The study of the preparation of various dishes and soups which shall be at the same time nutritious and appetising and yet not too stimulating and nitrogenous, becomes the duty of the housekeeper who has to cater for the victim of Bright's disease. These patients, particularly those suffering from the contracted-kidney form of disease, have feeble and capricious appetites, weak digestions, and often suffer from constant nausea. To prepare their food so that it shall be attractive, nutritious, and yet deficient in strong meats, will tax the art of the cook. Vegetable soups, which may be varied from day to day, according to the vegetables in season, will be found to be most useful articles of diet in cases of chronic Bright's disease. I quote the following method of the preparation of these soups from Sir Henry Thompson's valuable and suggestive treatise on Food and Feeding.

The following is a good recipe for a clear, purely vegetable stock: "Slice two carrots, two turnips, a head of celery, and two onions; put into a frying-pan with a few sweet herbs and half a pound of butter. Fry until well browned, then put them with three or four cloves, some salt and black pepper, into six pints of cold water in a saucepan; bring to the boil, and gently simmer for two or three hours, reducing to four pints, not less; strain off into a vessel, letting it stand for use. When required, pour off the clear liquor, leaving the deposit, and you will have a good vegetable stock. If it is to be used as a clear vegetable soup, heat, adding at the close two tablespoonfuls of cornflour previously mixed smooth in some of the liquor, and let the whole boil; if any scum arise, remove it. The cornflour gives to the decoction an agreeable body.

"To convert this into a meat consomme', add after boiling, and just before serving, two full teaspoonfuls of the Liebig Company's Extract of Meat.

"Another mode of giving body when a soup maigre is not required is to make a decoction of beef bones without meat, which have been thoroughly broken and allowed to simmer gently at least six hours, then cooled and the fat removed. The result, which is a strong jelly, can be warmed, strained clear through flannel, and used instead of water with which to make the vegetable soup as above directed; it adds substance and quality, and the animal matter takes the place of the cornflour employed for the preceding soupe maigre.

"Thickened vegetable soups may be made with these stocks, or with a weak meat stock, by rubbing in smooth, well-made purees of almost any vegetable matter. Those most commonly used are made from green peas, potato, carrot, turnip, artichoke, tomato, salsify, etc., or from dried vegetable products, as split peas, lentils, haricots, rice, arrowroot, semolina, etc."