pitcher, (a new clothes-pin will answer for a squeezer in lieu of something better;) pour on the required quantity of water, and sweeten according to taste. After mixing thoroughly, set the pitcher aside for half an hour, then strain the liquor through a jelly strainer, and put in the ice. Do not drink lemonade if your physician tells you there is an excess of acid in your system.

Lemon Sugar for Travelers.—Travelers who find it inconvenient to use lemons can carry a box of lemon sugar, prepared from citric acid and sugar, a little of which in a glass of water will furnish quite a refreshing drink, and one that will help oftentimes to avert sick-headache and biliousness. Citric acid is obtained from the juice of lemons and limes.*

Lemons for Excessive Thirst.-When persons are feverish and thirsty beyond what is natural, indicated in some cases by a metallic taste in the mouth, especially after drinking water, or by a whitish appearance of the greater part of the surface of the tongue, one of the best "coolers," internal or external, is to take a lemon, cut off the top, sprinkle over it some loaf sugar, working it downward into the lemon with the spoon, and then suck it slowly, squeezing the lemon, and adding more sugar as the acidity increases from being brought up from a lower point.

Lemons for Invalids.-Invalids with feverishness may take two or three lemons a day in this manner, with the most marked benefit, manifested by a sense of coolness, comfort, and invigoration.

Lemons at "Tea-time."-A lemon or two thus taken at "tea-time," as an entire substitute for the ordinary "supper" of summer, would give many a man a comfortable night's sleep and an awakening of rest and invigora tion, with an appetite for breakfast, to which they are strangers who will have their cup of tea or supper of "relish' or cake" and berries or peaches and cream. †

Organic Matter in Drinking Water. The presence of organic matter in waters has been considered one of the principal causes of any injurious

* While traveling recently, says Dr. A. N. Bell in the Sanitarian, our attention was inconveniently called one morning to empty water tanks. But there were others, children especially, who, on crawling out of the sleeping bunks, were in want of water more than we were to drink. It was long, however, before the cars halted, and the tanks were filled from a road-side stream. Of this the thirsty drank. We ventured to suggest to the porter that possibly this water was not wholesome. But the suggestion that "water as clear as that" was not clean, to him was absurd. The same suggestion to the conductor was equally incomprehensible. It is just such water that collects and holds in solution the poison of typhoid fever, which summer travelers so often take home with them.

+ The lemon thus eaten was the great physical solace of General Jackson in his last illness, which was consumption combined with dropsy. It loosened the cough, and relieved him of much of that annoying hacking and hemming which attends diseases of the throat and lungs, being many times more efficient, speedy, and safe than any lozenge or "trocho" ever swallowed.

qualities they may possess; to their presence being attributed the development of such diseases as diarrhoea, dysentery, intermittent fever, typhoid fever, etc. Of these ingredients, carbonate of lime is the most common, and of this there may be, without inconvenience, 10-100 to 20-100 of a gramme to the litre. An appreciable percentage of phosphate of lime renders the water unfit for domestic and industrial uses; and for general purposes there should not be a greater percentage than 2-100 to 5-100 of a gramrie to the litre. Small percentages of the chlorides generally affect water disadvantageously for drinking purposes. The maximum, however, should be 8-100 to 10-100 of a gramme to the litre.

Various Drinks.-If any thing is added to the summer drink it should contain some nutriment, so as to strengthen the body as well as to dilute the blood for the purpose of a more easy flow through the system; as any one knows that the thinner a fluid is the more easily does it flow. Some of the nutritious and safe drinks are given below, especially for those who work in the sun of summer, all to be taken at the natural temperature of the shadiest spot in the locality. To any of them ice may be added, but it is a luxurious, not a beneficial, ingredient nor a safe one.

1. Buttermilk.

2. A pint of molasses to a gallon of water.

3. A lemon to half a gallon of water and a teacupful of molasses, or as much sugar.

4. Vinegar, sugar, and water are substitutes, but the vinegar is not a natural acid, contains free alcohol, hence is not as safe or healthful.

5. A thin gruel made of corn or oats, drank warm, is strengthening. 6. A pint of grapes, currants, or garden-berries to half a gallon of water is agreeable.

Orangeade Medically Prescribed.-Dr. Walter Lewis, in describing the precautions against cholera adopted at the General Post-office, in London, Eng., says: "The men employed in sorting letters and newspapers suffer much from thirst, especially in the hot weather, and consequently drink much water while engaged in their duties. Although the post-office is supplied with excellent water, much diarrhoea was, nevertheless, the result of this practice. To remedy this, the officers, clerks, and men of all classes, have of late been supplied from the medical department with a most agreeable drink, which not only assuages the thirst, but has, moreover, strong antiseptic and anti-diarrhoea properties. It is called orangeade, and is thus composed: Take of dilute sulphuric acid, concentrated infusion of orange peel, each twelve drams; syrup of orange peel, five fluid ounces. This quantity is added to two imperial gallons of water. A large wine-glassful is taken for a draught, mixed with more or less water, according to taste. The

officers drink this with pleasure. It is being consumed in large quantities daily, and I am convinced it will be the means of warding off a great deal of sickness."

Ices and Ice-cream.-The growing use of ices, and the custom of taking ice-water or other very cold drinks or food, as ice-cream, etc., cannot but prove unfavorable to health, especially when one has low vital power, with insufficient power of the stomach to react and restore the degree of heat actually demanded that digestion may proceed naturally. Digestion is arrested as soon as the temperature of the stomach falls below about 90 degrees Fah., and when cold drinks are taken by the weak, at least some considerable time must elapse before it is restored; in some instances hours, attended by great waste of power, and a derangement of the stomach. Cold drinks also excite and inflame the throat, causing an artificial thirst, never satisfied by such drinks, to say nothing of the danger of contracting colds by this unnatural chilling of the stomach, often followed by bowel derangements, inflammation of the stomach, and by still worse ailments.

TEA AND COFFEE AND HEALTH.

How Tea is Grown.-The tea-plant is a native of China, and resembles the low whortleberry bush in many respects. The Chinese raise it very much as we raise corn-three to five plants in a hill, raised from the seed. The plants are not allowed to grow more than one and a half feet high. Only the medium-sized leaves are picked, the largest being left to favor the growth of the plant. The picking occurs (1) in April, of the young and tender leaves; (2) about the first of May, of the full-sized leaves; and (3) about the middle of July, the last making an inferior quality of tea.

Preparation of Tea for Market.-Tea leaves are first wilted in the sun, then trodden in baskets by barefooted men to break the stems, next rolled by the hands into a spiral shape, then left in a heap to heat again, and finally dried for the market. This constitutes black tea, the frequent exposure to the air and to heat giving it its dark color.

For green tea the leaves, instead of being first exposed to the air, are fired for a short time as soon as gathered, then rolled and quickly dried over a fire. The green tea of commerce is artificially colored with tumeric powder and a mixture of gypsum and Prussian blue, the latter in very minute proportions. Canton teas are usually scented by the infusion of the blossoms of certain aromatic plants.

In this country damaged teas and the "grounds" left at hotels are rerolled, highly colored, packed in old tea-chests, and sent out as new teas.

Certain varieties of black tea, even, receive a coating of black lead to

make them shiny.*

The Chinese always drink black tea, using no milk or sugar, and prepare it, not by steeping, but by pouring hot water on the tea, and allowing it to stand for a few moments.

The Tea Plant in Respect of Quality.-The tea plant will bear a wide range of climatic variation without serious deterioration. The richness of the soil and the mode of cultivation exercise a paramount influence on the quality of the tea. In this respect the tea-plant is like the tobaccoplant or the mulberry-tree.

The youngest leaves give the best tea; hence the high price of choice teas, for to produce any considerable weight of young leaves a great number of plants are required, while the same weight of old or full-grown leaves is produced by a comparatively small number of plants. The age of tea leaves may be ascertained by a chemical examination of the ash left on burning them. As the leaves grow they lose in potash and phosphoric acid, both absolutely and relatively, and gain in lime and silica. Examinations made at periods of fourteen days asunder exhibit these phenomena with sufficient distinctness. In the practical examination of teas there is a very valuable and simple rule: Much potash and phosphoric acid, together with little lime and silica, means good tea, and the reverse poor tea.†

Tea and Digestion.-Tea possesses an active principle called theine. It contains tannin, which, if the tea is strong, coagulates the albumen of the food-actually tans it—and thus delays digestion.

Tea-Drinking and Sick-Headache; An Illustration.—The importance of the question involved in this caption leads us to insert here-though in a re-arranged form-the history of a case, reported originally by R. B. Gregg, for the Homeopathic Quarterly Review, and later printed by permis

* A splendid specimen of tea, grown in the Himalayas, was chemically examined by Zöller, and the following results obtained. In 100 parts of the tea there were 4.95 parts of moisture, and 5.63 parts of ash. The ash contained in 100 parts, showed the following ingredients:

"Oolong "-A variety of black tea, possessing the flavor of green tea. "Hyson "-A fragrant species of green tea.

"Gunpowder"—A species of green tea, each leaf of which is rolled into a small ball or

jellet.

"Souchong"-A kind of black tea.

sion in a health magazine edited by one of the compilers of the present volume. The entire case is presented in the language of the writer-a competent witness.

The Doctrine Stated. The writer says: "From considerable observation I have come to view tea as a more prolific cause of that terrible suffering, so aptly described by the phrase sick-headache, than any other one thing, if it is not the cause of more cases of this disease than all else besides; and I will give examples which seem to confirm this view most positively.

A Home Case.-"The first of these, and one of the clearest and most positive in its evidence, occurred in my own family, and although it may be regarded by some as a violation of propriety in such matters to so definitely designate the patient, still the case seems of too much importance, too clear in its proof, to allow any alternative, or tolerate, in short, any doubt to arise as to its genuineness by withholding the name. Besides, it will readily be seen that a physician could hardly become so familiar with all the details of a case, and remain so for so long a time, outside of his own household.

Was the Case Hereditary?-"My wife was several years a victim to frequent and most terrible paroxysms of sick-headache. She commenced suffering from it in the twenty-fourth year of her age, soon after the birth of our first child. Her father, mother, and grandmother upon the mother's side, were also all great sufferers from the same-the grandmother till she died, the father and mother are so still. From this fact I attributed its appearance in my wife's case to a strong hereditary predisposition, developed into activity by the change her system had recently passed through, and so regarded it for four or five years. And believing, as I do, that inherited diseases ought to be cured so long as they remain functional, or before any real organic changes have taken place in them, I gave my attention to the means of cure, without regarding the cause beyond what has just been mentioned.

Failure of Remedies.-"In regard to curing, however, I was doomed to disappointment, for not the slightest curative action was established in her case. During the first three or four years medicines frequently mitigated the severity of the paroxysm, but these would recur just as often; in fact they increased in frequency from year to year, until they occurred commonly every week, and became so violent that nothing afforded any relief; and then she used to say that, in addition to the frequent paroxysmal attacks, she did not pass a minute at any time, when awake, without more or less pain in the head. Under this state of things other and more serious symptoms began also to manifest themselves, which appeared as though they must sooner or later lead to paralysis, if they were not arrested.