With respect to food and drink, the division into cold and hot is never overlooked.
A “traguito,” or little dram of Italia, a colourless brandy made on the coast, the old men consider as fresco, or cooling, when taken immediately after dinner; and when they take the “traguito,” which they do not every day, it will probably facilitate the digestion of the greasy food which they are commonly accustomed to eat, and in this manner deserve the name of a fresco. But, again, though at their entertainments they allow wine to be a safe and good drink after the “helados,” or ices, which they like exceedingly, still they use wine sparingly on other occasions, as they consider it too heating for general use. There are fruits after which the natives do not think it safe to drink either wine or spirits; of this sort is the short plantain, called “platano de guinea,” after which a mouthful of spirits would be considered quite poisonous. Foreigners do not seem to attend to this strict rule observed by the natives; nor is the violation of it, as far as we know, attended with any serious consequence to them.
Various kinds of fruit and vegetable juices, which are considered cool in their qualities, are not rarely most heating in their effects, according to the condition of the system when taken. The melon is in reputation for its cooling nature; but, though the impression made by it on our alimentary organs is at first very refreshing, the muleteer who journeys from the Cordillera to the coast, and has but once in his lifetime been attacked with a gastric tertian, in consequence of cooling his parched fauces by eating of the melon, can give a lively account of the internal heat, agitation, and oppression experienced by him on the occasion. There is no cooling fruit safer than the granadilla, which is most grateful and refreshing to the feverish patient, or thirsty traveller in the scorched and rock-bound ravines and narrow valleys of the interior, where this fruit is often abundant, as it is also on the coast in its proper season.
Fowls are reckoned to be infinitely cooler in their temperament than sheep or oxen, and their flesh is also considered as very safe and cooling; hence the almost universal use of the former, and prohibition or disuse of the latter, in the dietary of a delicate invalid. This distinction will appear still more strongly marked, when it is observed, that to prescribe beef-tea in any acute disease would be deemed an act of rashness and ignorance; but chicken-tea is held to be the most cooling of diluents, and very eligible in the most inflammatory diseases and in the warmest weather.
This chicken-tea, called “agua de pollo,” is commonly prepared in the proportions of three cupsfull of water to one half of a little unfledged chicken, with the addition of a mallow leaf or two, and the core of a lettuce, (cogollo de lechuga,) by which latter in particular its cooling properties are said to be exalted. After the ingredients are boiled together for a proper length of time, the clear decoction is poured off for use. The great efficacy of this drink is accredited by the undisputed consent of doctors of all colours, and matrons as well as nurses of all sorts and temperaments.
It is needless to remark that, in general, plain water or toast-water, or a ptisan of barley decocted with some of the subacid fruits of the country, would answer very agreeably the purpose of the agua de pollo; but when the latter is preferred, it should be remembered that in warm weather it decomposes rapidly, and then acquires irritating properties. As a purgative, in gastric disorders, the old physicians in Lima extol almond oil, which is often of inferior quality; and they take some pains to arm the minds of the credulous against the use of the best castor-oil of European preparation, by telling them that it is extracted from the seeds of the “higuerilla,” or castor-oil shrub, everywhere indigenous in the warm valleys of the interior; and these seeds are generally known to be excessively drastic when taken as the peasants use them, in the dose of two or three bruised, and then swallowed in substance. Now from the seeds the native apothecaries prepare an impure oil, which is sold in the shops under the name of “oil of higuerilla;” and as it is only used for burning in lamps, when the vulgar learn that castor-oil is but another name for the same, they naturally consider it as essentially hot, and most heating and improper for internal use. The vulgar should be advised by every ingenuous and intelligent member of the profession, that the fault is not in the remedy, but in the way of preparing it: and this remark may be extended to the delicate preparations from the mineral kingdom, which acquire a bad name when badly prepared, as is necessarily the case in Lima, where chemistry is so little cultivated or practised as a science.
VII. Los acidos son malos para el pecho.—No class of remedies is in more general use in Lima than vegetable acids in the bilious disorders of daily occurrence; but in affections of the chest, whether simply catarrhal, or of the more serious forms of pneumonia or phthisis, it is a generally received and settled opinion that acids of all sorts are injurious, which they make known by such expressions as these: “Los acidos son malos para el pecho,”—acids are bad for the breast; “Los acidos cierran el pecho,”—acids shut up the breast.
This opinion seems to have partly originated from a notion, once entertained by the doctors, that acids coagulate the animal fluids, and so produce obstructions and disease. It is made evident to our senses, that milk secreted from the blood is readily coagulated by acids; and thus they seem to conceive that something of the same process takes place in the circulating fluids of the body when acids are taken into the system.
Not only the vulgar, but some of the professional characters, appear to be impressed with the notion that the blood is thickened or curdled by acids, whether mineral or vegetable; and that the delicate circulation of the lungs is consequently impeded, and the respiratory pores clogged. This opinion appears to be expressed in the very common remark, “El enfermo tomo fresco de lemon, y con el acido se le ha tupido el pecho,” which means that the patient drank cold lemonade, and with the acid the breast was stopped up.
We are well persuaded that there are instances, especially among delicate females, where the respiratory organs are so susceptible of impressions, that the immediate refrigerating effects of cool acidulated drinks on the stomach of such persons extend rapidly, by sympathy, from the stomach to the surface of the body and lungs; and there produce a certain degree of constriction on the exhaling vessels, which disturbs their healthy action.
It is only in this manner we can account for the fact, as frequently stated to us by patients, that, as certainly as they did take anything cool and acidulated, they were speedily affected with a tightness about the chest, and felt as if they had actually caught cold. On such occasions their usual observation was, “El acido me ha cerrado el pecho,”—the acid has locked or closely shut the breast.
A complicated ailment which is vulgarly conceived to be seated in the chest, is often met with in Lima during the sultry months of January, February, and March. It is attended with a short and dry cough, a foul tongue, and evening fever, or restlessness, that chases away sleep. The patient becomes low-spirited and anxious; and dreads an approaching attack of consumption, or spitting of blood.
In such disorders, the gastric and hepatic functions may be suspected of some irregularity; and, when in any case this is explained to the patient, the disease may be treated as one seated in the organs of digestion, and frescos or cooling acidulated drinks often do wonders. Not only diluted in cold water, but with the addition of ice, the various vegetable acids of the season are given with the best results. They break up the whole chain of morbid symptoms; and the patient, thus encouraged and refreshed, completes convalescence by cold sea-bathing, and a few weeks’ residence at the neat village of Mira-flores, a few miles from the capital.
Throughout the entire year, but more particularly during the warmer months, great use, and no small abuse, is made of all sorts of frescos, or cooling and acidulated drinks, with