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This page prescribes plants as medicine according to pre-modern medical theory. Several of the plants named are toxic, correct identification is difficult, and the doses given have no scientific basis. Do not ingest or apply any preparation described here.
This page presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
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Almonds
Two sorts of almonds are available with us commerciallythe sweet, or Jordan almond, -so called, it would seem, from "jardyne," because of the garden sort (chiefly from Malaga and not in any way connected with the sacred river of Syria); and the bitter almond, belonging to the same species, but possessing other volatile poisonous properties which are dangerous. The sweet almond (amygdala) is valuable as a food, and for confectionery purposes, being rich in a bland oil, and sustaining as a nutriment. The staying power conferred by a meal of which these almonds, and some raisins, form the chief part, is well known. It has been well said, "No man who can fill his pockets with almonds need starve on a journey." Persons who can readily digest these products are believed to derive from them a quickening of the intellect in magnetism, and in keenness, or argumentative force; but, if at all rancid, almonds are apt to upset delicate digestions, inducing nettlerash, and feverishness. Bitter almonds are smaller, and whilst yielding in part the same bland oil, when mixed as emulsion, contain further a powerful bitter principle known as amygdalin, which becomes identical with prussic acid, and is therefore a potent poison. The volatile, bitter oil which embodies this poison is obtained from the residual almond cake after the bland oil has been first expressed. When eaten in substance the bitter almond is strongly harmful, and its distilled water will cause giddiness, headache, dimness of sight, vomiting, and occasionally convulsions, such as of epilepsy. An essence of bitter almonds (ratafia) is made by mixing two fluid drachms of the volatile oil with six fluid drachms of alcohol. Sweet almonds roasted to the colour of amber are delicious to eat with biscuits, or with bread and butter; they contain 24 per cent of vegetable nitrogen (proteid), 54 per cent of fat, 10 per cent of starch material, 3 per cent of salts, 3 per cent of extractives, and 6 per cent of water.
As an eligible piece of confectionery which is light, sustaining, and somewhat sedative to an irritable, or qualmish stomach, the macaroon ("maccare," to reduce to pulp) is admirable, either at breakfast (instead of the customary egg, including the yolk), or by way of an improvised luncheon, or as an occasional snack, about the easy digestion of which no fear need be entertained. The albuminous white of egg, the demulcent, reinvigorating sweet almond, the comforting sugar, and the tranquillising modicum of bitter almond, with its infinitesimal quantity of prussic acid as a sedative to the gastric nerves, make altogether a most happy combination for the objects now particularized.
In the dietetic treatment of diabetes sweet almonds may be employed for making a kind of bread without starch in it, this being a tolerable substitute for wheaten bread, which is prohibited because of its starch, convertible into sugar. For this purpose the sweet almonds are first blanched, then expressed strongly together so that a portion of their oil may be squeezed out; they are next treated with boiling water in which some tartaric acid has been dissolved for expelling the sugar; and finally they are ground into a powder, which can be used for making bread, or for cakes, and puddings, when combined with eggs, and cream. Almond drink is softening and nutritive in chest affections, being easily prepared by rubbing up a couple of ounces of the compound powder of almonds with a pint of water. This is serviceable in fever, and other acute diseases. Again, Almond soup is a nourishing dish for a delicate stomach disposed to nausea. A quarter of a pound of Jordan almonds, and five bitter almonds, are to be blanched, peeled, and pounded, with half-a-pint of milk added during the process, and a pint of milk afterwards; then warm the mixture, and pour it over a pint and a half of rice milk, also made hot; mix both these together, when hot enough, in a tureen.
It may be that the so-called Jordan almonds have derived their name from the "Jordan," an old English vessel (of clay), in shape like a modern soda-water bottle, which was formerly made use of by physicians. Most persons suppose, unthinkingly, that these almonds (which arrive here about Christmas time with other dried fruits) come from the neighbourhood of the river Jordan in Palestine; but it is better known that they derive their distinctive name from an enterprising Englishman of that title who planted, and reared them first at Malaga. They embody much nitrogenous food (vegetable meat) in a compact form, together with a nice palatable oil, whilst free from starch, or sugar; they are therefore largely employed in making diabetic foods. From these sweet almonds a milky drink can be prepared which will soothe, and pacify troublesome bronchial coughs. The bitter almond contains in 100 parts, 28 of fixed oil, 30 of albumin, 6 of sugar, and 19 of essential oil, including its prussic acid. This almond, when rubbed up with water, has the odour of fresh peach blossom, with the pleasant, bitter taste of peach kernels. Prepared from it sparingly by the cook are macaroon biscuits, smaller ratafia biscuits, and the French sirop d'orgeat, which severally supply prussic acid in a safely modified form, excellent against nausea, and the sickness of nervous indigestion.
Far back in 1610 John Taylor, the water-poet, wrote: "Let anything come in the shape of fodder, or eating stuffe, it is welcome, whether it be sawsedge, or cheese-cakes, or makroonekickshaw, or tartaplin." For making macaroons, according to an old Dutch recipe: "Take one pound of sweet almonds, blanched and pounded, together with a tablespoonful of fresh rose-water, and one pound of white sugar; melt the sugar, and almonds over the fire until quite a tough jelly; then have ready the whites of four eggs beaten to a froth; whip them together when cold. This way of melting the sugar and almonds is excellent, as it prevents the macaroons from running together in the tins. Three or four bitter almonds, according to taste, may be included among the sweet almonds now ordered. The old-fashioned plan was to put a small piece of candied citron on each macaroon biscuit. Dust some fine cinnamon over before baking."
At Miss Barker's (the ex-milliner) evening party given to the select ladies of "Cranford" (Mrs. Gaskell) there were "all sorts of good things provided unexpectedly for supper, -scalloped oysters, potted lobsters, jelly, a dish called 'little Cupids' (which was in great favour with the Cranford ladies, although too expensive to be provided except on solemn, and state occasions ; macaroons sopped in brandy I should have called it if I had not known its more refined, and classical name). In short, we were evidently to be feasted with all that was sweetest and best; and we thought it better to submit graciously, even at the cost of our gentility, which never ate suppers in general, but which was particularly hungry on all special occasions."
Again, Charles Lamb, when in lodgings with Mary Lamb, up two pairs of stairs in East Street, at Miss Benjay's, rejoiced in "tea, coffee, and macaroons (a kind of cake), and much love." Salted almonds make a nourishing side dish at luncheon, or for dessert. Blanch a quarter of a pound of Jordan almonds, fry them in an ounce and a half of butter, and when fried a nice golden brown, drain them on paper, and then roll them in salt dusted with red pepper.
Likewise, for serving to dispel nausea (except from obnoxious undigested food) an admirable confection which is delicious to the palate, and which is to be had from most pastrycooks under the name of "apricotine," answers promptly, being at the same time an acceptable sweetmeat. Small, round sponge cakes are made, within which some almond paste is put, with a thin layer of apricot jam superimposed, whilst white powdered sugar is dusted over the cakes.
Ratafia biscuits are composed mainly of bitter almonds, and are smaller in size than macaroons. As ingredients, take half a pound of sweet almonds (blanched, and pounded), with the white of an egg, a quarter of a pound of bitter almonds, three-quarters of a pound of sifted sugar, and the whites of four eggs (whisked) ; bake for ten minutes.
In Sterne's Tristram Shandy, vol. vii, occurs a tenderly humorous piece of delicate writing which bears reference to the macaroon: "'Twas a poor ass who had just turned in (at Lyons) with a couple of large panniers on his back to collect eleemosynary turnip-tops, and cabbage-leaves, and stood dubious with its two fore feet on the inside of the threshold, and with its two hinder feet towards the street. He was eating the stem of an artichoke as I held discourse with him, and, in the little peevish contentions between hunger, and unsavouriness, had dropped it out of his mouth half-a-dozen times, and picked it up again. 'God help thee, Jack!' said I; 'thou hast a bitter breakfast on't, and many a bitter day's labour, and many a bitter blow, I fear. And now thy mouth, if one knew the truth of it, is as bitter, I daresay, as soot (for he had cast aside the stem), and thou hast not a friend perhaps in all this world that will give thee a macaroon.' In saying which I pulled out a paper of 'em which I had just purchased, and gave him one; and at this moment that I am telling of it my heart smites me that there was more of pleasantry in the conceit of seeing how an ass would eat a macaroon than of benevolence in giving him one, which presided in the act." Well might Thackeray say of this passage, "The critic who refuses to see in it wit, humour, pathos, a kind nature speaking, and a real sentiment, must be hard indeed to move, and to please."
A nourishing dish for a child, or invalid, is good bread-sauce mourishin to which has been added two ounces of ground almonds well pounded in a mortar. It may be served with spinach if approved. Baked almonds lightly salted, and ground, make excellent sandwiches. Whether taken thus, or in a simpler form, they should always be previously blanched, as their brown skin is possessed of irritating properties The sweet almond oil is used in making "Rowland's macassar." The French orgeat," or "orgeade,' is a syrup made chiefly from sweet almonds.
This entry mixes food writing with pre-modern pharmacology, and the recipes embedded in it — macaroons, ratafia biscuits, almond soup, an "essence of bitter almonds" — all depend on bitter almonds as a deliberate medicinal ingredient. That is the reason none of them can be made as printed.
- The hinge: amygdalin becomes cyanideBitter almonds contain amygdalin, which the enzyme emulsin converts to hydrogen cyanide as soon as the kernel is crushed and wetted — exactly what pounding in a mortar with milk or egg white achieves. Fernie knows this and treats the resulting "infinitesimal quantity of prussic acid" as a therapeutic sedative for the stomach. It is not a sedative; it is a metabolic poison, and the text's own list of effects (giddiness, dimness of sight, vomiting, convulsions) is a description of cyanide poisoning.
- The ratafia quantities are far out of rangeA quarter of a pound of bitter almonds is roughly 100 kernels. Published estimates put the fatal adult dose in the region of 50 or more raw bitter almonds, and far fewer for a child. Even divided across a batch of small biscuits, this is not a trace flavouring, and baking does not reliably drive off all the hydrogen cyanide generated.
- Almond soup and macaroonsFive bitter almonds in the soup and "three or four" in the macaroons are smaller amounts, but the soup is explicitly prescribed for "a delicate stomach disposed to nausea" and the macaroons are recommended as a breakfast substitute for the customary egg and as a sedative to an irritable stomach — the people least able to tolerate any cyanide load. Use a current recipe if you want macaroons.
- The "essence of bitter almonds"Two fluid drachms of volatile oil of bitter almonds in six of alcohol is a concentrated preparation of benzaldehyde carrying free hydrocyanic acid. A fluid drachm is one-eighth of a fluid ounce, about 3.6 mL, so this is roughly 7 mL of the unrectified oil. Modern commercial bitter almond extract is made from oil that has had the cyanide stripped out; the article sold in Fernie's day had not.
- Bitter almonds themselvesSale of raw bitter almonds is restricted or prohibited in many countries, including the United States, precisely on these grounds. Where the text says "bitter almond," there is no substitution that reproduces the author's intent, because the intent was the poison.
- Archaic terms in the surrounding text"Compound powder of almonds" is pulvis amygdalae compositus, an old pharmacopoeial mixture of sweet almonds, sugar and gum acacia used to make emulsions — not something on a shelf today. "Rice milk" here means rice boiled soft in milk, not the modern carton drink. A drachm is one-eighth of a fluid ounce.
- The diabetic breadAlmond flour bread is a genuinely durable idea and predates modern low-carbohydrate baking by a century, but the framing is pre-insulin dietetics. It is dietary management offered as treatment for a disease that then had none.
- What is unobjectionableThe salted almonds — blanch, fry in butter, drain, roll in salt and cayenne — involve no bitter almonds and are simply a good luncheon dish. The claim that almond skins have "irritating properties" is period theory rather than fact, though blanching does improve texture.
Meals Medicinal belongs to a late-Victorian genre in which the kitchen and the dispensary were still treated as one room: food was classified by what it did to the constitution, and W. T. Fernie's chapters move without a seam from etymology to Sterne to a working biscuit recipe. The almond suited that project perfectly, because it came in two forms that pharmacy handled separately — amygdala dulcis, a bland nutritive oil-bearing food, and amygdala amara, an official source of hydrocyanic acid, which nineteenth-century medicine used in tiny doses as a sedative for gastric irritability and cough. Fernie's confidence that a ratafia biscuit is therefore a mild medicine follows logically from that pharmacopoeia and is wrong for reasons that were only fully settled later. His two competing origin stories for the Jordan almond are both folk etymology; the name is generally traced to Old French jardin or Spanish jardín, a garden almond, and the Malaga trade that brought them to England at Christmas is the same trade that put raisins and figs in the same shops at the same season.