A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / By J.A. Paris.

  • Paris, John Ayrton, 1785-1856.
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on diet : with a view to establish, on practical grounds, a system of rules for the prevention and cure of the diseases incident to a disordered state of the digestive functions / By J.A. Paris. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/314 (page 6)
    art of agriculture. Rice, rye, barley, or even oats, are not to be found wild; that is to say, growing naturally in any part of the earth, but have been altered, by the industry of mankind, from plants not now resembling them even in such a degree as to enable us to recognise their relations. The acrid and disagreeable apium graveolens has been thus transformed into delicious celery ; and the coleivort, a plant of scanty leaves, not weighing altogether half an ounce, has been improved into cabbage, whose leaves alone weigh many pounds, or into a cauliflower of considerable dimen¬ sions, being only the embryo of a few buds, which, in their natural state, would not have weighed many grains. The potatoe, again, whose introduction has added many mil¬ lions to our population, derives its origin from a small and bitter root, which grows wild in Chili and at Monte Video.* These few instances may suffice to answer the object for which they were introduced : the reader will find many others in the Introduction to my Pharmaco- logia.f 5. If cultivation can ever be said to have left the trans¬ formation of vegetables imperfect, the genius of cookery is certainly entitled to the merit of having completed it; for, whatever traces of natural qualities may have remained, they are undoubtedly obliterated during their passage through her potent alembic. It has been observed, that the useful object of cookery is to render aliments agreeable to the senses, and of easy digestion; in short, to spare the stomach a drudgery which can be more easily performed by a spit or stewpan,—that of loosening the texture, or softening the fibres of the food; and which are essential preliminaries to its digestion. A no less important effect is produced by rendering it more palatable; for it is a fact, which I shall have to consider on a future occasion, that * See Pharmacologia, edit, 6. vol. i. p. 147. f Ibid. p. 114.