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 [28]
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