An apple a day..

It is hardly possible to take up any newspaper or magazine now a days
without happening on advertisements of patent medicines whose chief
recommendation is that they "contain phosphorus." They are generally
very expensive, but the reader is assured that they are worth ten times
the price asked on account of their wonderful properties as nerve and
brain foods. The proprietors of these concoctions seemingly flourish
like green bay trees and spend many thousands of pounds per annum in
advertising. From which it may be deduced that sufferers from nervous
exhaustion and brain fag number millions. And surely only a sufferer
from brain fag would suffer himself to be led blindly into wasting his
money, and still further injuring his health, by buying and swallowing
drugs about whose properties and effects he knows absolutely nothing.
How much simpler, cheaper, and more enjoyable to eat apples!

The apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other
fruit or vegetable. For this reason it is an invaluable nerve and brain
food. Sufferers from nerve and brain exhaustion should eat at least two
apples _at the beginning of each meal_. At the same time they should
avoid tea and coffee, and supply their place with barley water or bran
tea flavoured with lemon juice, or even apple tea.

Apples are also invaluable to sufferers from the stone or calculus. It
has been observed that in cider countries where the natural unsweetened
cider is the common beverage, cases of stone are practically unknown.
Food-reformers do not deduce from this that the drinking of cider is to
be recommended, but that even better results may be obtained from eating
the fresh, ripe fruit.

Apples periodically appear upon the tables of carnivorous feeders in the
form of apple sauce. This accompanies bilious dishes like roast pork and
roast goose. The cook who set this fashion was evidently acquainted with
the action of the fruit upon the liver. All sufferers from sluggish
livers should eat apples.

Apples will afford much relief to sufferers from gout. The malic acid
contained in them neutralises the chalky matter which causes the gouty
patient's sufferings.

Apples, when eaten ripe and without the addition of sugar, diminish
acidity in the stomach. Certain vegetable salts are converted into
alkaline carbonates, and thus correct the acidity.

An old remedy for weak or inflamed eyes is an apple poultice. I am told
that in Lancashire they use rotten apples for this purpose, but
personally I should prefer them sound.

A good remedy for a sore or relaxed throat is to take a raw ripe apple
and scrape it to a fine pulp with a silver teaspoon. Eat this pulp by
the spoonful, very slowly, holding it against the back of the throat as
long as possible before swallowing.

A diet consisting chiefly of apples has been found an excellent cure for
inebriety. Health and strength may be fully maintained upon fine
wholemeal unleavened bread, pure dairy or nut butter, and apples.

Apple water or apple tea is an excellent drink for fever patients.

Apples possess tonic properties and provoke appetite for food. Hence the
old-fashioned custom of eating an apple before dinner.