ushed
Oatmeal, from which the husk has been removed, is known as
"groats," and is employed for making gruel. At the latter end of the
seventeenth century this was a drink asked-for eagerly by the public
at London taverns. "Grantham gruel," says quaint old Fuller, in his
_History of the Worthies of England_, "consists of nine grits and a
gallon of water." When "thus made, it is wash rather, which one will
have little heart to eat, and yet as little heart by eating." But the
better gruel concocted elsewhere was "a wholesome Spoon meat,
though homely; physic for the sick, and food for persons in health;
grits the form thereof: and giving the being thereunto." In the border
forays of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries all the provision
carried by the Scotch was simply a bag of Oatmeal. But as a food it
is apt to undergo some fermentation in the stomach, and to provoke
sour eructations. Furthermore, it is somewhat laxative, because
containing a certain proportion of bran which mechanically
stimulates the intestinal membranes: and this insoluble bran is rather
apt to accumulate. Oatmeal gruel may be made by boiling from one
to two ounces of the meal with three pints of water down to two
pints, then straining the decoction, and pouring off the supernatant
liquid when cool. Its flavour may be improved by adding raisins
towards the end of boiling, or by means of sugar and nutmeg.
Because animals of speed use up, by the lungs, much heat-forming
material, Oats (which abound in carbonaceous constituents) are
specially suitable as food for the horse.

ONION (_see_ Garlic, _page 209_).

ORANGE.

Though not of native British growth, except by way of a luxury in
the gardens of the wealthy, yet the Orange [400] is of such common
use amongst all classes of our people as a dietetic fruit, when of the
sweet China sort, and for tonic medicinal purposes when of the
bitter Seville kind, that some consideration may be fairly accorded
to it as a Curative Simple in these pages.

The _Citrus aurantium_, or popular Orange, came originally from
India, and got its distinctive title of _Aurantium_, either (_ab aureo
colore corticis_) from the golden colour of its peel, or (_ab oppido
Achoeioe Arantium_) from Arantium, a town of Achaia. It now
comes to us chiefly from Portugal and Spain. This fruit is essentially
a product of cultivation extending over many years. It began in
Hindustan as a small bitter berry with seeds; then about the