The fat of new milk, which rises to the surface after standing, is Cream. It contains proteid, and sugar (lactose), in fully as high proportion as milk itself. A good sample of Cream should afford 41 per cent of fat. Clotted Cream, or Devonshire Cream, is specially prepared by scalding the milk in deep pans, thus causing a rapid and very complete separation of the fat; this Cream possesses only about half as much sugar as ordinary Cream, therefore it is peculiarly suitable for diabetic patients. "Good Cream," says Dr. Hutchison, "contains as much fat as most cod-liver oil emulsions in a similar quantity (though, of course, by comparison it lacks the fish constituents, iodine, bromine, etc.)." Nowadays the old-fashioned way of allowing the Cream to rise to the top of new milk is in large dairies almost entirely superseded by a method for separating the milk by means of centrifugal machines. If Clotted Cream is taken too abundantly it proves aperient. By mixing it with an equal quantity of hot water (and perhaps adding to each teacupful a teaspoonful of brandy) it can be made more digestible for a consumptive, or weakly invalid. "Cream," aid Florence Nightingale (in Notes on Nursing), "is quite irreplaceable in many chronic diseases by any other article of food whatever.

It seems to act in the same manner as beef-tea, and is much more digestible with most persons than milk; in fact, it seldom disagrees." In the Art of Cookery (1708) we read nevertheless: -

"Or you can make whipt Cream; but what relief Will that be to a sailor who wants Beef?" 15

About Devon, and Cornwall, Clotted Cream is eaten with every practical form of sweet thing, from stewed fruit to Christmas pudding, treacle and Cream being an approved combination. This is colloquially known as "thunder and lightning;" and orthodox lovers, out for the day, order it with their tea, in Fuschia-covered cottages; then the correct and mystic practice is to smother a "split cake" a sort of small Sally Lunn) with some of the thick Cream, and to trace on its surface, in casual letters formed by the golden syrup trickling from a spoon, the beloved one's name, or its initial letters.