Of all kinds of animal food, pork was almost universally esteemed by the ancients as the best. Hippocrates repeatedly speaks of it as being most wholesome and nutritious, and Galen says the same of it in the strongest language. He states that the athletæ, if for one day presented with the same bulk of any other article of food, immediately experienced a diminution of strength; and if the change of diet was persisted in for several successive days, that they fell off in flesh. He adds that he had been credibly informed by persons who had been compelled, under extraordinary circumstances, to taste human flesh, that pork bears a near resemblance to it. Celsus praises it for its lightness: “Inter domesticas vero quadrupedes, levissima suilla est.” Aëtius, Oribasius, and, in a word, all the Greek authorities subsequent to Galen, deliver exactly the same character of it as he. See, in particular, Simeon Seth. He says, that the flesh of swine a year old is the best, and that very young pigs are not to be eaten, as being too humid and excrementitious. He adds that the flesh of wild boars furnish the best food, being neither so excrementitious nor so viscid as that of tame swine. Martial declares his fondness for young pigs fed upon milk. The Arabian authors display (as might be expected) their religious prejudices against the flesh of swine. Avicenna merely remarks of it that the Christians, and those who imitate them, say that the flesh of the wild boar is the best of all. Averrhoes refers to the opinion of Avicenna. Rhases, who has treated of Dietetics in three distinct works, has nowhere, so far as we can discover, recommended pork as an article of food. Haly Abbas, however, speaks favorably of it; he, it would appear, being a Magian. Various receipts for dressing pork are given by Apicius. As a sauce for the flesh of the wild boar, he recommends a composition of honey, pickle, sodden wine, and raisin wine. The wild boar is mentioned as a favorite delicacy of the Roman epicures by Juvenal and other writers of that age. Cato, the Censor, gives very sensible directions for the preparation of ham. (De Re Rusticâ, 162.) It will be perceived that our author states that pork is imperspirable. Sanctorius confirms the truth of this statement. Both Cicero and Porphyry quote the saying of Chrysippus, that a soul or living principle was given to swine, as a sort of salt, to preserve their flesh from putrefaction for the use of man.