A Hundred Years Ago
THE " SPECTATOR," JULY 28TH, 1832.
A meeting was held at the Rainbow Tavern on Tuesday, at which Mr. C. Calvert presided, to consider upon the best means of dispelling the mistaken notion that fruit and vegetables have a tendency to produce cholera. A memorial on the subject was presented to the Board of Health on Wednesday : it stated an important fact, that none of the labourers of the gardeners, who live almost entirely on vegetables, had been seized with cholera. The Board has been graciously pleased, in answer to this memorial, to state that fruit and vegetables, taken in moderation, do not tend to produce cholera. Raw vegetables and unripe fruits, we believe, invariably tend to produce bowel complaints ; stone fruits also, at least the skins of them are exceedingly indigestible. But it required no fiat of the Cholera Board to let the public know that well-boiled vegetables and ripe fruits, eaten even freely, are, to use a phrase of the day, eminently conservative. Dr. Moore mentions a case of obstinate diarrhoea as completely cured by eating daily and plentifully of ripe strawberries.
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