BUTTER.

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purchase it, and the merchants were very great losers by theimportation. On the same principle the Germans, till withinthese few years, could not be induced to eat potatoes, though nowthey are become extremely fond of them.

The American, the Italian, and the German, all cook Indiancorn, in the same way as the North Britain does his oatmeal, bymaking it into hasty-pudding. It may be eaten in a variety ofways. Some eat it with a sauce composed of butter and brownsugar, or butter and molasses. Others eat it with milk only. Ineither way it makes a good, cheap, and wholesome diet, by nomeans disagreeable to those who are accustomed to it.

The only other grain we shall mention, as best when boiled, isbuck-wheat: it is of a very mucilaginous nature, and, of course,highly nutritious. In several parts of Europe it constitutes aprincipal part of the food of the lower people. In former times itwas eaten in Russia ; not by the lower classes only ; even thenobility made use of it. Boiled, and then buttered, it was such afavourite of the great Czar Peter, that he is said seldom to havesupped on any thing else.

BUTTER.

It has been said, that the English hare a thousand religions,and but one sauce. It xnu^t be allowed that they use butter withalmost every kiW of food. Butter, though a good article of diet,may be used too freely, and in this country, I am convinced, thatis the case. To weak stomachs it is hurtful, even in smallquantities, and when used freely it proves prejudicial to thestrongest.

Butter, like other things of an oily nature, has a constanttendency to turn rancid. This process, by the heat of the stomach,is greatly accelerated, insomuch that many people, soon aftereating butter, complain of its rising in their stomachs, in a statehighly disagreeable. Oils of every kind are with difficulty mixedwith watery fluids. This is the reason why butter floats in thestomach, and rises in such an unpleasant manner.

Persons afflicted with bile should use butter very sparingly.Some sceptical authors doubt whether or not aliment of any kindhas an effect on the bile. One thing, however, is certain, thatmany patients, afflicted with complaints which were supposed tobe occasioned by bile, have been completely cured by a totalabstinence from butter.

The most violent bilious complaints that I ever met with, wereevidently occasioned by food that became rancid on the stomach,as the cholera morbus, and the like. Nor can such complaints becured, till the rancid matter is totally evacuated by vomiting andpurging.

But supposing butter did not possess the quality of becomingrancid on the stomach, it may, nevertheless, prove hurtful todigestion. Oils of all kinds are of a relaxing quality, and tend toimpede the action of digestion. Hence the custom of giving richbroths and fat meats to persons who have a voracious appetite.