CONDIMENTS. Although these are not properly alimentary matters, or such as become ingredients in the composition of the animal fluid, yet Dr. Cullen says they are taken with advantage along with the proper aliments, the digestion and assimilation of which they in some degree modify. They are of two kinds, saline or acrid ; having this acrimony for the most part residing in their oily parts. Of the first, the chief is sea-salt, and it is especially employed for preserving meat, before it is employed in diet, for a longer time than it could be otherwise preserved from putrefaction. For this purpose salt is applied in large proportions, and so incorporated with the substance of the meat, that it cannot be again washed out before the meat .is employed in diet. Hence it happens, that when salted meats are eaten. in that condition, the salt is often taken in, in !awe quantity, and dif fused in the mass of blood. if the salted meats, however, be taken in moderate quantity only, Dr. Cullen says the salt has the effect of exciting the powers of digestion ; and such meat is often more easily digested than entirely unsalted meats are.
Another important condiment is sugar. It is certainly antiseptic, and therefore properly employed in preventing the pu trefaction of meat. It is also frequently applied to vegetables ; but from the pre paration of boiling, which is commonly necessary in order to their being impreg nated with the sugar, the condita, except a few that contain a large proportion of a more fixed aromatic substance, can be considered only as sugar. This is often applied to the acid and acescent fruits; and when applied in the consistence of a syrup, it preserves them for a long time from any fermentation, but it does not destroy their acescency ; and when such preserves are taken into the sto mach, the sugar introduced along with them renders them much disposed to an acescent fermentation. In the quantity
that sugar is commonly employed, either for improving the relish of several kinds of food, or for correcting their acidity, it can only be hurtful by its •acescency in the stomach, and can hardly make any proper part of the mass of blood. If taken in very large quantities, and in greater proportion than it can enter into the composition of the animal fluid, su gar, Dr. Cullen thinks, may increase the saline state of the blood, and induce dis orders.
Vinegar, another saline condiment, is a powerful antiseptic, employed in seve ral ways for preserving animal substances from putrefaction. We must consider vinegar as a vegetable acid, that may be taken with more safety than the fossil acid. Acrid substances are also em ployed as condiments. These are espe cially taken from the class of mia, and they are chiefly the mustard and horseradish. Taken in with our food, they stimulate the stomach and as sist digestion ; and further, as they evi dently promote perspiration and urine, they obviate the putrescent tendency of the system. This has been so much re. marked, that the vegetables of this class, as fraught with this peculiar acrimony, are justly denominated antiscorbutic.
To the list of condiments, Dr. Cullen adds capsicum, ketchup, and soy ; and concludes his strictures on them by ob serving, that the whole of our seasonings consists of salt, vinegar, and aromatics, combined together : and " if they are ta ken only in the quantity necessary to render the food more sapid, they may increase the appetite and favour full eat ing ; but they can hardly otherwise do harm, unless when the aromatics are ta ken in such large quantity as to weaken the tone of the stomach."