I must here add a few words in advocacy of the further adoption in this country of the French practice of using as _potage_ the water in which vegetables generally (excepting potatoes) have been boiled. When we boil cabbages, turnips, carrots, &c., we dissolve out of them a very large proportion of their saline constituents; salts which are absolutely necessary for the maintenance of health; salts without which we become victims of gout, rheumatism, lumbago, neuralgia, gravel, and all the ills that human flesh with a lithic acid diathesis is heir to; _i.e._ about the most painful series of all its inheritances. The potash of these salts existing therein in combination with organic acids is separated from these acids by organic combustion, and is then and there presented to the baneful lithic acid of the blood and tissues, the stony torture-particles of which it converts into soluble lithate of potash, and thus enables them to be carried out of the system. I know not which of the Fathers of the Church invented fast-day and _soupe maigre_, but could almost suppose that he was a scientific monk, a profound alchemist, like Basil Valentine, who, in his seekings for the _aurum potabile_, the elixir of life, had learned the beneficent action of organic potash salts on the blood, and therefore used the authority of the Church to enforce their frequent use among the faithful. The above remarks when published in ‘Knowledge’ invoked much correspondence, including many inquiries for further information concerning the salts that should be contained in our food, and in what other form they might be obtained. I therefore add the following, especially as I can speak from practical experience of the miseries that may be escaped by understanding and applying it. I inherit what is called a ‘lithic acid diathesis.’ My father and his brothers were martyrs to rheumatic gout, and died early in consequence. I had a premonitory attack of gout at the age of twenty-five, and other warning symptoms at other times, but have kept the enemy at bay during forty years by simply understanding that this lithic acid (stony acid) combines with potash, forming thus a soluble salt, which is safely excreted. Otherwise it is deposited here or there, producing gout, rheumatism, stone, gravel, and other dreadfully painful diseases, which are practically incurable when the deposit is fairly established. By effecting the above-named combination in the blood the deposition is _prevented_. The potash required for the purpose exists in several conditions. First, in its uncombined state as caustic potash. This is poison, for the simple reason that it combines so vigorously with organic matter that it would decompose the digestive organs themselves if presented to them. The lower carbonate is less caustic, the bicarbonate nearly, but not quite, neutral. Even this, however, should not be taken as _food_, because it is capable of combining with the acid constituents of the gastric juice.