As to the question of the unripeness or over-ripeness of fruit, the following remarks by Dr. F.W. Pavy, an acknowledged authority on all that relates to food, and worth recording:--"Fruit forms an agreeable and refreshing kind of food, and, eaten in moderate quantity, exerts a favourable influence as an article of diet. It is chiefly of service for the carbo-hydrates, vegetable acids, and alkaline salts it contains. It enjoys, too, in a high degree, the power of counteracting the unhealthy state found to be induced by too close a restriction to dried and salted provisions. Whilst advantageous when consumed in moderate quantity, fruit, on the other hand, proves injurious if eaten in excess. Of a highly succulent nature, and containing free acids and principles liable to undergo change, it is apt, when ingested out of due proportion to other food, to act as a disturbing element, and excite derangement of the alimentary canal. This is particularly likely to occur if eaten either in the unripe or over-ripe state; in the former case, from the quantity of acid present; in the latter, from its strong tendency to ferment and decompose within the digestive tract. The prevalence of stomach and bowel disorders, noticeable during the height of the fruit season, affords proof of the inconveniences that the too free use of fruit may give rise to." The different forms of fruit, and also of vegetables, owe their great value to the fact that they possess powerful anti-scorbutic properties. It will be best and simplest to define the word "anti-scorbutic" as "good against the scurvy." This latter disease is notably dependent on a want of fresh fruit and vegetables in the dietary, and consequently is more often observed amongst sailors; and though accessory conditions, such as great privations, bad provisions, or unhealthy surroundings, may predispose to it, yet that which essentially produces it is the deficiency of the former articles from the food. At the present time it is not nearly so frequently seen, since, according to the mercantile marine regulations, subject to legislative enactments passed in 1867, in lieu of vegetables, one ounce of lime juice, sweetened with the same quantity of sugar, must be served out to each man daily.