Note 77 — FUNGUSES CONSIDERED AS AN ARTICLE OF DIET.

Heberden wisely left it to his patients, except in acute cases of disease or when they were gluttons, “to eat what pleased them, finding that many apparently unfit substances” (which funguses are not) “agreed with the stomach merely because they were suitable to its feelings.” Why quote Abernethy?—but that good sense, backed by personal experience in such matters, are always worth quoting—who says, “Nothing hurts me that I eat with appetite and delight;” or Withers, unless for a like reason, who is “of opinion that the instinct of the palate, not misguided by preconceived opinion, may be satisfied, not only with impunity, but even with advantage.” It is the rule by which the brute creation is taught to shun its poison and to choose its food: to a considerable extent, it should be ours also.