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Lemon

THE special dietetic value of Lemons (Citrus limonum) consists in their potash salts, citrate, malate, and tartrate, which are severally antiscorbutic, and of service in promoting biliary digestion. Each fluid ounce of the fresh juice contains about forty-four grains of citric acid, with gum, sugar, and a residuum which yields when incinerated, potash, lime, and phosphoric acid. The exterior rind furnishes a grateful aromatic bitter, with an essential volatile fragrant oil. Lemon juice exercises certain sedative effects, whereby it can allay nervous palpitation of the heart, and can alleviate the pain of cancerous ulceration when invading the tongue. Dr. Brandini, of Florence, discovered this remarkable anodyne property of fresh lemon juice in cancer of the tongue, by the case of a patient who when suffering grievously from that dire affection found marvellous relief to the part by casually sucking a lemon to slake his feverish thirst. As a substitute for the lemon juice, citric acid may be employed, dissolved in cold water, one drachm to eight fluid ounces of water, to be applied with a camel-hair brush; likewise, at other times, pledgets of lint saturated with the juice, or lotion. For a cold in the head, if the juice of a ripe lemon be squeezed into the palm of the hand, and strongly sniffed into the nostrils two or three separate times, a cure will generally be set going. "Into an oval form the citrons rolled Beneath thick coats their juicy pulp unfold; From these the palate feels a pungent smart, Which, though they sting the tongue, yet heal the heart." Cole's Adam in Eden says the fruit of the pome-citron tree being like to the heart in form, is a very sovereign cordial for the same.

It is remarkable that the acid of lemons, whilst harmful to rabbits, cats, and other small animals, by lowering the heart's action, and liquefying the blood, does not diminish the blood's coagulability in man, but will specially correct the thin impoverished liquidity of that circulating fluid which constitutes scurvy. Throughout Italy, a decoction of fresh Lemons is extolled as a specific against intermittent fever. Also Lemon-juice is decidedly beneficial against jaundice from torpidity of the biliary functions. Lemons furnish, as aforesaid, combinations of potash with organic acids-the citrate, malate, and tartrate which soon undergo combustion in the body, and set free their alkaline base. Thus these salts tend to promote biliary digestion. Again, the fresh juice will serve to stay bleedings, when ice and astringent styptics shall have failed; and, if applied externally, it will promptly relieve any itching of the skin without soreness. For heartburn which comes on from other causes than acid fermentation of greasy rich, sweet foods, it is most helpful to suck a thin slice of fresh lemon dipped in table salt. The lemon juice does not remain acid in the stomach, but presently becomes an alkaline base, which neutralizes the gastric excess of acids. The first effect is refreshing, and next it proves sedative. The dietetic use of lemon-juice diluted freely with water will obviate a liability to gall stones, as frequent experimental use thereof has shown. The pips of a fresh lemon, or orange, if bruised together with a sufficient quantity of sugar, will serve to extirpate worms from the intestines of children. The Chinese method of rubbing parts severely neuralgic with the wet surface of half a cut lemon is highly useful. Fresh lemon-juice when squeezed out from the fruit, will not keep because of its mucilage, which soon ferments. It can be preserved by bringing it to the boiling point, and then sealing closely in bottles to protect it from the access of air, these bottles being made boiling hot at the time. A German professor has shown that lemon-juice has a special faculty for destroying the bacillus of diphtheria. He has tried this successfully in fifteen acute cases, only one of which died; likewise in eighty other cases of severe sore throat. The diluted juice was used as a gargle, and slices of lemon were sucked frequently, whilst rejecting the pulp. For a restless person of active plethoric circulation, and of ardent temperament, a Lemon Squash, unsweetened, of not more than half a tumblerful, is an excellent quieting drink at, or towards bedtime; or a whole lemon may be made hot on the oven top, being turned from time to time, and being put presently when soft, and moist, into a teacup; then by stabbing it about with the blade of a pen knife the juice will be let escape, and should be drunk with a little hot water, not sweetened. Fresh lemon-juice, diluted so as to avoid any smarting effect, is a capital cleanser of the skin. Eugene Aram, the Knaresborough schoolmaster, on the eve of his execution at York Castle, 1759, for the murder of Daniel Clarke, (a shoemaker,) committed thirteen years before, at his last interview with Sally, his favourite daughter, bade her make a wash of fresh lemon-juice for her freckles. Sydney Smith, in writing about Foston, his remote country cure, in Yorkshire, said, "it stands twelve miles from a lemon." He kept a village medicine chest which contained "heart's delight," the comfort of his old women; also "the gentle jog; " the "bull-dog" for more serious cases; "Peterspuke, and up with it;" "Rub-a-dub," the best of embrocations; and "dead stop, which settles the matter at once." The juice of a lemon mixed with honey, in a breakfastcupful of hot water, is quite a specific for sore throat which is catarrhal, also for the teasing cough which troubles some persons in damp weather.

In rheumatic fever, when the system is saturated with mischievous, sour, fermentative products, fresh lemon-juice, mixed in equal proportions with boiling water, and allowed to become cool, is an excellent antidote, to be taken pretty often. The citric acid of the lemons being combined with potash, becomes burnt off quickly in the body, leaving its alkaline base to neutralize the rheumatic acids, and thus subduing the disease. As a nutritive lemonade, combined with white of egg, take two lemons, using their yellow rinds for flavouring, whilst rejecting the inner white rinds. Slice the lemon, and pour over them, together with the outer yellow rinds, a pint of boiling water; stir until cooled to the temperature of ordinary tea, and then strain. The whites of two eggs are next to be slowly added, whilst briskly stirring the liquid. Whip the mixture for several minutes, and then strain; add sugar to taste, and drink the lemonade cold. The pips should always be first taken out. During intermittent fevers, fresh lemon-juice is helpful and refreshing, being mixed with strong, hot, black tea, or coffee, without sugar. Throughout Italy, and at Rome, a decoction of fresh lemons is extolled as a specific antidote to such intermittent fevers; for which purpose a fresh, unpeeled lemon is cut into thin slices, and put in an earthenware jar with three breakfast-cupfuls of cold water, and boiled down to one cupful; this is to be strained, the lemon being squeezed, and the decoction is to be given shortly before the access of fever is periodically expected. The lemon juice has quinine-like properties in bringing down the temperature of a fever-stricken patient. For making lemonade to assuage the thirst in feverish states, it would be a mistake to pour boiling water upon sliced lemons, because then the peel would become also infused, and it would act medicinally. Fresh lemon-juice should be squeezed into cold water, that of three lemons to a quart of water, which has been first boiled, and then allowed to become cold; a few crushed strawberries (if in season) may be added, and the cut-up rind of one lemon. "But" says ma brither Peter to Mrs.

McLeerie, in Wee Macgregor : "Lemonade's mair puff than pleasure." A capital lemonade has been formulated by Dr. Leftwich, which is nutritious, and eminently palatable, especially for children in feverish disorders, being more supporting than beef tea. Two lemons are peeled twice, the inner white peel being rejected, and the outer yellow peel, with the sliced fruit, placed in a quart jug with, say, two lumps of sugar. Pour boiling water on them, and stir occasionally. When cooled to the temperature of ordinary tea, insert an egg whisk, and slowly add the whites of two newlaid eggs. Continue whisking for two or three minutes, and strain, whilst still hot, through muslin; serve when cold. For patients who are not feverish, two eggs may be used for each pint of the liquid, and thus it will be made more nutritious. Children, who often show an aversion to beeftea, readily take this lemonade. The lemon treatment for making the blood alkaline against gouty acids in the system, is now gaining well-merited favour, unless carried to excess. A leading medical journal has lately advocated taking the juice of from four to fourteen lemons daily, which latter would undoubtedly be injurious. It is said that working girls often do themselves no little harm by sucking lemons to give a white complexion. For making Lemon Marmalade, of a delicious sort, slice very finely twelve nice lemons, scoop all out, and cover the pulp with three pints of clear cold water; boil the skins well for two hours before adding them to the pulp; leave the skins in the water after boiling overnight, then weigh the skins and pulp together; strain off the water in which the skins have been boiled, and to a pound of fruit with water add a pound and a quarter of loaf sugar; strain off all pips, and boil for one and a half hours until perfectly clear. Turn into glass jars, and tie down when cold. The juice of one lemon squeezed into a tumblerful of very hot water, and drunk on getting into bed, will usually throw a patient with catarrh into a profuse perspiration, and he wakes almost well the next morning. For Lemon Whey: boil a pint of milk with a teaspoonful or two of fresh lemon-juice, and then strain through muslin, squeezing all the liquid from the curd. If this curd be well broken up after coagulation, and all the liquid be thoroughly drained out, much of the fat, and some of the divided casein of the milk will pass into the whey, and will thereby much increase its nutritive properties.

As a safeguard against accidental diarrhea when travelling in hot countries, an efficient means may be found in fresh lemon juice. The patient should lie down, and keep sipping a mixture of half lemon-juice, and half water (first boiled, and cooled), or simply sucking lemons until the symptoms have ceased; there is no risk of taking the juice to excess. An excellent "cocktail" to be given when tired, and thirsty, may be made with one fresh egg, one tablespoonful of pounded sugar, four or five squeezes. of fresh lemon-juice, and four or five small lumps of ice. Fill up with cold water. Mash well, and strain into a large glass, grating a little nutmeg on top. For Lemon Pie (a southern recipe): take the yolk of four eggs, beaten to a cream, with a cupful of granulated sugar, and the grated rind of a lemon. Peel the lemon, removing every particle of white rind, and cut it into thin slices. Have a pie plate lined with puff paste, arrange the slices of lemon thereupon. Add enough milk to the eggs, and sugar to fill up the plate, pour this in, and bake until set. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and stir in two large heaped tablespoonfuls of sugar, putting the same on top of the pie; then bake a light brown. Charles Dickens, in a letter to Mark Lemon, when the latter was editor of Punch, and overwrought with the literary strain, thus admonished him :- "O my Lemon, round and fat!

O my bright, and right, and tight 'un!

Think a little what you're at:

Leave your work, and come to Brighton." a Lemons grow in special abundance at Mentoni; and legend obtains there that Eve, when banished from the garden of Eden, carried away with her two or three Lemons, and wandered about with them until she came to Mentoni, which seemed so like Paradise that she settled there, and planted her fruit. :