should see in the several prisons of that large city: but to
his surprize, after visiting them all, and finding them full of
malefactors (for the late Empress then suffered none of those who were
convicted of capital crimes to be put to death) yet he could discover no
fever among them, nor learn that any acute distemper peculiar to jails
had ever been known there. He observed, that some of those places of
confinement had a yard, into which the prisoners were allowed to come for
the air; but that there were others without that advantage, yet not
sickly: so that he could assign no other reason for the healthful
condition of those men than the kind of diet they used, which was the
same with that of the common people of the country; who not being able to
purchase fresh-meat, live mostly on rye-bread (the most acescent of any)
and drink _quas_. He concluded with saying, that upon his return to St.
Petersburg he had made the same inquiry there, and with the same result.

[* That treatise was first published by itself, and afterwards
incorporated with the _Observations on the Diseases of the Army_.]

Thus far Dr. Mounsey, from whose account it would seem, that the rye-meal
assisted both in quickening the fermentation and adding more _fixed air_,
since the malt alone could not so readily produce so tart and brisk a
liquor. And there is little doubt but that whenever the other grains can
be brought to a proper degree of fermentation, they will more or less in
the same way become useful. That oats will, I am satisfied from what I
have been told by one of the intelligent friends of Captain Cook. This
gentleman being on a cruize in a large ship*, in the beginning of the
late war, and the scurvy breaking out among his crew, he bethought him
self of a kind of food he had seen used in some parts of the country, as
the most proper on the occasion. Some oatmeal is put into a wooden
vessel, hot water is poured upon it, and the infusion continues until the
liquor begins to taste sourish, that is, till a fermentation comes on,
which in a place moderately warm, may be in the space of two days. The
water is then poured off from the grounds, and boiled down to the
consistence of a jelly**. This he ordered to be made and dealt out in
messes, being first sweetened with sugar, and seasoned with some prize
French wine, which though turned sour, yet improved the taste, and made
this aliment not less palatable than medicinal.

He assured me, that