(seq. 31)

22

Materia Alimentaria

Sugar

caused emaciation, and Dr Booerhave entertained a
similar opinion, but we have sufficient proof to discredit this
hypothesis. Dr Haller relates in the Phylosophical
Transactions, the case of his grandfather who for the last twenty
years of his life subsisted on sugar, he eat it on his bread
instead of butter, with meat and every article of diet
and died at the age of 98 of a Plethora. Mr Hunter was
so well persuaded of its nutritious qualities, that he
prescribed it constantly in emaciation, & convalescence
particularly after salivation. I have myself experienced the
good effects of sugar, in giving plumpness and vigour
to the system whenever I have had recourse to a vegitable
diet for gout. Sugar is likewise nutritious to other animals
than man, we are informed by Dr Rush that the
planters of the West Indies often fed their horses on
sugar, when there is a scarcity of grain and that a pound
of sugar will support them much longer then the same
quantity of any other article. Sugar is so highly
antiseptic, the antients [ancients] were not ignorant of this henc the
custom of of embalming their men with sugar and