The household cook book

People who are subject to gout and biliousness should remember that "bile poison" and "gout poison" are of albumenoid descent, and that they follow a diet too rich in albumenoids like the avenging fates. The system requires for the growth and repair of its tissues a certain amount of albumenoids, but when an excess is eaten the surplus is imperfectly oxydized and the blood becomes laden with waste, and the result is biliousness or gout. People with a tendency to these diseases should eat very sparingly of albumenoid foods like meat, eggs, beans, cheese, etc. People with a tendency to consumption should eat nutritious and easily digested foods, and plenty of fats in their most easily digested form, such as cream, good butter, oil and salads, oatmeal, cornmeal, etc., rather than in the indigestible form they assume when mixed with starch. Diet. — Every year diet plays a larger part in the skilled treatment of disease; it is harmless where drugs are dangerous, and it can often cure where drugs are useless or worse. There are many diseases where the only hope of cure or alleviation lies in rigid abstinence from certain kinds of food, and in many common ailments some slight change in diet is by far the best remedy. A deficiency of oil or fat in the diet develops scrofulous diseases, and yet we often hear, when fat meats, cream, butter, etc., are suggested for scrofulous children "O, that will feed the disease," when that is likely to be the one thing that would most assist a cure. Fat is heat giving, and is naturally craved by most delicate children. The following is about the proportion of fat in the different grains: Rice 1; Rye 1.75; Wheat 2.10; Oats 3.30; Indian Corn 5 (the amount of oil varies in different varieties of corn, the northern yellow containing much more than the southern white). Oatmeal porridge and milk have, with intelligent people, long been regarded as the best food for the nursery. It owes its chief value for that j)urpose to its large amount of fat, but with many children it does not agree, and cornmeal porridge possessing so much fat can often be used in its place to advantage. Thoroughly cook it always, as it is only indigestible when improperly prepared. The dietary for children from 2-| to 7 years of age, which has been settled by long experiment in various children's hospitals is as follows: At least 12 ounces of bread daily; 1 oz. butter; ^ pint of milk; 2 oz. meat; 6 oz. vegetables; 6 oz. gruel or porridge. Rapidly growing children require an abundance of meat (or albumenoids) to build up the rapidly growing system. Lime. — In parts of the country where lime does not exist in the soil, so that the water is deficient in lime, use -| pint of lime water with the mixing for bread every time bread is made. In this way children will get the lime which is necessary for the proper solidifying of the bones, and the preservation of the teeth. We explain elsewhere how to make lime water. When a patient suffers from sickness and nausea every food should be given iced, or as cold as possible, and in the smallest quantities, and it will be a good plan to slip a little piece of ice into the patient's mouth immediately after giving the food.