Swedish beer is made at Stockholm. Spruce beer is much in use. This drink is said to have originated from a decoction of the tops of the spruce fir. In Norway and Denmark as well as in Sweden this liquor is made from boiling the leaves, rind and branches of pines. But the Spruce beer of Great Britain and Ireland - either white or brown, according as sugar or molasses is employed in the making - is an essence or fluid extract procured by boiling the shoots, tops, bark and cones of the Scotch fir (pinus sylvestris). Spruce beer is supposed to be of much medicinal value as an antiscorbutic. Samuel More-wood presents us with a gratifying reflection on this matter. While, he says, Spruce is beneficial to the health of man, it has not, by its "consequence depreciated his character, or lowered him in his moral dignity."

1 When cold, it is said to produce serki, a species of fatal colic.