ttle permanent good effect. She died about twelve
years after she left my "guardianship," an extreme sufferer, as she had
lived; and a sufferer from causes that a correct education and just
views of social life, and of health and disease, would, for the most
part, have prevented.

CHAPTER LXV.

POISONING WITH MAPLE SUGAR.

A particular friend of mine purchased one day, at a stand in the city,
two small cakes of maple sugar. It was early in the spring, and very
little of the article had as yet been manufactured. My friend, in his
eagerness, devoured them immediately. He observed, before eating them,
that they had a very dark appearance; but the taste was correct, as far
as he could judge, and he did not hesitate. He was one of those
individuals, moreover, who are not greatly given to self-denial in the
matter of appetite.

The next day he had as sore a mouth as I ever saw. The inflammation
extended not only to the back part of the mouth, but into the throat,
and probably quite into the stomach, and was attended with a most
distressing thirst, with loss of appetite, and occasional nausea. In
short, it unfitted him for business the whole day; indeed it was many
days before he recovered entirely.

My own conclusion, after a careful investigation of the facts, was, that
the sugar was cooled down in vessels of iron, which were, in some way,
more or less oxydated or rusted, and that a small quantity of free acid
having been, by some means unknown, developed in the sugar, it entered
into a chemical combination with the metallic oxyde, to form a species
of copperas--perhaps the genuine sulphate of iron itself.

No medicine was given, nor was any needed. It was sufficient to let the
system rest, till Nature, with the assistance of small quantities of
water,--such as she was constantly demanding,--could eject the intruding
foe. It required only a little patient waiting.

There is scarcely a doubt that the sufferer learned, from his
experiment, one important lesson; viz., to let alone every thing which,
by cooking, has been changed to a dark color. Beets are sometimes
blackened by cooking in iron vessels, as well as sugar; and so are
apples and apple-sauce, and sundry other fruits and vegetables.

The word apple-sauce reminds me of an incident that recently occurred in
my own family. A kind neighbor having sent us some apple-sauce, such of
the family as partook of it freely, suffered, soon afterward, in a way
that