With the addition of some fat this grain is capable
of supporting life for an indefinite period. Physicians formerly
recommended highly a diet-drink made from Oats, about which
Hoffman wrote a treatise at the end of the seventeenth century; and
Johannis de St. Catherine, who introduced the drink, lived by its use
to a hundred years free from any disease. Nevertheless the Oat did
not enjoy a good reputation among the old Romans; and Pliny said
"Primum omnis frumenti vitium avena est."

American doctors have taken of late to extol the Oat (_Avena
sativa_) when made into a strong medicinal tincture with spirit of
wine, as a remarkable nervine stimulant and restorative: this being
"especially valuable in [398] all cases where there is a deficiency of
nervous power, for instance, among over-worked lawyers, public
speakers, and writers."

The tincture is ordered to be given in a dose of from ten to twenty
drops, once or twice during the day, in hot water to act speedily; and
a somewhat increased dose in cold water at bedtime so as to produce
its beneficial effects more slowly then. It proves an admirable
remedy for sleeplessness from nervous exhaustion, and as prepared
in New York may be procured from any good druggist in England.
Oatmeal contains two per cent. of protein compounds, the largest
portion of which is avenin. A yeast poultice made by stirring
Oatmeal into the grounds of strong beer is a capital cleansing and
healing application to languid sloughing sores.

Oatmeal supplies very little saccharine matter ready formed. It
cannot be made into light bread, and is therefore prepared when
baked in cakes; or, its more popular form for eating is that of
porridge, where the ground meal becomes thoroughly soft by
boiling, and is improved in taste by the addition of milk and salt.
"The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia's food," said Burns, with
fervid eloquence. Scotch people actually revel in their parritch and
bannocks. "We defy your wheaten bread," says one of their
favourite writers, "your home-made bread, your bakers' bread, your
baps, rolls, scones, muffins, crumpets, and cookies, your bath buns,
and your sally luns, your tea cakes, and slim cakes, your saffron
cakes, and girdle cakes, your shortbread, and singing hinnies: we
swear by the Oat cake, and the parritch, the bannock, and the brose."
Scotch beef brose is made by boiling Oatmeal in meat liquor, and
kail brose by cooking Oatmeal in cabbage-water. [399] Cr