The cause was easily understood, Mr. S—­had been eating a long time, and his teeth were unable to sustain the labor imposed on them.  He had lost many of those precious members, and those he had left did not always meet together.

A truffle had thus escaped mastication, and almost whole had been swallowed.  Digestion had carried it to the pylorus where it was momentarily detained, and this mechanical detention had caused all his trouble, as expulsion had cured it.

Thus there was no indigestion, but merely the interposition of a foreign body.

This was decided on by the consulting body, which saw the corpus delicti, and which selected me as its reporter.

Mr. S—­ did not on this account remain a whit less fond of truffles.  He always attacked them with the same audacity, but was very careful to swallow them with more prudence.  He used to thank God that this sanitary precaution had prolonged his life and his enjoyments.

Section VIII.  Sugar.

In the present state of science we understand by sugar a substance mild to the taste, crystalizable, and which by fermentation resolves itself into carbonic acid and alcohol.

By sugar once was understood only the crystalized juice of the cane, (arundo saccharifera.)

A few pages of old authors would induce us to think the ancients had observed in certain arundines a sweet and extractible portion.  Lucanus says: 

“Qui bibunt tenera dulces ab arundine succos.”

Between water sweetened by the juice of the cane, and the sugar we have, there is a great difference.  Art in Rome was not far enough advanced to accomplish it.

Sugar really originated in the colonies of the New World.  The cane was imported thither two centuries ago and prospered, and effort was made to utilize the juice which flowed from it, and by gradual experiments they accomplished the manufacture of all the variety of its productions we know of.

The culture of the sugar cane has become an object of the greatest importance; it is a great source of wealth both to the cultivators and the vendors, and also to the taxes of governments who levy an import on it.

Indigenous sugar.

It has long been thought that tropical heat was not needed to form sugar.  About 1740 Morgroff discovered that many plants of the temperate zones, and among others the beet contained it.

Towards the beginning of the nineteenth century, circumstances having made sugar scarce, and consequently dear, the government made it an object for savants to look for it.

The idea was successful, and it was ascertained that sugar was found in the whole vegetable kingdom; that it existed in the grape, chestnut, potato, and in the beet especially.

This last plant became an object of the greatest culture, and many experiments proved that in this respect, the old world could do without the new.  France was covered with manufactories, which worked with different success, and the manufacture of sugar became naturalized; the art was a new one which may any day be recalled.