about chocolate is
that it acts according to the wishes of the one who takes it."

Chocolate appears to have been highly valued as a remedial agent by the
leading physicians of that day. Christoph Ludwig Hoffman wrote a
treatise entitled, "Potus Chocolate," in which he recommended it in many
diseases, and instanced the case of Cardinal Richelieu, who, he stated,
was cured of general atrophy by its use.

A French officer who served in the West Indies for a period of fifteen
years, during the early part of the last century, wrote, as the result
of his personal observations, a treatise on "The Natural History of
Chocolate, Being a distinct and Particular Account of the Cacao Tree,
its Growth and Culture, and the Preparation, Excellent Properties, and
Medicinal Virtues of its Fruit," which received the approbation of the
Regent of the Faculty of Medicine at Paris, and which was translated and
published in London, in 1730. After describing the different methods of
raising and curing the fruit and preparing it for food (which it is not
worth while to reproduce here, as the methods have essentially changed
since that time), he goes on to demonstrate, as the result of actual
experiment, that chocolate is a substance "very temperate, very
nourishing, and of easy digestion; very proper to repair the exhausted
spirits and decayed strength; and very suitable to preserve the health
and prolong the lives of old men....

"I could produce several instances," he says, "in favor of this
excellent nourishment; but I shall content myself with two only, equally
certain and decisive, in proof of its goodness. The first is an
experiment of chocolate's being taken for the only nourishment--made by
a surgeon's wife of Martinico. She had lost, by a very deplorable
accident, her lower jaw, which reduced her to such a condition that she
did not know how to subsist. She was not capable of taking anything
solid, and not rich enough to live upon jellies and nourishing broths.
In this strait she determined to take three dishes of chocolate,
prepared after the manner of the country, one in the morning, one at
noon, and one at night. There chocolate is nothing else but cocoa
kernels dissolved in hot water, with sugar, and seasoned with a bit of
cinnamon. This new way of life succeeded so well that she has lived a
long while since, more lively and robust than before this accident.

"I had the second relation from a gentleman of Martinico, and one of m