Of Kidney-Beans

Some give kidneys-beans the name of French beans, but improperly. When these are young, and boiled in the pods, they yield good nourishment, and are more easy of digestion than pease, agreeing well with most constitutions. Some fay they arc heating, and most suitable to the young and robust; but if we consult experience, we shall never find any complaints from the use of them; which is the greatest demonstration of their being wholesome. They are opening, emollient, promote urine, and are good in the gravel.

Of Lentils

Lentils are in no esteem for food among us, though in some countries they live upon them, where they can get nothing better. If they were sown in the fields, they would make a fodder for cattle.

Of Rice

Rice serves instead of bread in the greatest part of Africa and Asia, being the chief and almost only aliment in some countries; therefore we must, be obliged to desert the opinions of some physicians, who pretend to talk of its bad qualities. It is very temperate, yields wholesome nourishment, and is thought to be a little binding, but not so much as to produce any inconvenience. Perhaps the small degree of this quality, may be owing to its shea-thing sharp humours in the stomach and intestines. It is very proper nourishment for those that are brought low by loss of blood, as well as for con-sumptive and hectic patients, because there is nothing more efficacious to abate the acrimony of the blood.

Of Groats And Oatmeal

Oatmeals is groats coarsely ground; and groats are decorticated oats. These are good in coughs, sheath the acrimony of the blood, temperate heat and carry off hurtful salts by the urinary passages. Water-gruel has the same uses, and may be drank in catarrhs, hoarseness, coughs, roughness of the throat, and when there are small ulcers therein; as well as in all acute fevers, and other disorders that require a low diet.

Of Millet

Millet is a small feed brought from the eastern parts of the world, and is much esteemed by some for making of puddings. It is used as aliment, in some countries, boiled in milk. It is said to be emollient, cooling, and anodyne, to be useful in obstinate coughs, and disorders of the breast. It is not so good as rice.

Of Barley

Barley, in whatever manner prepared, never heats the body, but is cooling and cleansing. It is moistening when boiled, and drying when parched. Some people formerly made bread of barley, as they do at present in times of dearth. It is not so nourishing as wheat, is harder of digestion, and yields less aliment. Pearl barley made into a ptisan with water, has much the same virtues as water gruel, but is not quite so nourishing.

Of Bread

Bread is commonly made of wheat-flour reduced into dough with water and yeast, and baked in an oven. It is an aliment that no nation is without, except the Tartars, who neglect it entirely, and neither have bread, nor any thing to answer its use. I do no mean that other nations have this composition in the same manner with us, but that they use some vegetable which answers the same purpose. Thus the Indians and Chinese substitute rice, the Arabians near the Euphrates dates, and the Cir-cassfins a certain small feed which they call Gom. Bread is so necessary with us, that we know not how to live without it, because we eat it with almost every thing else.

We are told that in the early ages, men made bread of acorns, as they do at present of dates and chesnuts. in America they use a root called cassa vi, and in our plantations Indian corn. In the Molucca islands they make it of the pith of a tree, and call it sagoe. The Laplanders dry their fish for the same purpose, as do some of the inhabitants in the Gulph of Arabia. But we, in these parts of the world, prefer wheat bread to all others, as most agreeable to our constitutions. Some make their bread of rye, and some of wheat and rye mixt, which renders it more laxative, but it is not so nourishing. Barley bread, as was observed above, does not afford such plenty of aliment, nor is it so wholesome as wheat, and therefore it is not eaten where the other sort is to be had. In some parts of this island, they live upon oat-cakes instead of bread; but this food disturbs perfpiration,and makes them subject to diseafes of the skin. In Italy they make a paste with wheat-flour, water, sugar, saf fron, and the yolks of eggs, which are formed in threads like worms; and this they call vermicelly; this serve with us to make soups; it should be cho sen fresh, dry, and of a good colour.