The seeds of the vegetable called Ochra, roasted and prepared like coffee, are said to equal it in flavor.
“The employment of vegetable _acid_, as an aliment, is necessary to health. It seems pretty clearly established, that complete and prolonged abstinence from succulent vegetables, or fruits, or their preserved juices, as articles of food, is a cause of scurvy.”
“Water, sharpened with vegetable acids, oftentimes proves a most refreshing beverage, allaying thirst, and moderating excessive heat. Various acids form cooling, refreshing, and antiscorbutic drinks, and are well adapted for hot seasons, and for febrile and inflammatory cases.”
These drinks are prepared by dissolving vegetable acids or acidulous salts in water, sweetening and flavoring it. Also, by decoctions of acid fruits, which promote secretions in the alimentary canal, and act as laxatives.
The carbonated or effervescing drinks belong to this class. They owe their sparkling briskness to carbonic acid gas confined in the liquid.
4. _Drinks containing Gelatine and Osmazome._
_Gelatine_ is that part of animal and vegetable matter that forms jelly.
_Osmazome_ is that principle in meats which impart their flavor.
Beef Tea, Mutton, Veal, and Chicken Broths are the principal drinks of this description, and usually are prepared for invalids.
_Animal milk_ is the principal drink of this class, and as this is the aliment of a large portion of young children, the necessity of guarding against abuses connected with the supplies furnished should be generally known.
A great portion of the milk furnished in New York and other large cities, is obtained from cows _fed on distillery slops_, and crowded in filthy pens, without regard to ventilation or cleanliness. Thus deprived of pure air and exercise, and fed with unhealthy food, their milk becomes diseased, and is the cause of extensive mortality among young children. Many cows, also, are fed on decayed vegetables, and the sour and putrid offals of kitchens, and these, also, become thus diseased.
A work on this subject, by R. M. Hartly, Esq., of New York, has been published, which contains these facts. Of five hundred dairies near New York and Brooklyn, all, except five or six, feed their cows on distillery slops. And the reason is, that it yields more milk at a cheaper rate than any other food. But it soon destroys the health of the animals, and after most of their fluids are, by this process, changed to unhealthy milk, and the cows become diseased, they are sent to a cattle market and a new supply obtained.