Avena sativa.
Botanical name:
AVENA SATIVA, L. Common Oats. Seeds nutritive, demulcent, refrigerant, equal to Barley in fevers as a gruel. Oat cakes are eaten like Buckwheat cakes in Scotland. Oat meal is eaten in porridge like our mush; it cannot be made into bread for want of gluten. Porridge may be applied to phlegmons to make them suppurate. The thin gruel is useful in diarrhoea, dysentery, cough, hoarseness, ulceration of the throat. Sowins is a sour infusion of the husks, boiled to a jelly, rather fit for pigs than men. Oats is the chief food of horses in Northern climates, but Barley is far better.
