In the western parts of Louisiana, too, the savage in habitants have a strange custom of eating a white earth, or clay, with salt. This custom they seem to have bor rowed from the example of the wild cattle, goats, and even turkies, which eat earth of a similar description in the salt-pits of that country. The rowers, too, who ply on the river Mississippi, frequently drink such quan tities of muddy water, as cannot fail to leave in their stomach a considerable residuum of earth. These facts suggested to Buchoz, that an European might, with out danger, imitate, in this respect, the example of the Americans. To put this idea to the test of experiment, he ate a large piece of clay, kneaded with a little brine. He found it rather unpleasant to the taste, but followed by no bad consequences. He tried to render it plea santer and more nutritious. The result of his experi ments was, that gum-water, glue, the fresh juice of fruits, the paste and the decoction of the roots of marsh mallows, succeeded equally well in forming, with this clay, a good and very nutritive bread. " I doubt not," continues he, " that, with the aid of a little leaven, and long trituration, a mineral bread might be made, which would prove the greatest resource in time of famine." It is difficult to believe that any kind of earth can be a nutritive food ; yet, it is certain, that several nations, and particularly the negroes, are accustomed to eat some species of earths found in their country, the want of which, when absent from home, they bitterly regret. It seems probable, however, that they employ these earths, not as aliments, but merely as tonics, to rectify the sto mach, and to restore its powers. The continued use of it, even for a short time, would, in all probability, be deleterious.
What kind of bread is the most nutritive and whole some, is a question which has occasioned much discus sion among physicians. The whole tribe of cerealia, that is, of the gramineous or culmiferous plants em ployed as the food of men, contain a farinaceous sub st. ace of a similar nature. Different species of these cerealia are employed in different countries, with nearly the same benefit, according to the facility of cultivating them in certain soils and climates. There is, however, some difference in the qualities of the cerealia, which deserves to be mentioned. Bart y, which contains in its farina a smaller proportion of oil than some other grains, is found, accordingly, to be less nourishing. This is ascertained by the experience of our peasantry, as well as by experiments upon b utes, which are not found to derive equal nourishment from the same quan tity of barley as of oats. Rye, which on being decocted in water, yields three-fourths of its weight of mucilage, may be presumed to be sufficiently nourishing. Water, when triturated with it, acquires no milkiness. which shews that its oil is at least under a peculiar combina tion; and if it really contains a due portion of oil, it is difficult to explain why it should be, of all the cerealia, the most acescent. These peculiarities might seem to detract from its nourishing quality, were not this suffi ciently established by the experience of all the north ' ern nations on the continent. With us it is little em ployed as an aliment; and people unaccustomed to it generally find it laxative. Rice is proven, by the expe rience of all Asia, to be sufficiently nourishing; nor does its nutritious matter seem to be attended with any noxious quality. " It has been supposed," says Dr Cullen, " among physicians, to be possessed of sonic drying or astringent quality, and has therefore been commonly employed in diarrhoea and dysentery, prefer ably to the other farinacea: but this opinion I take to be groundless ; for it does not give any mark of astrin gent quality with the vitriol of iron ; and if it has ever been found useful in diarrhea, it must, as Spielmann properly judges, be owing entirely to its demulcent power ; which, however, is not stronger in it, than in several others of the farinacea." Oats are used by many people in the north of Europe as a farinaceous food, but particularly by the people of Scotland, and its nutritive qualities are sufficiently known. Various, and indeed contrary, mistakes, however, have been formed concerning it. The French suppose it to be refrige rant, but it is merely so as being a vegetable aliment not heating. The English vulgar, from its tendency to produce a slight heartburn, have supposed it to he heating ; and, from a mistake with regard to the state of diseases, have imagined it the cause of cutaneous affections, not more frequent in Scotland than in other countries. The heat at the stomach is owing to the
accscency w Melt oat bread, commonly unfermented, is apt to occasion ; and, unfermented bread of wheat meal is liable to give the same heartburn and sense of heat at stomach. Maize, which is entirely an American grain, affords a farina of the best quality, and extremely nourishing both to men and brutes. By itself, or even with yeast, it does not ferment so well as to :give a light bread ; but it may be made into a very perfect bread, by being mixed, in pretty large proportions, to the flour of wheat. All these farinaceous substances which we have mentioned, may be made indeed into bread ; but in many cases the bread so prepared is less dry and friable, less miscible therefore with the saliva and with our other food, and perhaps less wholesome than might be desired. Acescent fermentation is the only effectual means of correcting these imperfections. It drives off a large quantity of the fixed air ; but as a portion of it still remains diffused, the mass is swelled into a larger bulk ; and, when heat is applied, the bread formed is of a more spongy texture, more tender, friable, and more miscible with the saliva and our other food. Complete fermentation, however, cannot be given to any of the farina except wheat, of which alone, therefore, by its own spontaneous fermentation, the most perfect bread can be formed. When the discovery of the cir culation of the blood led physicians to consider obstruc tion as a principal cause of disease, they were ready, at the same time, to suppose a certain state of the fluids to be the chief cause of obstruction. Dr Boerhaave has given the glutinosunz pingue as one of the simple dis eases of the fluids; the first cause of which he ascribes to the use of unfermented farinacea. " In entering upon the consideration of this," says Dr Cullen, " we are willing to own, that a farinaceous substance, formed by fermentation into a perfect bread, is the most whole some condition in which farinaceous substances can be employed as a part of our food ; and we are also ready to allow, that the unfermented farinacea, taken in im moderate quantity, especially at a certain period of lire, or in dyspeptic stomachs, may be the cause of disease : but all this seems to have been exaggerated ; for the morbid effects of unfermented farinacea are truly rare occurrences; and, indeed, the same unfermented farina cea are, for the most part, very well suited to the human economy. however considerable the use of fermented bread may be, the use of unfermented farinacea is still very great and considerable amongst almost every peo ple of the earth. The whole people of Asia live upon unfermented rice ; and I believe the Americans, before they became acquainted with the Europeans, employed, and for the most part still employ, their maize in the same condition. Even in Europe, the employment of unfermented bread, and of unfermented farinacea in other shapes, is still very considerable ; and we are rea dy to maintain, that the morbid consequences of such diet are very seldom to be observed. In Scotland, nine tenths of the lower class of people, and that is the great er part of the whole, live upon unfermented bread, and unfermented farinacea in other forms, and at the same time I ant of opinion, that there are not a more healthy people any where to be found. In the course of fifty years that I have practised physic amongst them, I have had occasion to know this ; and have hardly met with a disease of any consequence that I could impute to the use of unfermented farinacea. Physicians, who repre sent these as a noxious matter, must at the same time acknowledge, that in every country in Europe it is often, used with perfect impunity. To obviate, however, the conclusion I would draw from this fact, they alledge that it is only safe when used by robust and labouring people ; hut we give it in this country, not only to the farmer's labouring servants, but to our sedentary trades men, to our women, and to our children ; and all of the latter live and grow up in good health, except a very few dyspeptics, who are not free of complaints, which those also are liable to who live on fermented wheaten bread.