     
BENEFITS OF
PINE-APPLE
Pine-apple juice is the specific for diphtheria. This seems
to have been first brought to the notice of Europeans by the
fact that negroes living round about the swamps of Louisiana
were observed to use it with great success.
A writer who records this says: “The patient should be
forced to swallow the juice. This fluid is of so pungent and
corrosive a nature that it cuts out the diphtheria mucous and
causes it to disappear.”
The above direction looks satisfactory enough on paper, and it
is eminently cheering to read of how the pine-apple juice
causes the diphtheria mucous to disappear, but anyone who knows
anything about diphtheria knows that to “force” a diphtheria
patient to swallow is more easily written about than
accomplished. Fortunately I have been able to obtain the
following explicit directions from an experienced nurse and
mother:
The pine-apple should be cut up and well pounded in a mortar.
The juice must then be pressed out and strained through
well-scalded muslin. The patient’s mouth must be washed out
with warm water. The juice may now be given with a silver
teaspoon. It is possible that the patient may be quite unable
to swallow any of it. If this be so, the juice will serve as a
mouth and throat wash. It will gradually dissolve the membrane,
and enable it to be scraped gently away with the spoon. The
juice should be given, and the throat scraped as far down as
the nurse can reach, as often as the patient can bear it. The
time will come, sooner or later, when the juice is swallowed.
No other food should be given. The nurse may have to work away
for some hours before any juice is swallowed, but my friend
assures me that if the scraping be done gently and skilfully,
even children will bear it patiently. Only a silver or bone
spoon should be used, and, needless to say, it must be well
scalded in boiling water in the intervals of using.
It is a remarkable fact that while pine-apple juice exercises
this remarkable corrosive power upon diseased mucous, its
effect upon the most delicate, healthy membrane is absolutely
harmless. I have seen sweet pine-apple juice given to
six-months-old babies as a supplement to the mother’s milk,
with excellent results.
Dr. Hillier, writing in the Herald of Health in 1897, says
“Sliced pine-apples, laid in pure honey for a day or two, when
used in moderation, will relieve the human being from chronic
impaction of the bowels, reestablish peristaltic motion, and
induce perfect digestion.”
“A slice of fresh pine-apple,” writes Dr. Fernie, “is about as
wise a thing as one can take by way of dessert after a
substantial meal.” This is because fresh pine-apple juice has
been found to act upon animal food in very much the same way
that the gastric juice acts within the stomach. But vegetarians
should eat fresh fruit at the beginning of meals rather than at
the end.
The pine-apple is useful in all ordinary cases of
sore-throat.
One pine-apple of average size should yield half a pint of
juice.
Tinned or cooked pine-apple is useless for curative
purposes.
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