The special value of the grape lies in the fact that it is a very quick
repairer of bodily waste, the grape sugar being taken immediately into
the circulation without previous digestion. For this reason is grape
juice the best possible food for fever patients, consumptives, and all
who are in a weak and debilitated condition. The grapes should be well
chewed, the juice and pulp swallowed, and the skin and stones rejected.
In countries where the grape cure is practised, consumptive patients are
fed on the sweeter varieties of grape, while those troubled with liver
complaints, acid gout, or other effects of over-feeding, take the less
sweet kinds.
Dr. Fernie deprecates the use of grapes for the ordinary gouty or
rheumatic patient, but with all due deference to that learned authority,
I do not believe the fruit exists that is not beneficial to the gouty
person. One of the most gouty and rheumatic people I know, a vegetarian
who certainly never over-feeds himself, derives great benefit from a few
days' almost exclusive diet of grapes.
Cream of tartar, a potash salt obtained from the crust formed upon
bottles and casks by grape juice when it is undergoing fermentation in
the process of becoming wine, is often used as a medicine. It has been
cited as an infallible specific in cases of smallpox, but I do not
recommend its use, as it probably gets contaminated with other
substances during the process of manufacture. In any case its value
cannot be compared with the fresh, ripe fruit. I have little doubt but
that an exclusive diet of grapes, combined with warmth, proper bathing,
and the absence of drugs, would suffice to cure the most malignant case
of smallpox.
Sufferers from malaria may use grapes with great benefit. For this
purpose the grapes, with the skins and stones, should be well pounded in
a mortar and allowed to stand for three hours. The juice should then be
strained off and taken. Or persons with good teeth may eat the grapes,
including the skins and stones, if they thoroughly macerate the latter.
In the absence of fresh grapes raisin-tea is a restoring and nourishing
drink. Dr. Fernie notes that it is of the same proteid value as milk, if
made in the proportions given below. It is much more easily digested
than milk, and therefore of great use in gastric complaints. Sufferers
from chronic gastritis could not do better than make raisin-tea their
sole drink, and bananas their only food for a time.
