File:Plain home talk about the human system-the habits of men and women-the cause and prevention of disease-our sexual relations and social natures (1896) (14577605830).jpg

Identifier: plainhometalkabo00foot (find matches)
Title: Plain home talk about the human system--the habits of men and women--the cause and prevention of disease--our sexual relations and social natures
Year: 1896 (1890s)
Authors: Foote. Edward B(liss), 1829-1906. (from old catalog)
Subjects: Medicine, Popular Marriage
Publisher: New York : Murray Hill publishing company (etc., etc.)
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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when all the nourishment has been sucked out of it, theroot will again pass on its way, and. the temporary fibres thrownout around, the bone will gradually disappear. Thus the inflexible relicof a decomposed carcassmay be transformed into abeautiful flower! Whathuman chemist can do this?And yet it is trifling, com-pared with what nature isdaily producing in herboundless laboratory. Theroots of herbage and treeshave the same power toextract the useful proper-ties of minerals, and, in ameasure, derive their nour-ishment from the variousingredients of the soil. Anintelligent writer tells us,that one of the most re-markable properties ofplants is the power withwhich they are endowedof selecting their food.The soil contains variouskinds of aliment for vege-tation, and the little fibrousroots that fill the ground select from the whole, and suck in throughtheir minute openings just the kind suited to the nature of the plantor tree to which they belong. All plants will not thrive on the same
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SPECIMEN OF WHAT CHEMIST NATURE PRODUCESIN HER LABORATORY. VEGETABLE MEDICINES. 275 soil any more than all animals will live on the same kind of food.Grass and grain require a soil that contains an abundance of silicaor flint. The soil of Herefordshire, England, is so genial to theoak, that the trees bearing this name are called, in that region, Theweeds of Herefordshire. It is this power of selecting nutriment which renders plants so va-rious in their medicinal properties. When we reflect that the earthis covered with an endless variety of vegetable products, no two ofwhich possess precisely the same properties, how absurd appears theconduct of those who wander from the vegetable to the mineralworld, in search of remedial agents. Even that greatly prized min-eral, iron, which enters so extensively into the materia medica ofmodern practitioners, is possessed by vegetables, and may be admin-istered without resorting directly to the mineral kingdom for a sup-ply. A writer remarking upon

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