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Apple - part one
The term "Apple" was applied by the ancients indiscriminately to
almost every kind of round fleshy fruit, such as the
thornapple, the pineapple, and the loveapple. Paris gave to Venus
a golden apple; Atalanta lost her classic race by staying to pick up
an apple; the fruit of the Hesperides, guarded by a sleepless
dragon, were golden apples; and through the same fruit befell
"man's first disobedience," bringing "death into the world and all
our woe" (concerning which the old Hebrew myth runs that the
apple of Eden, as the first fermentable fruit known to mankind,
was the beginner of intoxicating drinks, which led to the
knowledge of good and evil).
Nothing need be said here about the Apple as an esculent; we have
only to deal with this eminently English, and most serviceable
fruit in its curative and remedial aspects.
Chemically, the Apple is composed of vegetable fibre,
albumen, sugar, gum, chlorophyll, malic acid, gallic
acid, lime, and much water. Furthermore, German analysts
say that the Apple contains a larger percentage of phosphorus
than any other fruit or vegetable. This phosphorus is
specially adapted for renewing the essential nervous "lethicin" of
the brain and spinal cord.
Old Scandinavian traditions represent the Apple as the food
of the gods, who, when they felt themselves growing feeble
and infirm, resorted to this fruit for renewing their powers
of mind and body.
Also the acids of the Apple are of signal use for men of
sedentary habits, whose livers are sluggish of action;
they help to eliminate from the body noxious matters,
which, if retained, would make the brain heavy and dull, or
produce jaundice, or skin eruptions, or other allied troubles. Some
experience of this sort has led to the custom of our taking Apple
sauce with roast pork, roast goose, and similar rich dishes.
The malic acid of ripe Apples, raw or cooked, will neutralize the
chalky matter engendered in gouty subjects, particularly from
an excess of meat eating.
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 eighty-five minutes.
Furthermore, a certain aromatic principle is possessed by
the Apple, on which its peculiar flavour depends, this being a
fragrant essential oil--the valerianate of amyl--in a small but
appreciable quantity. It can be made artificially by the chemist,
and used for imparting the flavour of apples to sweetmeats and
confectionery.
Gerard found that "the pulp of roasted Apples, mixed in
a wine quart of faire water, and laboured together until it
comes to be as Apples and ale--which we call lambswool (Celtic,
'the day of Apple fruit')--never faileth in certain diseases of the
raines, which myself hath often proved, and gained thereby both
crownes and credit."
Also, "The paring of an Apple cut somewhat thick, and
the inside whereof is laid to hot, burning or running eyes
at night when the party goes to bed, and is tied or bound to
the same, doth help the trouble very speedily, and, contrary to
expectation, an excellent secret."
A poultice made of rotten Apples is commonly used in
Lincolnshire for the cure of weak, or rheumatic eyes.
Likewise in the _Hotel des Invalides_, at Paris, an
Apple poultice is employed for inflamed eyes, the apple being
roasted, and its pulp applied over the eyes without any intervening
substance.
To obviate constipation two or three Apples taken at
night, whether baked or raw, are admirably efficient. It was said
long ago: "They do easily and speedily pass through the belly,
therefore they do mollify the belly," and for this reason a modern
maxim teaches that:--
"To eat an Apple going to bed
Will make the doctor beg his bread."
There was concocted in Gerard's day an ointment with the
pulp of Apples, and swine's grease, and rosewater, which was
used to beautifie the face, and to take away the roughnesse of the
skin, and which was called in the shops "pomatum," from the
apples, "poma," whereof it was prepared.
As varieties of the Apple, mention is made in documents
of the twelfth century, of the pearmain, and the costard,
from the latter of which has come the word costardmonger,
as at first a dealer in this fruit, and now applied to our
costermonger.
Caracioli, an Italian writer, declared that the only
ripe fruit he met with in Britain was a _baked_ apple.
The juices of Apples are matured and lose their rawness by
keeping the fruit a certain time. These juices, together with those
of the pear, the peach, the plum, and other such fruits, if taken
without adding cane sugar, diminish acidity in the stomach rather
than provoke it: they become converted chemically into alkaline
carbonates, which correct sour fermentation.
It is said in Devonshire that apples shrump up if picked
when the moon is on the wane. From the bark of the stem
and root of the apple, pear and plum trees, a glucoside
is to be obtained in small crystals, which possesses the
peculiar property of producing artificial diabetes in
animals to whom it is given.
The juice of a sour Apple, if rubbed on warts first pared away to
the quick, will serve to cure them.
The wild "Scrab," or Crab Apple, armed with thorns, grows
in our fields and hedgerows, furnishing verjuice, which is
rich in tannin, and a most useful application for old sprains.
==================================
Source: Herbal Simples Approved for Modern Uses of Cure, by William Thomas Fernie
Philadelphia:
Boericke & Tafel.
1897
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