APPLES AS MEDICINE.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 473, 21 May 1890, Page 4

APPLES AS MEDICINE.

Chemically the apple is composed of ; vegetable fibre, albumen, sugar, gum, chlorophyll, malic acid, gallic acid, lime, and much water. Furthermore, the German analysts say that the apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus than any other fruit or vegetable. This phosphorus is admirably adapted for renewing the essential nervous matter, lethicin, of the brain and spinal cord. It is, perhaps, for the same reason, rudely understood,' that old "Scandinavian traditions represent the apple as the food of the gods, who, when they felt themselves to be growing feeble and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing then* powers of mind and body. Also, the acids of the apple are of signal use for men of sedentary habits, whose livers are sluggish in action—these acids serving to eliminate from the body noxious matters, which, if retained, would make the brain heavy and dull, or bring about jaundice or skin eruptions and other allied troubles. Some such experience must have led to our custom of taking apple sauce with roast pork, rich goose, and like dishes. The malic acid of ripe apples, either raw or cooked, will neutralise any excess of chalky matter engendered by eating too much meat. It is also the -fact. that such fresh fruits as the apple, the pear, and the plum, when taken ripe and without sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach rather than provoke’ it. Their vegetable salts and juices are converted into alkaline carbonates, which tend to counteract 1 acidity. A good ripe raw apple is one of the easiest of vegetable substances for the stomach to deal with, the .whole process of its. digestion being completed in 85 minutes.