In chronic jaundice the function of the liver is best restored by the free use of green vegetables at all meals.

Diabetes, when it has once assumed a chronic form, is never really cured, but life may be much prolonged by the employment of a diet from which sugar and starch are excluded as far as practicable, and the patient nourished on animal food. The best fare for diabetic patients is that given by Prof. Bouchardat in his work " Du Diabete sucree," Paris, 1852.

In functional nervous diseases, such as hysteria and hypochondriasis, the appetite, muscular elasticity, and mental powers will often be observed to be deficient in the early part of the day, and to recover their tone in the evening. At this latter time, therefore, it is advisable to make the principal meal.

Scurvy is a notable example of a disease of which, more than any other, the prevention depends on the adoption of a suitable diet. Its symptoms so far resemble those of general starvation that, from the earliest time of its appearance in history, it has been suspected that it is due to a dietary defective in some necessary ingredient; and practical observation soon showed that this was fresh vegetables. It was found on every long voyage that the crew suffered from scurvy in proportion to the length of time they were restricted to dry food, and that they recovered rapidly as soon as they got access to a supply of succulent plants. This requisite for health is obviously the most difficult of all things to procure aboard ship, and efforts were made to find a substitute capable of marine transport. From the time of Hawkins1 (1593) downward the opinion has been expressed, by all the most intelligent travelers, that a substitute is to be found in the juice of fruits of the orange tribe, such as oranges, lemons, etc. But in its natural state this is expensive and troublesome to carry, so that skippers and owners for a couple of centuries found it expedient to be skeptical. The pictures of scurvy as it appeared during the eighteenth century are horrible in the extreme. But the statute of 1795, passed through the exertions of Captain Cook and Sir Gilbert Blane, has enforced the carrying of lime-juice. This invaluable preventive has shown its influence all the more decidedly by the disease still appearing occasionally under strong promoting circumstances, and to a certain extent in spite of the antidote; but it is so modified as to be usually more of the nature of a warning or demonstration than of a serious invasion. Some, indeed, have questioned and even denied altogether the blessings derived from the enforced use of lime-juice. But they make a very scanty show when weighed with those whom they undertake to oppose; and it is superfluous here to enter into the arguments and results of observation constituting the ponderous "Report of the Committee appointed by the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to inquire into the Causes of the Outbreak of Scurvy in the Recent Arctic Expedition, etc., and presented to both Houses of Parliament, May 7, 1877," which seems to settle forever the preventive powers against scurvy of the use of lime-juice.

The committee alluded to was appointed in consequence of one of those exceptional outbreaks of scurvy induced by exceptional circumstances. The ships sent on the exploring expedition of 1875 were amply provided with lime-juice, and with printed expositions of its value. During the voyage out and in the long inaction of the winter, the men's health was so well preserved by general attention to hygiene that no cases of even mild scurvy were detected; the pallor and languor and depression of spirits of some among the sailors were attributed to the want of sunlight for 142 days, and it was expected that a few days' sledge traveling in the open air would reinvigorate them. There was plenty of lime-juice aboard; but it seems that it is not the custom to add to the weight of provisions which polar sledging-parties have to propel, by including the preservative among them. Sir George Nares, the commander of the expedition, cites the names of 10 admirals, 10 doctors, and 15'captains, who have conducted land explorations in this fashion without it; and they returned unscathed to any serious extent. But on this recent occasion the crews seem to have been peculiarly predisposed to illnesses of scorbutic nature by the more than ordinary scarcity of fresh meat in their dietary, arising out of the deficiency of game in the extremely high latitude where they wintered. With few exceptions the whole of the crews of the Alert and the Discovery were employed in sledging, and the consequence was, that of the 122 officers and men 59 were more or less incapacitated by scurvy, and four died.

1 Sir Rd. Hawkins's "Voyage," edited by Hakluyt Society, page 60.

The real reason for not carrying lime-juice in such expeditions is its cumbersomeness. Including bottles, though in truth they are not wanted in a hard frost, it may be said that one pound a week for each man would have to be added to the baggage'-a serious item, no doubt. And with a view of remedying the inconvenience, medical men have long sought to discover to what constituent of the complicated mixture afforded by Nature it is that it owes its efficacy. In a contribution to the Medico-Chirurgical Review for 1848, Dr. Parkes examined exhaustively the evidence concerning the various deficiencies in ship-food as compared with fresh food, which might be filled up by one or other of the components of lime-juice; and by exclusion he is led to the conclusion that the cause of scurvy is to be found in deficiency of salts whose acids form carbonates in the system, viz., citric, tartaric, acetic, lactic, and malic acids.

Though not so good as when in their natural form, because less digestible and pleasant, yet a supply of citrates, tartrates, lactates, and malates of potash might be packed in small bulk, and, under circumstances where weight is of importance, might take the place of lime-juice. Or bolo-lozenges might be made of lime-juice freed from its aqueous portion and preserved with sugar. Three or four of these a day might be easily swallowed without stopping work.