from making any great progress, for a considerable time_; and therefore he doth not hesitate to pronounce it _one of the best antiscorbutic medicines yet found out***. [* Append. to my _Observations on the Diseases of the Army_.] [** Macbride's Exper. Eff. passim.] [*** Having been favoured with a sight of the medical journal of Mr. Patten, surgeon to the Resolution, I read the following passage in it, not a little strengthening the above testimony. _I have found the wort of the utmost service in all scorbutic cases during the voyage. As many took it by way of prevention, few cases occurred where it had a fair trial; but theft, however, I flatter myself, will he sufficient to convince every impartial person, that it is the best remedy hitherto found out for the cure of the sea scurvy: and I am well convinced, from what I have seen the wort perform, and from its mode of operation, that if aided by portable-soup, sour krout, sugar, sago, and courants, then scurvy, that maritime pestilence, will seldom or never make its alarming appearance among a ship's crew, on the longest voyages; proper care with regard to cleanliness and provisions being observed_.] This salutary gas (or _fixed air_) is contained more or less in all fermentable liquors, and begins to oppose putrefaction as soon as the working or intestine motion commences. In wine it abounds, and perhaps no vegetable substance is more replete with it than the juice of the grape. If we join the grateful taste of wine, we must rank it the first in the list of antiscorbutic liquors. Cyder is likewise good, with other vinous productions from fruit, as also the various kinds of beer. It hath been a constant observation, that in long cruizes or distant voyages, the scurvy is never seen whilst the small-beer holds out, at a full allowance; but that when it is all expended, that ailment soon appears. It were therefore to be wished, that this most wholesome beverage could be renewed at sea; but our ships afford not sufficient convenience. The Russians however make a shift to prepare on board, as well as at land, a liquor of a middle quality between wort and small-beer, in the following manner. They take ground-malt and rye-meal in a certain proportion, which they knead into small loaves, and bake in the oven. These they occasionally infuse in a proper quantity of warm water, which begins so soon to ferment, that in the space of twenty-four hours their brewage is completed, in the production of a small, brisk, and acidulous liquor, they call _quas_, palatable to themselves, and not disagreeable to the taste of strangers. The late Dr. Mounsey, fellow of this Society, who had lived long in Russia, and had been _Archiater_ under two successive sovereigns, acquainted me, that the _quas_ was the common and wholesome drink both of the fleets and armies of that empire, and that it was particularly good against the scurvy. He added, that happening to be at Moscow when he