Colonial North America: Countway Library of Medicine

24

Materia Alimentaria

Sugar

honey &c to prevent putrefaction. The antiscorbutic properties of sugar have been fully proved by Beecher he immersed whole pigs in melted sugar and found they were preserved from putrefaction. It is said to prevent and cure scurvy, it is certain that scurvy is infrequent in the West Indies or other places where sugar is used in great abundance. Dr McBride was in the habit of recommending Wert in this disease, but probably without knowing that it cured by the sugar it contained, it was used with success by Dr Trotter, the external use of sugar I have found efficatious in the cure of the Scorbutic gums, the following case seems very much to invalidate the opinion, that a vegitable diet and one merely sacharine will cure scurvy. Dr Stark took Eight ℥ [ounces] of sugar with forty ℥ [ounces] of Bread and continued this diet for two weeks, at the end of which time his mouth became sore and ulcerated, his gums flaccid and after sometime purple spots appeared upon his shoulders he then left it off, and returned to a generous diet and wine, during the time he lived on sugar he had three or four loose stools a day, this case clearly proves that