five drachms of white sugar in a porcelain mortar into a smooth pulp, gradually adding a quart of soft water, and stirring actively until the whole is mixed. Strain through linen.

An agreeable demulcent drink.

Alum Whey.

Add a quarter of an ounce of powdered alum to a pint of boiling milk, and strain; flavor with sugar and nutmeg, if desired.

A useful astringent drink.

Some of the palatable preparations here given are obtained from manuscript recipes of excellent housekepers. Others are derived from works on dietetics, especially that of Pavy, already referred to; from Florence S. Lees's "Handbook for Hospital Sisters ;" and from several standard works on cookery, whose object is to give the most reliable information on this subject. The most desirable recipes from a large mass of such material have been selected for insertion here.

Apple Barley Water.

Add half a pound of apples, cut in slices, with the skin on and the pips removed, to a pint of barley water. Add sliced lemon, boil gently until done, and pass through a colander.

A cooling drink in febrile affections.

Apple Water.

Carefully roast three good tart apples, preserve the juice, put in a quart pitcher, pour on it about a quart of boiling water, cover, and drink when cold.

An agreeable drink may also be made by baking an apple over which a teaspoonful of brown sugar has been sprinkled, adding toast water (see p. 297) to it when browned, and flavoring with orange or lemon-peel. A pleasant drink in fevers, etc.

Arrowroot.

Mix two teaspoonfuls of arrowroot with three tablespoonfuls of cold water, and pour on them half a pint of boiling water, keeping it well stirred. If the water be merely warm, the arrowroot must afterwards be boiled until it thickens. Add sugar, and flavor with lemonpeel or nutmeg, or add sherry or brandy if required. If milk is used instead of water, wine must be omitted, as it will curdle the milk.

A nutritive preparation for convalescents especially.

Arrowroot Pudding.

Mix a tablespoonful of arrowroot with cold water, put it over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan, add a pint of boiling milk, stirring constantly, and one egg well beaten with a tablespoonful of white sugar; let it boil for five or ten minutes. If a baked pudding is preferred,

it may be mixed in the same way and baked in a moderately quick oven for twenty or thirty minutes.

May be taken in the early periods of convalescence.

Arrowroot Water.

Mix well in a pan three ounces of arrowroot, two of white sugar, peel of half a lemon, quarter of a teaspoonful of salt, two quarts of water; set on the fire and boil for a few minutes. Use either hot or cold.

A nutritious drink in diarrhoea, fevers, etc.

Barley Gruel.

Wash two ounces of pearl barley, boil in a quart of water till reduced to a pint; strain, add a little sugar and three wineglassfuls of port wine, or milk if the wine be contraindicated, and heat it up before using. For convalescents and anæmic patients.

Barley Soup.

Add a pint of boiling water and a small quantity of salt and sugar to half a cupful of good washed pearl barley, put into an earthenware pot with a piece of butter about the size of a nut, and a piece of fine cinnamon. Cook over a slow fire until soft, strain through a fine. hair sieve. Stir the beaten yolk of an egg into the soup. Add more boiling water while cooking if necessary.

Barley Water.

Wash two ounces of pearl barley well with cold water, throwing away the washings. Boil with a pint and a half of water for twenty minutes in a covered vessel and strain. Sweeten and flavor with lemon-peel or lemnon juice.

Another agreeable formula-for a compound barley water-is to put two ounces of pearl barley well washed

in cold water into half a pint of boiling water; let it stand for five minutes, pour it off, add three pints of boiling water, a little salt, half a dozen nice figs sliced, a handful of cut raisins, and a small stick of liquorice; let this simmer for fifty minutes, strain, and add a little sweetening if necessary.

A diluent and moderately nutritious drink.

Barley Wine (Aromatic).

Boil a quart of barley water down to a third; add while hot a pint of sherry, a drachm of tincture of cinnamon, and an ounce of refined sugar.

To a convalescent, a wineglassful may be given two or three times daily.

Beef Broth.

Take a pound of lean beef, some sweet herbs, put in a saucepan with two quarts of water, simmer to one quart. Let it stand until cold, skim off the fat carefully; if small particles should remain, lay a piece of clean blottingpaper on the broth, in order to remove them.

A simple restorative after acute disease.

Beef, Raw.

Take half a pound of juicy beef, free from any fat; mince it very finely; then rub it into a smooth pulp. either in a mortar or with an ordinary potato masher, and press it through a fine sieve. Spread a little out upon a plate and sprinkle over it some salt, or some sugar if the child prefers it. Give it alone or spread upon a buttered slice of stale bread.

This is an excellent food for children with dysentery, and also for adults.

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Another formula for its preparation is recommended in France:-1

The fat should be removed (one reason being that it may contain cysticercus). The best part is the rump steak. The fibres are here best suited for rasping in longitudinal direction. This is the best mode of preparing it, as chopping removes from the meat most of its juice, and does not give such good division. The rasping is done with a sharp knife-blade-the sharper the better. The piece of meat should be pretty thick, and of lozenge shape; the rasping can be done on all the facings, in the natural direction of the muscular fibre. The meat is generally reduced to the form of a pill or bolus, which is rolled in powdered sugar on crumbs of bread. If it cannot be taken thus, it may be given under the mask of cold bouillon. One of the best methods is to prepare a thin porridge of tapioca; let it cool until it cannot cook the meat in the least. Then the meat, finely rasped, is introduced into a small quantity of the cold soup till the mixture is complete, having the aspect and consistence of a fine soup of tomatoes. Next the tapioca porridge is gradually poured on this soup, the mixture being constantly stirred.

Beef Tea.

It should be borne in mind that prolonged boiling or simmering produces a broth instead of a tea, destroying the flavor and nutrient power. All that is needed is to heat the cold infusion to about 170° Fahr., which is just sufficient to coagulate the albumen and coloring matter, and thus deprive the product of its character of rawness.2 Being so important a dietetic agent, several formulæ are given for its manufacture.

New Remedies, 1876.

2 Pavy, op. cit.