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Cockles

THE Cockle (Cardium), or "poor man's oyster," is, as is well known, a common, little, bi-valvular shell-fish found buried in the sand of our sea-shores, particularly at Teignmouth, and on the Norfolk Coast. If the shell is viewed "end on," with the two curving beaks uppermost, it represents the shape of a heart (Greek, Cardia). The Cockle is discovered nearly all over the world. Its flesh is good, whether raw, pickled, boiled, or roasted, though very inconsiderable in quantity, -a pound of meat to a bushel of shells. This contains marine salts, gelatin, and food constituents of a salutary sort, with medicinal virtues like those of the lobster. In the London Pharmacopœia (1696) Cockles were said to "strengthen the stomach, increase appetite, excite lust, provoke urine, help the cholic, and restore in consumptions." Formerly to "cry Cockles" signified hanging, as simulating the gurgling noise made in the throat by the wretch thus strangled. "Hot Cockles " was a sport, or game, played at Christmas in Elizabethan times; one person knelt, and laid his head, with his eyes covered, in another person's lap, then guessing who struck him. "As at Hot Cockles once I laid me down I felt the weighty hand of many a clown; Buxoma gave a gentler tap, and I Quick rose, and read soft mischief in her eye."

The name is derived from the French, "Hautes coquilles." COCOA (and see CHOCOLATE.) THE seeds of Theobroma cacao (a Mexican tree, as already described) contain a considerable quantity of nitrogen, but only from 20 to 30 per cent of animal nourishment (proteids), the remainder being "amides." The seeds are first allowed to ferment, and then roasted, their two halves coming out under pressure in a machine as "Cocoa nibs." When ground between hot rollers these nibs have their oil, or fat, melted, and they become reduced to a fluid condition, which is gradually dried, and then powdered as "soluble Cocoa." Dutch manufacturers add an alkali so as to saponify the fat. "Navy Cocoa" is a pure preparation free altogether from husk. Cocoa contains further some tannin, and is said (by Dr. Haig) to furnish when dry 59 per cent of uric acid, or xanthins, being therefore unsuitable for gouty persons. But the ash of Cocoa is strongly alkaline, consisting chiefly of potash, and phosphoric acid; and the general conclusion is that, whereas out of each hundred pounds of Cocoa no less than three and a half pounds consist of pure vegetable salts, mainly phosphates, of high nutritious value, particularly as alkalies, this article of diet is excellent for those persons who are given to the formation of uric acid as a gouty element. The whole bean is highly sustaining, with its fat, gum, starch, and albumin, besides the theobromin, having all the stimulating effects of tea without any harmful reaction. Cocoa contains nearly one-fifth of its full bulk as pure albumin, and in a state COD. of fine division for being digested. But the action of Cocoa on the nervous system is much less pronounced than that of tea, or coffee, owing to the comparatively small amount of thein, or caffein, which it contains. In St. James's Street, London, when Queen Anne reigned, there was a famous Chocolate house known as the "Cocoa Tree." Its frequenters were Tories of the strictest school. In the course of time it developed into a more general club. Dr. Garth whilst sitting there had his snuff-box, which was highly ornamented with diamonds, so repeatedly borrowed by the poet Rowe in order to gain notice, that at last he took out his pencil and wrote on the lid the Greek characters Ф (phi.): P (rho.)= "Fie, Rowe!"

COD. (See FISH and OIL.) THE Cod is found by those who have made competent research to be one of the least digestible fish, though containing but little fat. Its fibre is coarse, and woolly, but Cods' heads baked in the oven are excellent. The ancient Greeks held the Codfish (Morrhua) in high estimation, preparing it with grated cheese, vinegar, salt, and oil. Its stomach (which it is said to have the faculty of turning inside out) is mostly found quite empty, and clean, as the result of its enormous digestive power, which habit has, without doubt, a great influence on the flesh, helping to keep it healthy, and well scoured. Cods' sounds, or the swimming bladder, do not dissolve as gelatine on boiling; they are but sparingly nutritious, and more an object of fancy than useful as food. From the fresh livers of Codfish (subjected to a steam bath) is procured the highly curative Cod-liver oil, considered elsewhere in these pages (see "OILS"). Par excellence it is of the most essential service as a food, and as a medicine, in pulmonary consumption.

Underlying this scourge, which has hitherto proved so widespread, and fatal, there are now found to be special micro-organisms which die out under the modern open-air treatment, together with an abundance of generous food even to excess. Similarly an intensity of light will completely destroy the micro-organisms of erosive skin disease external to the body; but the light for safe concentration upon such diseased surfaces has to be deprived of those rays which burn (red, green, and yellow), whilst it exercises its beneficent action solely by the chemical rays (blue, violet, and ultra-violet). This grand desideratum has been made feasible by the ingenious method of Dr. Finsen, consisting of a plain glass lens, with a second lens of curved glass, between which glasses is interposed a bright blue solution of sulphate of copper, by which means the heat rays are got rid of. Then the beam of intense cool light is concentrated on the diseased skin through a lens of quartz, which the nurse presses continually over the patch of morbid skin under treatment. In this way the offending microbes can be constantly killed off without discomfort to the sufferer, who has only to lie still under the process for an hour a day. This practice has been well tried, and produces marvellous results of cure. Long years back John of Gaddesden, a famous physician of his time, gained considerable renown for curing John, son of Edward the Second, who had contracted small-pox, by treating him with red light under such means as could then be contrived. He had the Prince laid in a bed with red curtains, red blankets, and a red counterpane, giving the sick man some of the ruddy juice of pome granates to suck, and making him gargle his throat with mulberry wine of a like colour. This doctor, who died in 1561, wrote a quaint book which he called Rosa Medicinæ, containing curious old receipts for treating various maladies after the same fashion.