Physiology, animal and mental : applied to the preservation and restoration of health of body, and power of mind / by O.S. Fowler.

  • Fowler, O. S. (Orson Squire), 1809-1887.
Date:
1849
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Physiology, animal and mental : applied to the preservation and restoration of health of body, and power of mind / by O.S. Fowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    PASTRY, EGGS, AND SPICES. 10o exceedingly difficult of digestion. Flour sweetened is not so bad ; but when shortened as well as sweetened, the stumach dissolves it with extreme difficulty. Melted butter is extremely hard of digestion, and hence the unsuitableness of cake for children. Spices still further aggravate the evil. Bakers' cake is still more injurious. Great quantities of ammonia—a poison of which hartshorn is made—are put in to render it light; and to all this is added colored coatings, composed of poisonous ingredients. Domestic cake is bad enough, but bakers' is utterly unfit even for the adult stomach, much more for the juvenile. If any doubt remain of the unwholesomeness even of do- mestic cake, the following recipes must effectually obviate it: Pound Cake.—A pound each of butter, sugar, and flour, and ten eggs. As ten eggs weigh a pound, of course half the cake is butter and eggs, and only one-quarter flour, and that completely saturated with sweet, grease, and eggs, baked an hour. Now we know that eggs cook abundantly in five minutes, and become extremely tough and hard in ten ; and since hard-cooked eggs are universally conceded to be diffi- cult of digestion, what must they be after being baked an hour, and in fat and flour ? Sponge cake consists of only one-fifth flour, two-fifths eggs, baked to a crisp, and the balance sugar. Shrewsbury cake contains one-third flour, above one-third butter and eggs, and the balance brandy, sugar, and nutmeg—a most deleterious compound. Jumbles are composed of about one-third flour, one- quarter sugar, and above one-third of eggs, milk, and butter. Soft cakes contain nearly half melted butter. Butter and eggs make up above half of a cake called wonders; and wondrous unhealthy it must be. Above half of even plain gingerbread consists of cream, butter, molasses, and ginger. Of composition cake, only one-fourth is flour, and nearly three- fourths eggs, butter, cream, and brandy ; a full quarter being melted cream and butter. In view of the four facts, first, that melted butter, and of course fat and cream arc among the most indigestible things eaten ; secondly, that about half of most of our cakes are composed of these articles; thirdly, that