myself, will he sufficient to convince
every impartial person, that it is the best remedy hitherto found out for
the cure of the sea scurvy: and I am well convinced, from what I have
seen the wort perform, and from its mode of operation, that if aided by
portable-soup, sour krout, sugar, sago, and courants, then scurvy, that
maritime pestilence, will seldom or never make its alarming appearance
among a ship's crew, on the longest voyages; proper care with regard to
cleanliness and provisions being observed_.]

This salutary gas (or _fixed air_) is contained more or less in all
fermentable liquors, and begins to oppose putrefaction as soon as the
working or intestine motion commences.

In wine it abounds, and perhaps no vegetable substance is more replete
with it than the juice of the grape. If we join the grateful taste of
wine, we must rank it the first in the list of antiscorbutic liquors.
Cyder is likewise good, with other vinous productions from fruit, as also
the various kinds of beer. It hath been a constant observation, that in
long cruizes or distant voyages, the scurvy is never seen whilst the
small-beer holds out, at a full allowance; but that when it is all
expended, that ailment soon appears. It were therefore to be wished, that
this most wholesome beverage could be renewed at sea; but our ships
afford not sufficient convenience. The Russians however make a shift to
prepare on board, as well as at land, a liquor of a middle quality
between wort and small-beer, in the following manner. They take
ground-malt and rye-meal in a certain proportion, which they knead into
small loaves, and bake in the oven. These they occasionally infuse in a
proper quantity of warm water, which begins so soon to ferment, that in
the space of twenty-four hours their brewage is completed, in the
production of a small, brisk, and acidulous liquor, they call _quas_,
palatable to themselves, and not disagreeable to the taste of strangers.
The late Dr. Mounsey, fellow of this Society, who had lived long in
Russia, and had been _Archiater_ under two successive sovereigns,
acquainted me, that the _quas_ was the common and wholesome drink both of
the fleets and armies of that empire, and that it was particularly good
against the scurvy. He added, that happening to be at Moscow when he
perused my _Observations on the Jail and Hospital Fever_, then lately
published*, he had been induced to compare what he read in that treatise
with what he